Vul. Rappaporta – the old Jewish cemetery

The first mention of the old Jewish cemetery in the town records dates back to 27 May 1414. A record in the town account book of 1480 also indicates that there was a Jewish cemetery in Lviv at that time. A plot for the cemetery was allotted to the Jews for use over a long period of time on the so-called obshary (the grounds surrounding the town and owned by it) which were granted to the town by the king Władysław Jagiełło’s privilege of 18 September 1415.

In the seventeenth century, after private plots were repeatedly bought, the cemetery territory reached the size circumscribed by contemporary Rappaporta, Kleparivska, Brovarna and Bazarna streets. Its boundaries coincide with the territory of the cemetery that can be seen in an old plan of the town of Lviv drawn by Jean du Desfilles in 1766. From that time and till the Second World War the boundaries remained almost invariable. An outline of the old cemetery synagogue known as Beth Almin Jaschan can also be seen in the cemetery territory in the 1766 plan. For many years the old cemetery was used by the both Jewish communities of Lviv, the suburban one, which was founded as early as before the Polish conquest of Galicia in 1349, and the town one, which was founded after the town was built in accordance with the Magdeburg Rights.

The cemetery was closed officially on 22 August 1855. According to archives, a lot of Jews were buried there in the same year because of a cholera epidemic. The closed cemetery began to fall into decay. In his work dedicated to the cemetery, Majer Bałaban describes its deplorable condition in the following way: “… time has done its work; the monuments which have not been restored are about to go to wreck and ruin. The paths are so narrow that it is almost impossible to make one’s way along them, and trees and bushes are closely interwoven with one another below creating a real thick, impenetrable forest…” In the eighteenth century, the dense crowns of trees in the Jewish cemetery created a large baldachino in summer. In the winter of 1914-1915 during the Russian occupation the several century-old trees were cut down to heat the houses.

In the 1920s dr. Lewi Freund, a Lviv rabbi, and Józef Awin, an architect, founded the so-called Curatory for the Jewish Monuments Care under the Jewish community of Lviv. The Jewish cemetery was again given the status of monument which it received from the Austrian authorities in the early twentieth century. In 1928 and 1931 a renovation was being carried out; in particular, the Beth Tahara preburial house, the Beth Almin Jaschan cemetery synagogue and many grave monuments were restored. After clearing and conservation of stones 532 grave monuments on concrete foundations were placed there.

Today the old Jewish cemetery does not exist anymore. By experts’ estimate, 25-30 thousand persons were buried in its territory, which occupies about 3 hectares, over a period of more than 500 years.

The cemetery was destroyed first by German occupants and then by the Soviet authorities. As a historic and cultural monument, the cemetery existed under the care of the Jewish community till 1942. During the German occupation, persons who died from infectious deseases were again illegally buried there. These remains were not cremated and the exact place of burial was not recorded; that is why the German occupation authorities not only suppressed functioning of the cemetery, but also started to systematically destroy it. In the Soviet times a grocery market named “Central” and known in Lviv as Krakivsky was arranged in the place of the cemetery in 1947; the market was transferred there from the place where it had been since the medieval times. The old gravestones were used for paving streets and constructing retaining walls. The yard of the prison on Lontskoho street (now Bandery street 1) was also paved with the gravestones from the old Jewish cemetery.