זעליחוב

זעליחוב — בית החיים

Żelechów — the Jewish cemetery

Jewish cemetery, in the woods between Reymonta, Brzóski, Bema and Chłopickiego, Żelechów, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland

• IT IS IN THE TREES, in the south-western corner of the town, on about two hectares bounded by Reymonta, Brzóski, Bema and Chłopickiego. There is a mesh fence two metres high and a gate; the fence has damaged sections, but the gate is the way in.
• TWO OHELS STAND HERE. The block-built one is over the likely kevorim of Reb Aharon Yechiel of the Kozhnitzer line and Reb Aharon HaKohen. The second is only a wooden roof on posts, sheltering two old matzevos brought in from the ground — one of them of Sheindel Freida Rabinowicz, the wife of the Yid HaKadosh of Peshischa.
• Around seventy whole matzevos are left, plus fragments. The oldest readable is from 1847 and the last from the nineteen-thirties, so the cemetery's first forty years are gone from the stones entirely.
• The ground was used for killings and for burying the dead of the ghetto during the war, and then left until 2014, when it was fenced and the ohels were built. Expect long grass.
• Reb Levi Yitzchok was the rov of Żelechów before Berditchev, and people ask. He is not buried here — his kever is in Berditchev, in Ukraine.
• 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.