Alternate names: Siedleczka [Pol]. 49°58' N, 22°22' E, 17 miles ESE of Rzeszów, 9 miles SW of Przeworsk, 9 miles SE of Łańcut, 3 miles WSW of Kańczuga. Jewish population: 9 (in 1880), 24 (in 1921). JOWBR burial list: Jewish Cemetery. Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (1880-1902), X, p. 507: "Siedleczka". [June 2009]
CEMETERY: Founded at the beginning of Jewish settlement in the 16th century originally for the Kańczudze kahal when a Royal Decree of 1638, made the Jews subject to Kańczudzcy in Przemysl kahał. Siedleczka buried their dead in Kańczudzcy before establishing their own cemetery on a hill about three hundred meters from the road toward Dynów. Jews buried here were from Kańczugi and the surrounding localities including Białoboków, Markowej, Manasterz, Zagórze, Chmielnik and Zabratówki. MASS GRAVES: During WWII, the Nazis executed many Jews in the 0.4 hectares cemetery. During the liquidation of the ghetto, the three Nazis (two Germans and a Navy policeman) gathered groups of 50 people; no one tried to escape. 200 Jews were shot and buried. The earth continued to move for days. About 50 meters N at the foot of the hill is a mass grave from August 22, 1942 for 160 people were killed there. From the Nazi destruction, only a few dozen traditional 19th and 20th century matzevot remain. In 2008, the Conservation Foundation and the Jewish Heritage Ziomkostwa Jews from Kańczugi had the cemetery fenced and cleaned. Formal completion of the work took place on August 17, 2008 in a ceremony attended Jews from Kańczugi, FODZ representatives, local authorities and residents. Included was a gravestone made in 1939 by a local mason and probably destined for the Jewish cemetery in Siedleczce, but the war outbreak prevented his setting it. Close to the cemetery is a commemorative plaque marking the mass grave of approximately 500 Jews shot by the Nazis from the counties of Jarosław, Przeworsk, Leżajsk and Przemysl. [June 2009]
Kanczuga / Siedleczka Cemetery - The cemetery is about 1.5 miles WSW of Kanczuga on the road to Siedleczka. Gravestones were removed from cemetery and used to pave the main road to the cemetery and other roads and properties. Restoration project. Also see Shtetlink. News story. [February 2010]
MASS GRAVE: video. [Febryary 2010]
UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post, May 28, 2008. "Galician Jewish Cemetery Restored". By Jerusalem Post Staff: "Siedlezcka, Poland - A moving ceremony took place in Siedlezcka on Monday marking the restoration of the Galician town's Jewish cemetery, which was established in 1850. Among the attendees were Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel and a Jerusalem Post columnist, and the mayor of Kanczuga, Jacek Solek, who agreed to pave a new road to the cemetery at the town's expense.The restoration work, which was financed in part by Freund and his family (through Warsaw's Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and the Siedleczka-Kanczuga Landsmanschaft headed by Howard Nightingale) included: cleaning the cemetery, restoring the grave-sites and rebuilding the stone wall surrounding the burial ground. The wall was urgently needed as farmers recently began trying to expand their fields into the cemetery. For many years the cemetery served several Jewish communities in southeast Poland, near the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, including: Kanczuga (where Freund's family came from), Gac, Bialoboki, Markowa, Manasterz, Zagorze, Chmielnik, Jawornik Polski and Zabratówka. Only around 500 graves remain, with the last known burial having taken place in 1940. The first recorded Jewish presence in Kanczuga dates to 1638, and by 1939, there were over 1,000 Jews there, more than 80 percent of the town's population. In 1942 the Germans rounded up more than 1,000 Jews from Kanczuga, marched them to the cemetery, murdered them and tossed their bodies into a mass grave. In his address at Monday's ceremony, Freund said he could no longer stand by and watch the neglect of the cemetery and so decided to fund its restoration. 'It was sad for me to see that a number of the gravestones collapsed or were broken and that the cemetery was overgrown by trees and bushes, and essentially looked like a forest. It was also evident that many gravestones were taken from the cemetery over the years to pave local streets, or were looted by local persons,' he said. 'Today when I look over the result of the restoration work, I am very hopeful that the cemetery is now safe from plunder and that it will continue to serve as a monument to the thousands of Jews who lived in this area before the Germans arrived and destroyed everything'." Source: Michael Freund [June 2008]
