Alternate names: Dukla [Pol], 49°34' N, 21°41' E, 36 miles SSW of Rzeszów (Zheshuv), 10 miles SSE of Krosno. 1900 Jewish population: 2,539. Yizkor: Pinkas ha-kehilot; entsiklopediya shel ha-yishuvim le-min hivasdam ve-ad le-aher shoat milhemet ha-olam ha-sheniya: Poland vol. 3: Western Galicia and Silesia (Jerusalem, 1984). Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (1880-1902), II, pp. 211-212: "Krosno".
ShtetLink Dukla is a town and municipality in SE Poland in the Subcarpathian Voivodship with 2,127 people in 2008 while the total population of the commune (gmina) was 16,640. The Dukla mountain pass located in the Carpathians, a few miles south of Dukla on the border with Slovakia, was the scene of a major battle in 1944. 1881 Jewish population: 2,553 (84.2%). The ruins of the synagogue, built in 1758, and destroyed by the Nazis during the war and the nearby building of the former Jewish school exist. Dukla was the home of Naftali and Gitel Rubinsteinowie, parents Helena Rubinstein of the cosmetics firm. The 1900 population was 3000, of whom 2400 were Jews. During WWII, a Jewish ghetto was created. Imprisoned Jews worked in a quarry and building roads. In 1943, Jews in the ghetto were divided into three groups. About 2000 (women, children and old people) were taken away, first to Krosno and then to the Belżec extermination camp. About 100, mostly the intellectuals, were taken away to Barwinek, stripped, and shot near Mt Błudna. The Jewish police Judendienstordung controlled the deported Jews. About 200 strong and healthy men went to buildings in Cergowska street for road-building and quarry forced labor in Lipowica. [April 2009]
I contacted the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage (www.fodz.pl), which owns the cemeteries in Dukla. We want to start renovation, revitalization of the Dukla cemeteries. They are in a deplorable state. The work that would be done include the following:
- Repair wall and gate at the new cemetery. (The cemetery should be closed because the gravestones are systematically stolen)
- Repairing the wall of an old cemetery.
- Excision of trees, whose roots raise the walls (tip up) and roll their gravestones.
- Construction of lapidarium with otherbroken tombstones
- Recovery of tombstones from the stream in Tylawie and connect them to a lapidarium (Gravestones the Germans took to the woods in Tylawie and had put them in pipe length of about 50 meters)
- I would also like to raise the walls of the cemetery chapel
- Fabrication and laying of the foundation board with first and last names of the Jews who were murdered and buried in a mass grave near the Dukla. We need help for specific renovations [Me and Foundation FODZ (www.fodz.pl] prepare everything. Currently, we have guidance from conservator. We are looking for help for the architectural design. It would be a big step to undertake further work. In addition to the ruins of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries are the only monument and memorial of the Dukla Jews before the war. If you are interesting in helping us, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel. 505 696 416. website. [June 2013]
CEMETERY: Located on the southern edge of the town on the right side of the road to Barwinka, the cemetery consists of two parts: the old cemetery from the beginning of the 18th century and adjacent, the new (landmarked) cemetery from about 1870. In the "old cemetery" dozens of damaged matzevot remain, many broken and overgrown. The new fenced cemetery has about two hundred well-preserved gravestones. A large number were used by the Germans in drainage to regulate the Smerecznem and in construction work. In 2005, the members of the Polish Union of Jewish Students, in cooperation with the Association for the Development of Dukielszczyzny, sought funds for a new roof for the synagogue. The municipality of Dukla offered to pay 40% of the cost of restoration of the Jewish cemetery. The total cost of the project probably is 100 000 zl (about US$25 000). Matzevot in the river in Jasliska where they were dumped during the Holocaust need to be retrieved. Matzevot need to be photographed, documented, and be incorporated in the restored cemetery walls. To support The Poland Jewish Cemetery Restoration Project (PJCRP), contactDr. Norman L. Weinberg, PJCRP Executive Coordinator, Tel. 716-688-5272. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. photos. [April 2009]
DUKLA I: US Commission No. POCE000720 and
DUKLA II: US Commission No. POCE000721, In Krosno. The US Commission is not finished rechecking these files. [2000]
UPDATE: Coming from Slovak-Polish border, cemetery is on the left before you enter village. Dukla is 24 km S of Krosno. The isolated suburban site is about 20 meters off the road. A sign used in Poland to mark places of martyrs, places where victims, Polish or Jewish, suffered from the Third Reich, marks the cemetery. The cemetery is reached by turning directly off a public road. A hedge or row of trees or bushes around it surrounds the cemetery. The cemetery has a broken non-locking gate. The present size of cemetery is 20x30m. Approximately, twenty gravestones are in cemetery. The vegetation overgrowth in the cemetery is a constant problem that is disturbing graves and damaging stones. Water drainage makes cemetery look like a meadow. The present owner is unknown. The cemetery property is marked as memorial with no fresh graves. Properties adjacent are agricultural. The cemetery has no signs of visitors. The cemetery was vandalized: stones overturned, broken or stolen stones, graffiti painted on walls or stones, etc.; graves desecrated. No care or maintenance. Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures.
Dr.Erich Fritsch, A-5233 Pischelsdorf 56, O. AUSTRIA, 0043-7742-7400; email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. visited the cemetery and completed the form on 14 October 1997.
REFERENCE: They Lived Among Us: Polish Judaica , a travel brochure: Arline Sachs, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
REFERENCE: Ruth Ellen. Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to East-Central Europe . New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. p. 75
Photos by Charles Burns [February 2016]