Searching for my Cousin's Grave

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Żabno Cemetery - some Matzevot standing, some disturbed, some missing.

On our trip we visited the Jewish Cemetery in Żabno. We were drawn there because our guide thought it possible that relatives of my grandmother were buried there. Specifically, he wondered, based on his genealogical research, whether Yitzhak Fenichel, her nephew (hence my cousin once removed), was there.

   Żabno is not far from Przeclaw (Feuer home) and Kolbuszowa (grandmother [Fenichel's] birthplace). Before the War there were 600 Jews there, about 50 percent of the town’s population. The Nazis had a labor camp nearby, and it’s possible Yitzhak may have been forced to work there before he was murdered back in Żabno.

   Yitzhak was murdered by the Nazis in Żabno in 1940, as was his wife,  and my grandmother's sister-in-law.  After murdering Żabno's Jews, the Nazis demolished all their property, the synagogue and shtieblach in the town, but not the cemetery or the mikveh (which only survived till the 1960s).

   Some of the matzevot in the cemetery had been destroyed, but others remained or been restored. (I have a short 29-second video of the cemetery using a drone. If you'd like to see that, let me know and I will send.) The cemetery was locked but our guide obtained the key from the caretaker across the street. It dates back to the late 17th century, with about 250 matzevot remaining. Some of the graves are of Holocaust victims, and there is also a mass grave of over 100 Jews shot there in 1942. Three tzadiks are buried there in an Ohel,  Izrael Elimelech Unger, and his son and grandson, Jakub Izaak and Szalom Dawid Unger. We did not find Yitzhak Fenichel’s grave.

   Here is a video on YouTube that starts with some views of the cemetery and its renovation by a group of Poles and other young people some years ago (early 1990s); it continues with moving testimony from a few survivors from Zabno - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hCH5ANJBE. 

Plaque memorializing the 100 Jews murdered by the Nazis at the Cemetery

Ohel in Żabno Cemetery containing graves of 3 hasidic tzadiks.

Plaque of remembrance.

Honoring youth volunteers that helped do cemetery renovation in 1992





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