Visit

Founded in 1806 on a small plot of land located just outside the boundaries of Warsaw at the time, the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street now covers 33.4 hectares, making it one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. More than 200,000 people are buried here, including rabbis, Hasidic leaders (tzaddikim), spiritual authorities, political and social activists, industrialists, bankers, artists, creators of Jewish culture, and many individuals who made outstanding contributions to Polish science, public life and the economy. The cemetery is also the final resting place of thousands of unnamed victims of the Warsaw Ghetto and generations of Warsaw Jews. Over more than two centuries, the cemetery has become an extraordinary testament to the history of one of the world's largest Jewish communities. It preserves the tangible heritage, traditions and diversity of Warsaw Jewry, which at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries formed the largest Jewish community in the world. Today, the cemetery remains an important place of remembrance, prayer and cultural heritage. Walking through its successive sections, visitors encounter the burial grounds of Orthodox Jews, Hasidim, members of progressive movements and political activists. Alongside modest matzevot (Jewish gravestones) stand monumental mausoleums belonging to prominent industrialist and banking families, as well as the graves of intellectuals, artists, physicians, political leaders and social reformers. In addition to Hebrew inscriptions, many gravestones bear texts in Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish, reflecting the multicultural character of historic Warsaw. One of the cemetery's most remarkable features is the world's largest collection of ohels—forty-two mausoleums erected over the graves of revered Hasidic tzaddikim. Every year, thousands of pilgrims from around the world visit these tombs, leaving handwritten prayer notes known as kvitlekh. The cemetery is also home to numerous outstanding examples of Jewish funerary art. Particularly noteworthy are the works of Abraham Ostrzega, one of the most distinguished Jewish sculptors of the interwar period, whose monuments successfully combined modern artistic forms with traditional Jewish symbolism.

During the Second World War, the cemetery, situated along the boundary of the Warsaw Ghetto, played a unique role. Smuggling routes bringing food into the ghetto passed through its grounds, while specially prepared burial pits served as hiding places for Jews living in concealment on the Aryan side of the city. One such hiding place, located in Section 41, is now accessible to visitors. The cemetery also contains several mass graves of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Since 2023, a new memorial has stood near the cemetery's main entrance above a mass grave commemorating the tens of thousands of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. On the way to the monument dedicated to Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit), visitors may also stop at the memorial honouring the Oneg Shabbat group, whose underground archive preserved invaluable documentation and eyewitness testimony about life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Nearby stands a memorial dedicated to Alex Dancyg—historian, educator and one of the leading guides to Jewish Warsaw—who was abducted and murdered by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The cemetery is owned and administered by the Jewish Religious Community in Warsaw. It is the only Jewish cemetery in Warsaw where burials still take place today. The cemetery has been listed in the Polish Register of Historic Monuments since 1973 and is regarded as one of Warsaw's most valuable heritage sites. Every year it is visited by tens of thousands of people from Poland and abroad, including descendants of Warsaw Jews, pilgrims, historians, researchers and tourists.

Men are required to wear head coverings before entering the cemetery. The cemetery is closed on Jewish holidays and selected public holidays.

Before visiting—or when searching for a particular grave—it is recommended to use the online database available at cemetery.jewish.org.pl, which contains photographs and information on more than 82,000 gravestones.

Admission: 20 PLN

Database compiled from the tombstones of the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery . For more information, follow the Cemetery’s Facebook Fan Page