Rypin - Jewish Cemetery

About 100 kilometres east of Bydgoszcz lies a town called Rypin. When the Germans occupied Rypin on September 7, 1939, there were about 2,500 Jews living in the city who immediately began to be subjected to anti-Jewish laws that restricted or deprived them of their politcal, economical, religious, cultural and social rights. Jews could be arbitrarily imprisoned and also forced to perform slave labor around the city which resulted in the death of several Jews. On September 17th, the Germans burned down the synagogue and the Jewish school (Beth midrash). The Jews were blamed for the fires and were forced to pay a large sum of money. There were also two Jewish cemeteries (burial sites), one older and one newer, in Rypin which was destroyed by the Germans and the tombstones were used as material in road constructions.

A Jewish council (Judenrat) was established in October 1939 with the task of enforcing the demands of the germans. However, the council was murdered at the end of the month. Sporadic murders of Jews took place in forests around Rypin, but even in the newer Jewish cemetery Jews were shot. In mid-November, the germans began evacuating the remaining Jews to other parts of Poland that had not been incorporated into the german empire. By December 1939, the Jewish community in Rypin had been wiped out. Only a few Jews remained in the city until February 1941 when they were either shot or deported. A few Jews who survived the war returned to Rypin but the city’s Jewish community never recovered.