Bagnowka Burial Registry 2024-25 with new records has just been uploaded to the Jewish Online Worldwide Burial Registry JOWBR, thanks to the efforts of BCRF volunteers, Ken-Asher Arbit, Dr. Heidi M. Szpek, and JOWBR’s Head of Acquisitions, Nolan Altman. Twice yearly, Bagnowka records will continue to be added to the JOWBR database until restoration on Bagnowka is complete.
This year, Arbit and Heidi Szpek rechecked and gathered new records from Bagnowka. Arbit spent the next eight months conducting a total review of all existing Bagnowka records and associated photos, adding extensive fields of information for each record (when extant), including a photo ID (when extant) for each tombstone. Eventually, this database will also include a complete transcription and translation for each tombstone’s inscription.
This database preserves the vital data from 4455 tombstones currently extant on Bagnowka Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok, Poland, the last extant Jewish cemetery in Bialystok, present-day Poland. It functioned from about December 1890 until 1969. Current extant records date from 1890-1952. (The official opening of the cemetery was in December 1891, however, a tombstone dated to 1890 was discovered in 2023.)
Bagnowka Database June 2025
Bagnowka Photo Registry 2025
An earlier version of this document was initially prepared by Dr. Heidi M. Szpek beginning in 2007 not as a registry per se but rather as a means to collate inscriptional data on the tombstones related to her research on Jewish epitaphs. That data was shared with a variety of organizations, including JOWBR and Jewishgen.org.
Credit for image captures belongs to a variety of individuals and organizations. From 2006-10, Dr. Tomasz Wisniewski photographed a large portion of the images from which data was collected, with inscriptions translated by Dr. Szpek (2006-09) and Sara Mages (2010). From 2007 to the present, additional images were captured by Frank J. Idzikowski and Heidi M. Szpek. From about 2012 to 2016 Aktion Suchnezeichen Friedendienste, coordinated by Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej Polska-Izrael Bialymstoku, engaged in restoration on Bagnowka, assisted by Dr. Andreas Kahrs (Berlin) and Dr. Szpek, thus adding to the record. Since 2016, the Bialystok Cemetery Restoration Project has engaged a new strategy, using mechanized equipment, to lift and reset stones, enabling restoration and documentation to proceed at an incredible pace and enabling the creation and development of this Burial Registry.
Hebrew is the predominate language of these inscriptions but the vernaculars of Yiddish, Russian, German/Old Prussian and Polish are also extant. Yet the language preserved in Hebrew characters is a challenge to discern, given the changing regimes in Bialystok. JewishGen.org offers a concise but most helpful discussion of the challenge of spelling Jewish surnames and given names. The names recorded in this document are an attempt to transcribe the Hebrew as clearly as possible while respecting certain known or common transcriptions.
New records are added to the database each Fall with updates in the Spring following each restoration Summercamp. Queries and photo requests can be directed to bagnowkaphotos@gmail.com
