קוזניץ

אוהל המגיד מקאזשניץ

Kozienice — Ohel of the Maggid of Kozhnitz

Ohel in the Jewish cemetery, ulica Wójcików, south of the town by the Zagożdżonka, Kozienice, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland

• RING 502 918 929 BEFORE YOU TRAVEL. The ground is fenced all round with a gate that locks, and the key is held by the man who looks after it. This is not a cemetery you can turn up at.
• IT IS ON ULICA WÓJCIKÓW, at the southern end of the town — the national road 79 runs along its eastern side and the Zagożdżonka is below it to the south. Founded around 1630, and about seven hectares, which is large for the ninety stones left on it.
• THE OHEL IS THE THIRD ONE ON THIS SPOT. The original was hit in the bombing of September 1939 and finished off during the war. A modest one went up in 1984 when the ground was first fenced, and the present larger one was built in 2004 — that work, and the stone fence and gate, were paid for by Reb Mendel Reichberg of New York with the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage.
• INSIDE ARE TABLETS FOR FIVE REBBES AFTER HIM and for others of the family. The Maggid's is the kever; the rest are commemorated. Do not assume the whole dynasty is underneath you.
• EXPECT BARE STONE. Of the ninety matzevos that remain, most are granite without any inscription left on them at all.
• SURVEYED COORDINATES. The map point on this listing is the cemetery itself, measured on the ground by the ESJF survey — not a town centre. Where a kever is inside an ohel it will still need finding once you are through the gate, but the gate is now something you can navigate to.