Kobylin is a town in Krotoszyn County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, with 3,018 inhabitants in 2004 and seat of the rural administrative district of Kobylin Gmina with dependent villages and settlements of Berdychów, Długołęka, Fijałów, Górka, Kuklinów, Łagiewniki, Nepomucenów, Raszewy, Rębiechów, Rojew, Rzemiechów, Smolice, Sroki, Starkowiec, Stary Kobylin, Starygród, Targoszyce, Wyganów, Zalesie Małe, Zalesie Wielkie, and Zdziętawy. Documenation exists of Jews living here in 1656. The Kobylin Jews also used the cemetery at Krotoszyn. Czarniecki remorselessly devastated the countryside and vented his rage as he retreated from the Swedes on the Jews, killing 200 in Kobylin.
US Commission No. POCE000322
Alternate name: Koppelstaedt in German. Kobylin is located in Leszczynskie at 51°43' 17°13', 55 km from Leszno and 100 km from Poznan. Cemetery location: ul. Grunwaldzka. Present town population is 1,000-5,000 with no Jews.
- Town: Burmistrz, Michal Wesielski, ul. Wolnosci 35, 63-740 Kobylin, tel.93. Urzad Miasta i Gminy, ul. Rynek im. Yozeta Pibsudzkiego, 63-740 Kobylin, tel. 1, 17, 186.
- Local: Frackowiak Boguskaw, Urzad Miasta i Gminy Kobylin.
- Regional: Ewa Piesiewicz, Panstwowa Sluzba Ochrony Zabytkow w Lesznie, ul. Mickiewicza 5, tel. 20-63-83.
Earliest known Jewish community was 16th century. 1921 Jewish population was 60 (2.8%). Living here were Salomon Oxe, Izydor Leppek, Chaim Izaak Finkelstein, Yakob Salomon, Salomon Mendel. The Jewish cemetery was established in 18th century with last Conservative or Progressive/Reform Jews burial in 1939. The isolated urban flat land has no sign or marker. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is entirely closed. Cemetery no longer exists. The new users of the land fenced off the area. The size before WWII was 0.6 hectares. It is occupied by a kitchen garden. There are no gravestones or mass graves. The cemetery, vandalized during WWII, has no maintenance or care. Within the limits of the cemetery is a pre-burial house and a gravedigger's house, a residential building, hotbeds, and greenhouses. The private owner now uses land for a kitchen garden. Properties adjacent are residential.
Dariusz Czwojdrak, ul. Lipowa 22/9, 67-400 Wschowa completed survey 22 Nov 1991. Czwojdrak visited the site 21 Nov 1991. Person interviewed: Boguskaw Frackowiak, (above) Kobylin on 11/21/1991.