The "Cmentarz karaimski w Warszawie" or the Karaite Cemetery in Warsaw is the one and only Karaite Cemetery in Poland. That is why Karaites who die in other cities of Poland than Warsaw are also buried here.

The Cemetery covered an area of of 0,112 ha In December 2021, held about 100 graves. The tombstones do not vary from other tombstones in Poland, but the inscriptions are in the Karaite language, sometimes also biligual, Karaite-Polish.

The Karaite Cemetery in Warsaw was opened in 1890 at the permission of the Karaite Hachan, that is religious and secular head of the Karaite community, based in the Crimea. It was established by and for the small Karaite community living in Warsaw (between 1882 and 1914 it is supposed to have numbered 20 to 50 people). The first deceased members of the community were taken to the Karaite cemetery in Troki in the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania of what used to be the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The first plans for the cemetery considered an area East of the Vistula river which crosses the city south to north, in the vicinity of a Jewish Cemetery and the Catholic Bródno Cemetery. Finally, though, a plot on the opposite side of Warsaw, on the outskirts of the Wola disctric on the Western side of the river was chosen.

The plot for the cemetery was bought from the then Russian Orthodox parish of the church devoted to the Holy Image of Our Lady of Vladimir. It should be noted that building used to be a Catholic church but was turned temporarily into a Russian Orthodox Church after the partition of Poland and the occupation of Warsaw - together with the Eastern territory of Poland - by Tsarist Russia. The plot measured 550 square meters and was acquired from the Russian Orthodox parsih by 7 Karaite men of who 6 originally came from the Crimea.

The first person to be buried in the cemetery was a month-old baby boy called Józef Kobecki. This was the year 1890. The next persons and burial dates were: three-year old Helena Abkowicz in 1892; Saduk Osipowicz Kefeli from Kefe or Feodosia in the Ukraine in 1895; merchant Saduk Kefeli in 1898; and merchant Gelel Babadżan in 1899. Saduk Osipowich Kefeli was one of the founding benefactors of the cemetery. His grave is the oldest non-anonymous tomb in the cemetery.

During the interwar period, i.e. between 1918 and 1939, only one burial at the cemetery is known for sure and by name. The person was Gabriel Pilecki who came originally from Łuck in the then Eastern Borderlands of Poland and tried tragically. It is estimated that two to three other people may have been buried here during this time.

After the Nazi Germany invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and during WW2 the cemetery suffered twice. First just after the onslought, when Warsaw and Poland was still trying to defend itself unaware that just 17 days later the Soviet Union was going to launch a merciless attach from the East. This so-called September campaign lasted from 1 September until 6 of October 1939. As German forces were not only carrying out air bombings, but also approaching by land and the Wola Disctrics still was on the westernmost outskirts of the city, it suffered bombings and saw heavy fighting. No wonder the cemetery was not spared and some of the graves as well as the wall around the cemetery were destroyed.

The second time the cemetery grounds suffered destruction, more serious destruction to that, was 5 years later, still during the Nazi occupation of Poland, during the Warsaw Uprising against the invador in 1944. The German Nazis bombed the Wola Street which runs just 676 to the south of the Cemetery. But the distruction this little cemetery saw was only a tiny drop in the sea of blood that the Germans were to spill. They were set on completely distroying the city. Adolf Hitler ordered a massacre of Poles in order to kill "anything that moves" to stop the Warsaw Uprising soon after it began. Following this order, the German Wehrmacht duely massacred between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles inhabiting the Wola neighbourhood, burning many people alive and making it one of the largest one-time genocided against and Holocausts of Poles during WW2. According to evidence given by Erich von dem Bach at the Nürnberg trial, Himmler's order (issued on the strength of an order from Adolf Hitler), read as follows: "1. Captured insurrectionists shall be killed whether or not they fight in accordance with the Hague Convention. 2. The non-fighting part of the population, women, children, shall also be killed. 3. The whole city shall be razed to the ground, i.e. its buildings, streets, facilities, and everything within its borders."

Luckily, though, some graves of the Cemetery remained. A new fence was built around the cemetery in 1946-1947 (the War had ended in 1945). The first person to be buried at the cemetery afer WW2 was land surveyor Michał Szpakowski. The burial itself took place in 1947 or 1948, though Szpakowski had been killed earlier, in 1945. He was actually murdered in an assault in Podkowa Leśna to the south-east of Warsaw on 30 December 1945 and buried at the Muslim Caucasian Cemetery in Warsaw. But two or three years later he was exhumed and taken to the cemetery that matched his faith and background at the Karaite Cemetery.

With decades passing and more new graves appearing on the small area of the Cemetery, the need arose in the 1970s to enlarge its territory. This was accomplished in April 1994 when the Karaite community acquired additional 1122 m² to the west of the existing plot.
The new area was fenced in 1996.

It is estimated that between 1947 and 2010, altogether 81 burials took place of which three were at the Karaite plot of the Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Wola neighbourhood, to which the Karaite Cemetery is adjacent.

As already mentioned, the oldest named grave belongs to Saduk Osipowich Kefeli who was buried in 1895. The cemetery holds an even older grave, though, which is unnamed. It was also built in the end of the 19th century.

The famous Karaites buried at the Karaite Cemetery in Warsaw include:

- Rafał Abkowicz (1896, Troki - 1992, Wrocław) – a Hazzan or religious leader of the community of believes (he was, in fact, the last Caraite Hazzan in Poland and had, as of Dec. 2021, no follower)
- Aleksander Dubiński, PhD (1924, Troki - 2002, Warsaw) – a specialist in Turkish studies, specialist in Karaite studies, academic at the Orientalist Institute of the University of Warsaw
- Szymon Firkowicz, Prof. (1920, Melitopol - 1976, Warsaw) – an electronical engineer.
- Ananiasz Rojecki (1896, Vilnius - 1978, Warsaw) – a geophysicist
- Ananiasz Zajączkowski, Prof. (1903, Vilnius - 1970, Warsaw) – a specialist in Turkish studies, specialist in Karaite studies, academic at the Orientalist Institute of the University of Warsaw
and
- Włodzimierz Zajączkowski, Prof. (1914, Vilnius - 1982, Warsaw) – specialist in Turkish studies, academic at the Jagiellonian University.

Written by Ivonna Nowicka, December 2021

SOURCE:
Entry on the Cemetery and on the people buried therein at pl.wikipedia.org