Author Archives: Marysia Galbraith

Anthropology, objectivity, and activism. Processing the field research experience.

19 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Anthropology, Fieldwork, Research Methodology, World War II

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Interesting reflections by my student Mirjam Holleman about ethics and anthropology. Is there a place for activist ethnography? This is something I’m grappling with in my own research.

mirjam's avatarConstructing Cultural Models of (Dis)ability and Society

There is this image of an anthropologists as a detached observer, who doesn’t let his or her own ideals or visions of how society should function or ethical views of how people ought to treat each other guide her research.  But sometimes it’s hard not to care.  Pressing issues of social justice challenge the border between scientific  disengagement and ethical activism, and “open up important possibilities for rethinking what anthropology is and does, and what contributions it can make to global activism concerning social justice “ (Merry 2005: 241).

While I was in the field, I was working, I was a researcher, and I didn’t feel personally affected by the things I was observing or hearing.  I was (and still am) supper thankful that my ‘informants,’ the people I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with, didn’t treat me with kid gloves. They spoke to me quite candidly about their, or their…

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Włocławek’s Forgotten Street: The Street of Death (Ulica Śmierci)

04 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by in Heritage work, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Synagogues, World War II, Wronki, Włocławek

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“Here and then” (“Tu i wtedy”)…that was the recurring line in Deputy Mayor Robert Dorna’s speech at the unveiling of the lapidarium in the Jewish cemetery in Wronki in December 2014. He linked the place we were standing (tu—here) to various moments in history (wtedy—then).

This could be an apt description of many of the heritage projects I have observed. They are efforts to gather together the fragments that can be recovered, and to reassemble them so they bring back to everyday landscapes the memories of multiple historical events in the lives of former Jewish residents. Seeing the past in the present has also been the touchstone of my recent trip to Poland. Everywhere, it seemed I was walking through streets as they look today, and at the same time carrying envisioning the way they looked back then (wtedy). Linking a particular place concretely to its past was also the goal of the contest that led the students and teachers at the Automotive High School in Włocławek (Zespół Szkół Samochodowych im. Tadeusza Kościuszki) to develop their Facebook “fan page” Włocławek’s Forgotten Street (Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica). They decided to focus on Piwna Street, which despite its small size (just two blocks long) became a focal point for viewing Jewish life and death in this city.

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Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica–the Facebook fanpage documenting the history of Włocławek’s Jews, on Piwna Street and beyond.

For thirteen years, the program “Memory for the Future” (“Pamięć dla Przyszłości”) has held annual contests for middle and high school students, challenging them to explore some aspect of Holocaust history. Initiated by the Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland, and joined in recent years by the Polin Museum, Jewish Historical Institute, and Center for Educational Development, students have produced a variety of projects—essays, posters, and drawings. This year, the sponsors decided to try something new, more in keeping with the way young people communicate today. That’s why this year’s challenge “Places of Holocaust Memory Near Us” (“Miejsce Pamięci Zagłady Blisko Nas”) involved the production of a Facebook page.

Włocławek is a city of about 114,000 residents; the population has been declining since the fall of state socialism as local industries have closed and residents have sought better opportunities in more prosperous places within and outside of Poland. A century earlier, the city experienced rapid growth; during the four decades before World War II, it became a regional industrial center and the population tripled, reaching 68,000 by 1939. Jews were important contributors to the city’s development, and comprised nearly 20% of residents. My family was among the migrants to the city during this time. By the end of the war, most of Włocławek’s Jews had been murdered, the synagogues burned, and the cemetery desecrated.

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Map of Włocławek in 1930. Piwna Street is to the left of the bridge, just past an estuary opening out to the river. Map by Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny.

Piwna Street is located off of Wyszyński Street (one of the main routes through town). About one third of the way along its short length it makes a 90 degree turn and runs for another block parallel to the Vistula River. On the river side is a massive two story building and dock that includes the Rejs na Przystani Café. Across the street, colorful depictions of fruits and the products made with them decorate the wall around the Delecta factory (see the cover photo of the Facebook page above). Until the Forgotten Street project, nothing indicated that Piwna was called the “Street of Death” after the Nazi occupation.

In September of 1939, the city’s synagogues were burned to the ground and the Jewish population was terrorized (read more about this here); some were arrested while others were killed. The retreating Polish forces had blown up the bridge across the Vistula, so the Nazis decided to replace it with a pontoon bridge at Piwna Street. But first the riverbank had to be reinforced. Captive Jews were forced to do this backbreaking work, using the stone and concrete remnants of the synagogue as building materials. Many died in the process, hence the name “Street of Death.”

What’s extraordinary about the high schoolers’ project is how effectively it brings into the present an awareness of the past. It does so with a wide variety of archival information, photographs, and first-person recollections. The public nature of the fan page also meant that other people learned about this history and could even contribute to it. For instance, one viewer posted this gouache painting of Piwna Street from the mid-19th century.

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The view across Zgłowiączki Estuary and Piwna Street. Gouache by Alfons Matuszkiewicz, c. 1853. Posted on Włocławkska Zapomniana Ulica

To date the fan page has 1773 “likes.” Another component of the project was the posting of a QR code that when scanned with a smartphone connects to a brief explanation of the history of Piwna Street in four languages. QR codes were also posted at several other sites around town that are associated with Jewish culture (listen here).

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QR code linking to a brief history of Piwna Street.

For now, these notices are just on laminated paper, but the hope is that something more permanent will be installed so visitors will continue to connect here and then—this particular location with the events that occurred in the past. When I visited in June, the city’s president expressed his support for the project. The question remains where the money will come from to pay for a more lasting marker. Still, with people of good will and extraordinary energy like the teachers and students at the Automotive High School, I’m hopeful something will be done in the not too distant future.

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The teachers who worked on the project Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica: from the left, Anita Kaniewska-Kwiatkowska, Monika Lamka-Czerwińska, and Robert Feter.

Threading the Needle

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in antisemitism, Baligród, Commemoration, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kazimierz, Krakow, Lesko, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Tarnów, Warsaw, Wronki, Włocławek, Zasław, Żychlin

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I am back from six weeks in Poland. I envisioned regular posts from the field in this blog. But instead, doing fieldwork left little time for writing and reflecting about it. Nevertheless, a structure for my next book project has been emerging. The challenge will be threading the needle between celebrating the renewal of interest in Jewish life in Poland, captured so well in Erica Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited and Katka Reszke’s Return of the Jew, and addressing the ongoing silences, distaste, even hatred expressed toward Jews, as revealed in Jacek Nowak’s interviews with ordinary Poles. Because both are happening at the same time, often in the same places, and sometimes even within the same people.

And I’ve seen evidence of both in my own research. People all over Poland are doing incredible work to preserve cemeteries, renovate synagogues, document first-person accounts, and celebrate Jewish music and culture, often in the absence of any involvement from living Jews. They work with passion to fill what they feel to be a void in their local communities. And they do so despite the resistance they sometimes face from fellow residents and local government representatives. Every place tells a different story, even though many of the same elements can be found in each of them. Over the next several posts, I’ll highlight the places and projects I visited. Watch for the place names to become links to more details.

Włocławek

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Students and teachers from the Automotive High School in Włocławek receive the first place award for their Facebook “fan page” “Włocławska zapomniania ulica” (“Wloclawek’s forgotten street”) at the Polin Museum in Warsaw, June 22, 2016. The contest was “Places of Holocaust Memory Near Us” and the challenge was to highlight a place in the local community. The team from Włocławek chose Piwna Street, called “the street of death” during World War II.

Żychlin

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Detail of the synagogue in Żychlin, converted into a warehouse by the Nazis and used as such for many years after. The roof caved in several years ago. Traces of frescos are barely visible through the empty windows.

Kutno

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New signs at the Kutno Jewish cemetery provide historical information and urge residents to keep in mind this green hillside is a cemetery. Installed by Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Kutnowski (Association of the Friends of the Kutno Region).

Wronki

An arial view of the Lapidarium in Wronki that shows the shape of the raised beds, meant to evoke an open book.

Warsaw

konferencja_zdk_polin-eng_1600_rgbIn Warsaw, the conference Jewish Cultural Heritage: Projects, Methods, Inspirations at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews gave me a good idea of the scope of heritage work throughout Europe, as well as ongoing debates about Jewish heritage projects.

Krakow

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Glass House Orchestra performing at Shalom on Szeroka, the outdoor concert culminating the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.

Tarnów

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Professor Hońdo of the Jagiellonian University helps participants in the Tarnów Tombstone camp for volunteers (Tarnowskie macewy – obóz dla wolontariuszy) decipher the text on a tombstone.

Baligród

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The weeds grow tall in the Jewish cemetery in Baligród, despite indications of maintenance done not too long ago. It takes constant attention to keep these sites from slipping back into obscurity.

Zasław

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Historical information about the Nazi Work Camp in Zasław marking the beginning of the trail from the Zagórz train station to the monument on the mass grave at Zasław. A project of the Stowarzyszenie Dziedzictwo Mniejszości Karpackich (Association of the Heritage of Minorities of the Carpathians).

Lesko

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The synagogue in my beloved Lesko–much of the front facade was rebuilt and reinvented around 1960.

 

Traveling with Babcia

31 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Bereda, Family, Memory

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Babcia died over twenty years ago, shortly before I returned from my doctoral fieldwork in Poland. The last time I saw her was a few months before she passed, when she was already on her way. She did not recognize me, or my brother Chris, and didn’t even acknowledge our presence. Except, she grabbed my hand—at first, I thought it was because she knew who I was, but in fact she just used my finger to scratch her ear. It was an intimate and disturbing final contact between us.

The last time we spoke was a year and a half earlier, right before I left for Poland. Babcia was already 97, in assisted living, but still sharp. She became agitated about my trip, cajoling me, “Don’t fall in love with a Polish man.” She warned me against life in Poland, she said a Polish man would not treat me well; she was afraid I would not return. She insisted there was nothing for me there, that she and the rest of the family decided to leave Poland to seek a better life in the US.

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Babcia in Florida, late 1950s.

Babcia was a mystic. She believed she could see the future, and even though I did not fall in love with a Polish man and I did come back, often it seemed like her premonitions were right. Mama also had an uncanny ability to sense things, but with her it was more psychological. Mama was deeply empathetic and could intuit the emotional states of others.

There was very little fanfare when Babcia died. I missed the funeral because I wasn’t told about it. Mama didn’t want me to cut my trip short to attend. Babcia was cremated, in accordance with her wishes. She also wanted to be buried in Poland with her husband Zygmunt who died nearly fifty years earlier in 1945, but no one seemed to have the will to make it happen. Instead, my cousin Alexandra brought the ashes home and placed them on an altar in her home, where they stayed for many years.

In 2015, when I returned from my year in Poland, we had a family reunion. I took it as an opportunity to offer to take Babcia back home to Poland. It’s something I have thought about doing for a long time, and I finally I got up the nerve to make it happen. I’m the one who can do it. I speak the language and know my way around.

At first, it seemed my cousin would be reluctant to give Babcia up. But when I visited her mother a short time after the family reunion, the ashes were there waiting for me in their metal box.

So I brought her to my home in Alabama, where she has rested in my pottery studio awaiting this trip to Poland.

I knew I would not be able to bring a metal box through airport security, but still was reluctant to remove Babcia from her resting place. I waited until the night before my departure. I apprehensively removed the screws from the lid, and found a metal tin like a paint can inside labeled with Babcia’s name and the date she died. I have been told that surprisingly little is left after cremation, but I still was taken aback that even the tin, quite a bit smaller and lighter than the box, was filled halfway with paper. A whole body reduced to little more than a quart of ashes. I transferred them to the plastic bag nestled in the bottom of the box (no doubt for this purpose), and put that into a zippered bag I got at the Black Sea in Israel. She will be buried in a ceramic urn I made.

I had read that it’s not a problem bringing cremated remains on airplanes, so I set them in the bottom of my carry-on luggage. It was detected in the x-ray screening at the Birmingham Airport. I apprehensively explained what it was as the bag was being searched. The screener was very kind. She did some sort of test for explosives but let me through without otherwise disturbing the ashes.

So Babcia is on her way back to Poland. We’ll see what happens at the cemetery. When I called several months ago to inquire about the procedure, the person I spoke with was initially very confused. However, once he understood that Babcia was cremated, she died over twenty years ago, and there is already a family plot, he told me to just call once I get to Poland and we’ll make arrangements then. I hope it’s really that easy.

The Polish Shirley Temple and her sister the poet

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in Memory, Names, Poland, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Pre-World War II, World War II

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Elizabeth Bellak and my mother met in Poland, when Elizabeth was just a child and mama a teenager. Years later, they reconnected in New York and have been best friends and confidants ever since. Elizabeth, her husband George, and their children Andrew and Alexandra visited us on Long Island more often than our biological relatives did. In fact, I’ve grown up calling her my aunt.

Elizabeth is as outgoing as my mother is shy. She loves to socialize, to tell stories, even to sing and dance. She dresses elegantly in heels and designer clothes, her hair and make up always perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in pants.

But she and my mother share a deep fondness for each other. They also share a hidden Jewish heritage that they kept silent about until recently. Elizabeth was actually Ariana Spiegel, born in eastern Poland in what is now Ukraine. Her talent was recognized at a young age, when she appeared in films like Gehenna, and was called “the Polish Shirley Temple.”

Ariana as the Gypsy girl in Gehenna, 1938.
Review of Ariana Spigiel’s performance in Gehenna. She is called the “Polish Shirley Temple.” In Kurier Filmowy 1938, vol. 12, nr.27.
Ariana Spigiel

Her older sister Renia was equally talented, though as a writer and poet. Renia kept a diary for the last few years of her short life which has just been published along with her poetry (in Polish, though there are plans for it to be published in English as well).

I can’t wait to read it.

 

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Tornado and Trauma

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Memory, Trauma

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On May 1, some friends and I ran 7.4 miles from one side of town to the other tracing the route of the tornado that tore through the heart of Tuscaloosa five years ago. I’d run the same course just a few weeks after the storm. I took photos both times.

Six sweaty runners!

With my running buddies after we traced the path of the Tuscaloosa tornado five years after it came through town. Some greenery behind us, but before the storm there would have been tall trees.

In retrospect, it is remarkable to me how little attention I paid to the severe weather predictions throughout the day on April 27, 2011. It was nearing the end of the semester so I was busy with final classes. Besides, National Weather Service warnings, tornado sirens, and weatherman James Spann’s call to “get into your safe place” had become commonplace over my 14 years in Alabama. Of course, when the sirens went off in my neighborhood, I went down to the basement with Ian, who was seven years old at the time. I also checked in on Jeremy, who had been teaching on campus. He was waiting out the storm in the basement of Phifer Hall, which had been a fallout shelter during the Cold War. So I felt reassured Jeremy would be okay there.

Jeremy is a belt and suspenders man, so our unfinished basement has a television, camp chairs, and a battery-powered radio. I watched as James Spann, who knows every town and intersection in Alabama, reported on dozens of tornados tracking through the state.

One of the biggest came straight through Tuscaloosa, leaving a trail of rubble and downed trees six miles long and a half mile wide, running diagonally from one side of town to the other. Until it happened, I would never have imagined it ever could happen. Even as reports came in about the path of the tornado, I couldn’t quite grasp it. In Northport where I live, just two miles to the north, it wasn’t even raining. It was ominously still and an eerie yellow glow filled the sky. The rain came only after the tornado passed

Understanding the scale of the damage was also slowed by the destruction of infrastructure—phone lines and cell towers down, roads impassable. Our family was lucky. None of us were harmed. The tornado ran south of campus. We never even lost power, phones, or Internet. But nevertheless, the storm touched us deeply, and in a way that still affects us.

Rosedale Court 2011
Rosedale Court 2016
Wood Manor neighborhood 2011. Metal wrapped in tree
New apartments where Wood Manor used to be 2016

Fifty-three people died in Tuscaloosa (and 252 in the state). Considering the extent of the physical damage, we’re lucky the number was not much higher. In an instant, 12% of the city was destroyed. Follow this link to a video of the tornado, filmed from the parking lot of University Mall. The voice at the beginning is James Spann reporting on the track of the storm.

The experience gives me a glimpse of what it might have been like to endure the trauma of war. In an instant everything is changed. The physical world that seemed so permanent is suddenly obliterated. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense why some people survived and others died. But as horrible as the storm was, it can’t compare to the scale of World War II. And I can only imagine how much more emotionally damaging it would have been to face a human threat rather than a natural one. The former requires accommodating the fact of human agency—that people chose to wreak that destruction on others.

The five-year-anniversary run left me unsettled. I was transported back to the shock of the days following the storm, when the magnitude of the destruction sank in. I passed by the places where people died—Rosedale Court, a housing project that was nearly leveled; Charleston Square Apartments, parts of which lost all but their foundation while others stood battered but whole; the corner of 6th Avenue and 27th Street where a University of Alabama student was sucked out of her home and dropped in a field across the street. I also passed by the places where I helped clean out destroyed homes together with a crew of two-dozen anthropology faculty and students.

Shopping Center Mcfarland Blvd. and 13th St. 2011
Apartments McFarland and 13th St. 2016
9 1/2 Street E. Alberta City 2011
10th St. E. Alberta City 2016

For days, we all lived the storm. It seemed the whole city came together to give food, shelter, and comfort to those who needed it. But after a period of intensive engagement, I had to block it all out. I didn’t want to see any more videos of the twister. I even avoided driving through the tornado zone because each time, my shock was renewed. I couldn’t get used to the long vistas, more like the deserts of the southwest than the southeast’s dense forests. Without the tall trees dividing them, places that used to seem so far apart appeared to be much closer. The blue water tower near Rosedale Court and the Druid City Hospital became landmarks visible for miles. Even Forest Lake stood out as a blue patch surrounded by barren land.

27th St 2016. The Blue Water Tower, now a landmark, used to be obscured by trees.
Lake Ave. 2016. New bike trail.

Today the city is rebuilding. Shopping centers and apartment complexes are filling in the corridor along 15th Street and McFarland Boulevard. Greenery has returned to the landscape, though it will be decades before the trees grow tall enough to once again block the view of the water tower and the hospital.

Five years after the storm, social and economic inequalities continue to be inscribed in the landscape. The fancy houses on the hill were rebuilt almost immediately, while just a few blocks away, whole city blocks remain empty fields. Stores and shopping centers east of the university have not returned. But there are also some signs of change. Subsidized housing, functional brick boxes before the storm, have been replaced by gorgeous two-story buildings with steeply pitched roofs. The new Alberta Elementary has been designated an arts magnet school. A bike trail will wind through the heart of town. Plans have just been revealed for a new park with three fountains. You could call it a rebirth. Still patchy. But remarkable considering the magnitude of the destruction.

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The scar left from the tornado is fading. See more here: https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/tuscaloosa-tornado-scar-fades

Council for European Studies Conference

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in antisemitism, Brześć Kujawski, Commemoration, Family, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kolski, Memory, Piwko, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Research Methodology, Włocławek

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Yesterday, I presented a paper titled, “Reassembling Jewish Life in Poland.” It starts like this:

It is easy to get the impression that we have entered an era of retrenchment of exclusionary national, ethnic, and religious categories, making minorities of any kind suspect. Specific objects of fear, such as terrorists, raise suspicions about broader categories, such as Muslims; the economic threat attributed to immigrants extends to all Mexicans, Syrians, North Africans, or Eastern Europeans. And Jews have once again become the object of attacks in Western Europe, leading Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg (2015) to title his recent cover article, “Is it Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” In the current climate of exclusionary politics, the quiet emergence in Poland of efforts to embrace the long history of Jewish residence is all the more striking. Recent studies have “revisited” Jewish Poland (Lehrer 2013) and documented the “return of the Jew” (Reszke 2013), challenging the common assumption that antisemitism rests at the heart of what it means to be Polish. I have been studying contemporary memory projects, including commemorative sites, museums, and cultural festivals that endeavor to reassemble the remaining fragments that provide a window into what Jewish life (and its destruction) was like in Poland. These fragments can reveal something about the past, even if it is just in an incomplete and shattered form. Perhaps of greater significance, they can point toward the future—the possibilities for reengaging with ethnic and religious categories in ways that acknowledge difference without encouraging exclusion. 

Placing a lantern at the opening of the Lapidarium in Wronki
The Atlantic, April 2015

The figure of the Jew remains a multivalent symbol in Poland, even after the destruction of Jewish culture during the Holocaust and further erasure of its traces during state socialism. My research on Jewish heritage asks what can be done with the fragments of Jewish culture that remain, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. And what value does such memory work have? It might appear that too little is left, or that any attempt to piece together fragments will just expose more horror, trauma, and death. Nevertheless, the steady growth of interest in Jewish culture in Poland can be seen in major projects like Warsaw’s Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and in much quieter ways in smaller communities throughout the country. Even President Duda, whose Law and Justice Party tends to support nationalism and exclusionary practices, recently spoke against antisemitism at the opening of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews. To set the stage for my reflections about reassembled fragments of Jewish culture, I first situate Jews within the disrupted history of Poland, and discuss the consequences of postwar trauma under state socialism. This is also a first attempt at integrating an ethnographic approach to the topic, through exploration of commemorative sites and practices, and a more personal one, in the form of interwoven stories about my own Jewish-Polish heritage. Building on concepts of postmemory (Hirsch) and absence of memory (Irwin-Zarecka), I consider what reassembly projects promise for the reconciliation of Polish-Jewish relations on both social and personal levels.

I focused on Włocławek for my case material: Places embodying the “absence of memory” such as the swimming pool in the Jewish cemetery in Brześć Kujawski, the crumbling buildings formerly owned by Jews in the center of Włocławek, and the monument to the Jewish ghetto in the schoolyard that used to be the Jewish cemetery. I discussed what such places communicate about the history of Jewish life (and death) in Poland, as well as the personal, emotional resonances of such places.

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Pre-World War II facade on Tumska Street, Włocławek

Then, I contrasted the impression left by the the Facebook page, “Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica (Forgotten Street of Włocławek),” in which students and teachers at the Automotive High School in Włocławek document “Places of the Holocaust close to us.” The site features historic photographs, brief histories, and excerpts from interviews with local historians and residents who remember the Nazi occupation of the city. This is heavy stuff, and yet the project reflects a different orientation toward the past than do the crumbling buildings on abandoned streets and the swimming pool in a burial ground. It is a public display of intangible heritage, a space for documenting the murder and destruction that occurred during the Holocaust in very personal, localized terms. The Facebook page announces, “These events happened here, on our streets.” It is all the more notable because the primary organizers and audience in this project are young people, probably in most cases the post-postmemory generation that was supposed to be too distant from events to feel any personal connection to them.

And the story doesn’t stop here. I am looking forward to visiting the high school students and their teachers in June. And now my cousins are also interested in the project and maybe even getting involved with it somehow. The ethnographic and personal strands of my work continue to become more strongly intertwined.

 

Włocławek Youth Document Jewish History

10 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kolski, Memory, Piwko, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Post-World War II, Synagogues, World War II, Włocławek

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When I visited Włocławek last February, I was disheartened by the crumbling historic buildings that were formerly owned by pre-World War II Jewish residents. Still, I met a few people actively involved in documenting and preserving the memory of the city’s Jewish population. They include: Mirosława Stojak, who writes about Włocławek’s Jews and manages the website zydzi.wloclawek.pl, Tomasz Wąsik, the historian and director of the Museum of History in Włocławek, and Tomasz Kawski, a historian and professor at Kazimierz the Great University in Bydgoszcz, and author of several books on the history of Polish Jews.

And now high school students in Włocławek have been collecting photographs, writing historical accounts, and doing interviews with people who remember the events of World War II. Their work can be seen on their Facebook page. Here are just a few of the photos they have posted. The synagogue on Królowiecka Street:

Synagogue on ul. Królowiecka, Włocławek

Synagogue on ul. Królowiecka, Włocławek

The synagogue on Zabia Street:

Synagogue ul. Żabia, Włocławek
Synagogue ul. Żabia, Włocławek

 

And here the synagogue in flames:

The synagogue in flames. Source: http://www.4ict.pl/szlaki_pamieci/
Jews in front of the burned Włocławek synagogue. Source: http://www.4ict.pl/szlaki_pamieci/

The students write on their Facebook page:

“On September 24, 1939, Germans ordered Jews they selected to bring a barrel full of tar to the synagogue on Żabia Street. Then they forced them to ignite the fire.

In this way, one of the prettiest synagogues in Poland ceased to exist. The synagogue on Królowiecka Street met the same fate.”

“24 września 1939 roku Niemcy nakazali wyznaczonym przez siebie Żydom wprowadzenie do Synagogi na ulicy Żabiej beczek wypełnionych smołą. Następnie zmusili ich do wzniecenia pożaru.
“Tym samym przestała istnieć jedna z najpiękniejszych Synagog w Polsce.
Podobny los spotkał Synagogę przy ulicy Królewieckiej.”

So while horrible truths are communicated, this project and the Facebook page that documents it stand out to me as a marker of hope. A new generation of Włocławek residents are learning about this difficult history, and returning the story of what happened to the city’s Jews to the center of the narrative about their hometown.

 

 

Swimming in the Synagogue?

20 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Commemoration, Jewish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Post-World War II, Poznan, Pre-World War II, Synagogues, World War II

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How, realistically, can Jewish heritage be preserved in Poland? Some projects are easy to get behind, like the lapidarium in Wronki. Others fall into more problematic ethical territory. The fact remains that there are many more sites in need of preservation than there are funds for such projects. And yet, I would argue that because of the magnitude of the destruction of Jewish life in Poland, every fragment has enhanced value.

The survival of a building as grand as the New Synagogue in Poznań is thus of particular worth. As with most remaining synagogues in Poland, the New Synagogue was not destroyed because it was repurposed. The Nazis converted the building into a swimming pool; after World War II, it remained a municipal pool until 2011. Although there has been ongoing public debate about more appropriate uses of the space, which at some point was passed back into the hands of the Jewish Community, the main reason the pool was finally closed was because of its deteriorating condition.

The New Synagogue was built in 1907 on Stawna Street between Wroniecka and Żydowska (Jewish) Street, just a few blocks from the central market square of the old city. Intended for Poznań’s wealthier Jewish citizens, the imposing structure had a seating capacity of 1200 and a large copper-covered cupola. Its size and grandeur is all the more striking, considering the Jewish population of the city was under 6000 when the synagogue was built, and further dwindled to perhaps 3000 right before World War II (statistics from Virtual Sztetl).

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Poznań’s New Synagogue in 1907 when it was first opened and in 2011, around the time the swimming pool closed (photos from: http://www.januszmarciniak.pl/synagogue)

As these photos show, the German occupiers also removed the cupola and other ornate features, leaving a far less elaborate structure. For several years, starting in 2004, artists like Janusz Marciniak were involved in installations and commemorative events that used the pool as a focal point. Some of these include Marciniak’s  Atlantis (2004),  Alphabet (2005), and 9/09/1939 (2006).

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Poznań’s New Synagogue in 1907 when it was first opened and in 2011, around the time the swimming pool closed (photos from: http://www.januszmarciniak.pl/synagogue)

The Jewish Community, together with others interested in preserving the New Synagogue, proposed restoring the building to its prewar shape and condition, and housing a Center for Dialog and Tolerance. Unfortunately, the plan failed to gain the institutional support and financial backing necessary for it to be realized.

But now there is a new plan in the works, to turn the synagogue into a hotel. In and of itself, that is not the worst outcome; investors will preserve and upgrade the structure, which will include a mini-museum with information about the building’s origins and the history of Poznań’s Jews. So while a museum, or memorial, or center for dialog and tolerance would be preferable, at least the synagogue won’t be torn down, as some city leaders suggested as recently as 2006.

Artist’s rendering of the proposed hotel project. The prewar copper-clad dome is reimagined in glass. Photo from article in Gazeta Wyborcza
Elements of the pool being disassembled. Photo by Łukasz Cynalewski

But putting another pool in the synagogue is, as my husband put it, kind of tone deaf. It’s insensitive to the cruel history of the place.

A recent article in Gazeta Wyborcza about the planned hotel begins with the following fable:

(my translation) “Summer 2020. Early morning at the hotel on Wroniecki Street at the corner of Stawna Street. In a luxury room in the former Jewish synagogue Alessandro Gianini, a tourist from Rome, wakes up. He flew into Poznan the night before and stayed in the modern hotel with intriguing architecture. In the guidebook, he read that the glass copula of the building recreates the old outline of an imposing synagogue. Now he wants to look around the city.

“But before Alessandro sets out for the Old Market Square, he goes down to the second floor for a swim in the hotel pool. The swim helps to relax and awaken him. He changes, and full of life goes down to the ground floor to the restaurant. After a light breakfast and a cappuccino, he heads to the exit. In the hall, however, he sees an open door to a small space. A sign in English hangs on it: “Museum of the Jews of Wielkopolski.”

“Intrigued, Gianini looks inside. He sees large boards–reproductions of sepia-colored photographs. On the first of these–a long swimming pool under a high vaulted ceiling. On the wall of the pool–a fascist eagle.

“Surprised, the Italian looks at the caption below the photo: “In 1940 Nazi occupiers profaned the synagogue, removing the Star of David from it and building a pool inside of it.

“Alessandro suddenly feels ashamed. Because of his morning swim in the place where 80 years earlier Nazis showed complete contempt for the feelings and religion of Jews, and then sentenced them to a horrible death. He is ashamed and embarrassed. And more than anything surprised that history could be repeated in this cruelly perverse way…”

(the original Polish is in the article)

I don’t know anything more about these plans, except for rumors I heard while I was in Poznań last year, and the contents of this article. Perhaps if they do include a pool, it will be located in some new addition to the structure, in a less offensive place than the main sanctuary. I certainly hope so.