A matzeivah and memorial have been erected over the mass grave of 241 kedoshim who were murdered by the Nazis in the town of Grodzisk Dolny, near Lizhensk in Poland, more than 80 years after they were killed and buried in an unmarked site.

Grodzisk Dolny was home to a large Jewish community, and many families trace their roots to the town. After the Nazis, ym”sh, occupied it on September 27, 1939, some of its Jews were expelled across the San River into Soviet-occupied territory. In September 1941, the remaining Jews were stripped of their property, the shul was destroyed, and the Jewish cemetery was almost completely ruined.

A ghetto set up in 1941 held 750 Jews. During its liquidation, Gestapo officer Adolf Jaske executed 241 Jews from Grodzisk Dolny and the nearby town of Tryńcza. A local Polish resident who was forced to bury the bodies later testified that the victims were placed in four mass graves in the local cemetery.

For decades the site stood neglected, overgrown and without any marker, and earlier attempts to restore it failed. Recently, descendants of the town’s Weingarten family, led by Rabbi Yosef Nata Goldbrenner, set out to locate the graves and give the kedoshim a proper kever.

They were joined by Rabbi Nechemia Pinkusovitz, who works to preserve kivrei avos across Europe and who began gathering testimonies, documents and archival photographs. With the cooperation of the town’s mayor, the team reached the cemetery, only to find it covered by a thick forest of trees, bushes and debris that had built up over the years.

After the entire area was cleared, a ground-penetrating radar device was brought in. With great siyata d’Shmaya, it revealed the exact locations of the graves: one large pit holding well over a hundred bodies, and three smaller pits holding what appear to be families. An expert from Bnei Brak confirmed the findings.

“After years of darkness and uncertainty, the device beeped and signaled to us: here they are. Here lie the 241 kedoshim. We stood there and cried,” those present recalled.

After obtaining the required permits, a concrete frame and fence were built around the graves, along with a large memorial engraved with the names of the kedoshim of the Weingarten family. The work was carried out under the supervision of avreichim, with care for kavod hameisim. Plaques listing all 241 victims were also installed, based on a Polish war-crimes investigation file on Adolf Jaske.

The matzeivah was unveiled last Tuesday, 16 Cheshvan, at a gathering of tefillah and Tehillim, where Rabbi Goldbrenner recited kaddish at the site through tears, for the first time since the Holocaust.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)