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Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Catholicism

Learning about Jewish Religion and Culture in Leszno

07 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Jewish Religion, Leszno, Museum, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Synagogues

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Leszno Regional Museum, Muzeum Okręgowe w Lesznie, Religious Instruction in Schools

“Why should we learn about Judaism?” Mirosława Maćkowiak asked, gazing kindly at my son’s 5th grade class. The twenty-five ten-year-olds sat in chairs in the Jewish Gallery of the Leszno Regional Museum, which is housed in the former synagogue. I hurried to translate Maćkowiak’s question; the language of instruction at the International School of Poznan is English, and only some of the students speak Polish. Maćkowiak, the curator of the Museum’s Jewish collection, answered her own question: We should learn about Judaism because Jesus was a Jew. He celebrated all the Jewish holidays, followed all the Jewish laws, and dressed like a Jew. It’s important to know about the older religion from which Christians came. Judaism is that older religion.

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ISOP students heading to the museum in Leszno, 2015.

Ian’s teacher, Ms. Ania grew up in Leszno, which is about 50 miles south of Poznan. Blond, with the perky beauty of a cheerleader, she is perhaps the only Pole I have ever met who openly declares herself an atheist. She developed a special interest in Judaism after getting to know some Jewish people in London. She lived on a kibbutz in Israel, where she absolutely loved the country and the people. When she returned to Poland, she made a point of learning more about its Jewish history. She brings her students to Leszno every year so they can see artifacts that once were part of the Jewish life that filled the city. She said there isn’t really an equivalent space in Poznan, where the historic synagogue housed a public swimming pool for years, and closed to the public in 2012.

Ania and Mirosława have known each other for years, but each has a very different perspective on religion. Both are positively oriented toward Judaism, and celebrate the historic cultural and religious diversity of Poland, but Mirosława also makes the assumption that the Polish nation is Catholic, and so legitimizes Judaism for her young Polish audience by linking it to the origins of Christianity. Segments of the Catholic Church promote the perspective that Jews are “older brothers in faith, as I witnessed during Judaism Day, which has been a holiday of the Polish Catholic Church since 1997.

During our visit, Ania kept reminding Mirosława that her students were not there to study Judaism from a Catholic theological perspective. “Not all of my students are Catholic,” she insisted. When Ania took a turn translating, she distanced herself from statements framed in a Christian perspective by prefacing them “According to Ms. Mirosława.”

Jewish memory work in Leszno shows us a few things about what can be done with Jewish heritage in Poland. In Leszno, important tangible heritage survived the war, providing a foundation for building public awareness about the history of Leszno’s Jewish population. Additionally, a local institution, the Leszno Regional Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe w Lesznie), became active in historical preservation right after the fall of communism, making Leszno one of the first communities in Poland to renovate Jewish structures, mount Jewish-themed exhibitions, and organize related public events. A central cornerstone of museum activity includes programs for school children, such as the one attended by my son’s class.

Leszno is a regional center with a population of about 64,000. More than a century of Prussian rule contributed to German cultural influences, and in the mid-19th century, the Jewish population began to emigrate to other German cities. By 1923 the last Leszno rabbi departed and was not replaced; only 160 Jews remained in Leszno. When Leszno was absorbed into Hitler’s Third Reich, the few remaining Jews were forced to move to places further east and then became victims of the Holocaust.

Besides the synagogue, several other buildings remain of the city’s Jewish past: a mortuary building where bodies were prepared for burial, now the public library; a mikvah; and multiple houses within the narrow, winding streets of the Jewish district. Little remains of the cemetery, on which socialist-era concrete apartments were built in the 1970s. Some tombstones have returned, however, rediscovered in farmyards and under roads, and now wait in a pile outside the mortuary building until someone gathers the funds and the initiative to create a lapidarium.

Former synagogue, Leszno
Former synagogue, Leszno
Childhood home of Leo Baeck (1987-1958), rabbi and theologian of Liberal Judaism. Leszno.
Childhood home of Leo Baeck (1987-1958), rabbi and theologian of Liberal Judaism. Leszno.
Mortuary building, Leszno. Apartments behind it were built on the Jewish cemetery
Mortuary building, Leszno. Apartments behind it were built on the Jewish cemetery
Grave stones outside the former mortuary house, Leszno
Grave stones outside the former mortuary house, Leszno
Mikvah, Leszno
Mikvah, Leszno
Jewish quarter, Leszno
Jewish quarter, Leszno
Old House of Prayer, dating from the first half of the 18th century, Leszno Jewish quarter
Old House of Prayer, dating from the first half of the 18th century, Leszno Jewish quarter

The Leszno Regional Museum’s impressive collection of Jewish sacred and everyday objects are mostly on loan from other regional museums. They are arranged in wood-framed glass display cases, each containing objects associated with a religious holiday. A laminated sheet on top of each case describes the historical and religious significance of the holiday, typical activities and meals, as well as characteristic objects associated with the holiday. For instance, one case contains artifacts relevant to Hanukah, mostly nine-candle menorahs called hanukiahs. The written description explains Hanukah, the Holiday of Lights, is “the eight-day holiday commemorating the triumph of Judah Maccabee against the Syrian army in 165 BC….” and explains, “Each day a successive candle is lit.” Words like “hanukiah,” “gelt,” and “dreidel” are written in bold, followed by their definition and their significance for the holiday.

Students meet Mirosława Maćkowiak, Director of the Jewish Division of the Leszno Museum, in the former sanctuary of the synagogue
Students meet Mirosława Maćkowiak, Director of the Jewish Division of the Leszno Museum, in the former sanctuary of the synagogue
Maćkowiak, Director of the Jewish Division of the Leszno Museum, discusses Jewish religion and culture. On the wall hangs an ornately embroidered parochet, a curtain that would go in front of the wooden cabinet containing the Torah scrolls.
Maćkowiak, Director of the Jewish Division of the Leszno Museum, discusses Jewish religion and culture. On the wall hangs an ornately embroidered parochet, a curtain that would go in front of the wooden cabinet containing the Torah scrolls.
Shabbat artifacts, including cups, tray, spice tower, and challah draped by a white cloth, Leszno Museum.
Shabbat artifacts, including cups, tray, spice tower, and challah draped by a white cloth, Leszno Museum.
Torah, crown and cover, Leszno Museum.
Torah, crown and cover, Leszno Museum.
Barrel and dippers for ablution, Leszno Museum.
Barrel and dippers for ablution, Leszno Museum.
Maćkowiak explains to the the children how to use a yad, a Torah pointer, Leszno Museum.
Maćkowiak explains to the the children how to use a yad, a Torah pointer, Leszno Museum.

Another case labeled “Shabbat table” contains silver cups, goblets, spice towers, candlesticks, a tray, and a knife, all arranged atop a white linen cloth. Two loaves of challah covered with a white cloth complete the display. The information sheet says, “Shabbat (rest) is the most important weekly Jewish holiday, in which there is an obligatory restriction on doing any kind of work. It begins on Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday at dusk. It is a joyful holiday.” It goes on to describe how candles are lit by a woman, while the father of the family says a prayer called kaddish (written in bold). Further, it explains that herbs are placed in the spice tower (bessamin, the Hebrew word is written in bold) and lit on fire. It describes typical Shabbat food, including challah, chicken soup, and the single-dish meal for Saturday dinner called cholent (again, this term is in bold).

The texts signal continuity over change. Jewish culture is portrayed as something that does not modernize. But this emphasis on normative customs also relegates Jewish culture to the past. The objects on display are old, most dating back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. While many of the objects, such as hanukiahs and Shabbat goblets, have contemporary equivalents that remain part of standard Jewish cultural and religious practice, other objects on display are artifacts of a former era. For instance, one of particular interest to the ten-year-olds on my son’s fieldtrip was a massive copper barrel set on the floor in a corner. Mirosława Maćkowiak explained that it would have been placed at the entrance of a mortuary building or some other place where it was customary for Jews to wash their hands. She pointed to two two-handled containers tacked to the wall above the barrel, and said they would have been used to scoop out and pour the water. She related this practice to the importance of cleanliness in the Jewish tradition.

Maćkowiak made similar generalizations about the value Jews placed on education, their kosher dietary practices, as well as the kinds of activities restricted on the Sabbath, such as cooking or turning lights on or off. She made no mention of the fact that many contemporary Jews dispense with these practices, nor did she discuss historical variation among Jewish populations. Even though Mirosława Maćkowiak talked about Judaism as a living religion, still practiced by millions of people worldwide, the static portrayal within the museum exhibition reflects the absence of Jews within contemporary Polish society.

My son’s class, when given the opportunity, gazed at the articles in the display cases with curiosity. Of far greater interest to them, however, was the hands-on demonstration by Maćkowiak in front of a two-meter tall display case intended as the focal point of the room. She explained that this was meant to evoke the most sacred part of a synagogue—the Aron haKodesh, where the Torah scrolls are stored. She pointed out the parochet hanging on the wall to the right of the case, explaining elaborately embroidered curtains such as this would cover the front of the wooden Torah cabinet. She pointed out the items in the case, including a silver crown set atop a fabric Torah cover, as well as some Torah scrolls wound around wooden dowels. Then she put on white archivist gloves, and took out a silver yad with a pointing end shaped like a tiny hand with its index finger extended, and demonstrated how such pointers were used to read the Torah from right to left without touching the parchment.

My son’s class was not the traditional school group. Their teacher brought them as part of a unit on world religions, where the emphasis was on cultural and religious diversity. By contrast, most school trips are initiated by religion teachers.

In most cases, religion is taught by Catholic clergy during the regular school day. This is an artifact of a law passed in 1991 in reaction to the Communist rejection of religion. As a reassertion of the centrality of religion for the Polish nation, religious education in schools became standard. Over the years, many have complained to me about it, but very few go to the trouble of filing the necessary paperwork to have their children attend “ethics” classes instead. After all, 90% of Poles identify as Catholic, and children risk ostracization if they are singled out like that.

Notably, this law passed at the same time that Jewish heritage work came out of the shadows and spurred public projects like the one that established the Jewish exhibition in Leszno. Poland is a complicated place, and relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Polish culture and history are a fundamental knot at the center of that complexity.

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish Nation

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Catholicism, Family, Genealogy, Identity, Jewish immigrants, Poland, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Włocławek

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Honorary Citizen of the Russian Empire, Mizrahi Party

Were Jews included as part of the Polish nation or were they excluded from it? This was one of my driving questions when I started to uncover the Jewish roots of my (Polish) mother’s family. I wondered if I might find my ancestors in some kind of hybrid Polish-Jewish space in which they identified as both Polish and Jewish. Or perhaps they lived in a world that ran parallel to that of their non-Jewish neighbors, with limited points of interaction. What I have found so far is neither straightforward nor consistent. It doesn’t fit entirely nor unambiguously into a narrative of hostile separation nor of peaceful coexistence. I’ll be focusing here on my ancestors’ lives before World War II. The Holocaust was such a devastating event that it needs to considered in its own terms, something I’ll try to do in another post.

The Polish lands were hospitable to my Jewish ancestors, allowing them to prosper for generations. My grandfather Jacob Rotblit owned a Ford dealership in the 1930s, and before then he was a manager of an international trading firm. Or maybe he sold jewelry. It’s hard to find absolute proof, but either way, he maintained important business interests.

Poland PartitionMap

Poland was under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian rule from the end of the 18th century until World War I. The region around Warsaw, where my family lived, was under Russian rule, though it had some degree of autonomy for some of this time. Map source and more information about the partitions of Poland: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/466910/Partitions-of-Poland

My grandmother’s father Hil Majer Piwko was in the lumber trade. Documents from the National Archive in Włocławek show he owned a building supply store in the 1920s, and according to Aunt Pat, he owned a sawmill before then. Pat also writes that he was recognized as an “honorary citizen of the Russian Empire” for his service during a cholera epidemic. This was sometime before 1918, when the region near Warsaw was part of the Russian Empire. Apparently, the title “honorary citizen” came with some of the rights that were normally reserved for the nobility.

So there was separation but also opportunity. It was not very easy for Jews to become gentry, unless perhaps through marriage, but there were other means by which they were granted special honors and rights. By comparison, different social classes faced road blocks against entering the gentry, regardless of ethnicity or religion. For instance, most peasants lacked the financial means and cultural capital to gain such social standing. At least in some times and places, wealthy, educated Jews would have had more avenues to social advancement.

More about my family’s prosperity can be read from the family portrait that was taken around 1916. Hil Majer and his wife Hinda had many children. They were wealthy enough to dress in fine fabrics. Hil Majer’s traditional clothing suggests that he had the freedom to practice his faith and customs, while his children were free to assimilate, as indicated by their modern clothing. Separation wasn’t just enforced by the majority, but also sometimes chosen to preserve cultural and religious distinctiveness.

JechielHindaAndChildren

The Piwkos c. 1916. For more about this photo see: The Photo That Started it All, Some Reassembled Stories, and What Year Was It?

 

Why did the family move from Hil Majer’s native Skierniewice to the village of Sobota, before settling down in Brześć Kujawski and then Włocławek? It seems likely they were following economic opportunities, but also possibly they were seeking a place more hospitable to Jews. This fits a common narrative about the Jews as wanderers. They arrived in Eastern Europe as tradespeople, financial advisers, and estate managers, and eventually established settled communities. But I’ve also been told that by the 19th century, most Jewish families stayed put. That’s why knowing the place of origin of one relative usually leads to many more relations.

Włocławek hadn’t always welcomed Jews. Until the end of the 18th century, it was a Church town, home to a bishop’s cathedral, with restrictions against Jewish residents. But then the city secularized, and as it industrialized and became an engine of commerce, the Jewish population also grew. Located as it was between Warsaw and the Baltic Coast on the Vistula River, Włocławek became an important port, and home to paper, ceramic, metal, chemical, and food processing factories.

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Włocławek before 1898. Note the factories near the river. By Bolesław Julian Sztejner (1861-1921) (http://www.wuja.republika.pl/widoki_ogolne_wl.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In addition to economics and religion, political factors shaped the degree of inclusion available to Jews within the broader society. Antisemitism grew in the 1880s throughout the Polish lands, as Polish nationalists became more active in their pursuit of national sovereignty. Once Poland gained its autonomy in 1918, tensions deepened. Some political forces, led by Józef Piłsudski, argued for a broad definition of citizenship within the new Polish state, insuring equal rights for the 1/3 of the population that was Ukrainian, German, Jewish, and other minorities. Another political faction, led by Roman Dmowski, advocated for a narrower definition of Polishness, based on an idea of “pure blood,” by which he meant shared descent that also tied the nation to Catholicism. At the same time, Jewish nationalism grew, and took on a number of forms, leading some to embrace  Yiddish culture, and others to espouse Zionism. Some Jewish nationalists dreamed of a safe place within the countries in which they lived, while others turned their eyes toward Palestine.

Włocławek became a crossroad for different varieties of Judaism, including Zionism, Hasidism, and Reform. Around the time that my great grandfather moved there, a new rabbi, Jehuda Lejb Kowalski, also arrived. He was very popular, and succeeded in reconciling the factions within the Jewish community. In 1902, Kowalski helped found the Mizrahi Party, and was a key leader in this Orthodox Zionist organization. Perhaps Kowalski is what drew the family to Włocławek? I’m not sure of Hil Majer’s affiliation, but his son-in-law, Rachel’s husband Pinkas, was a member of the Mizrahi Party in Włocławek, and a representative of the governing board of the city’s Jewish Community in 1931. Hil Majer’s oldest son Jacob represented the Zionist Party on the governing board from 1917 until 1922, and he was on the City Council from 1917-19. In other words, Jacob wasn’t only involved in Jewish political life; he also held a position in city government.

So there were opportunities to integrate into the broader society, to pursue economic and political goals, and to flourish as a distinct religious and cultural group.

But clearly there were problems that caused my relatives to leave for other countries, long before the German occupation and Nazi assaults against Jews. One of Hil Majer’s brothers went to Canada in the 1880s; the son of another went to Switzerland. In 1906-7, two of Hil Majer’s sons went to New York. Over the years, Philip sponsored many of the next generation who started out in the US at his bakery. Four more sisters, including my grandmother, also came to the US. Jacob’s children, as well as Rachel and her children, went to Palestine starting in the 1930s. Still, choosing, or even being forced, to leave didn’t necessarily signal a lack of attachment to Poland. For over a century, there have been mass migrations from the Polish lands by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who, regardless of their national or ethnic affiliation, chased after their dreams in distant lands.

Erik Ross, a priest, blogs about Poznan’s Jewish history and heritage

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Catholicism, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Poznan

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Erik Ross

I came across some extraordinary posts about the fragments of Jewish life in Poznan, written by Erik Ross, a priest of the Dominican order, whose blog appears in the Times of Israel.

His posts are heart-wrenching and entertaining, full of photos, personal reflections, and difficult facts.

In Walk down Jew Street, he describes the frescoes in the Church of the Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus (Kościół Najświętszej Krwi Pana Jezusa). The church is on what is now called “Jewish Street” but inside, the recently renovated paintings depict the story of the desecration of the host by three Jews. Most striking to me, Ross points out the many places around town where this story is renewed–in the weekly opportunities to get miraculous water from the well below the church (where according to legend the Jews tried to wash off the blood that ran from the stolen hosts where they had stabbed them); in the fresh gold leaf on the Latin words recounting the story in the Corpus Christi Church, as well as three newly painted doll-sized figures of Jews around a well under a fragment of alter (marking the site where the stolen hosts were discarded in what was originally a swamp, reclaimed by a priest who brought them to another church, but then miraculously flew back to the swamp leading to the decision to build the church there).

But you should read his post, which goes into much more detail.

Frescos over the alter depicting the profaning of the host, Church of the Most Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus in Poznan
Frescos over the alter depicting the profaning of the host, Church of the Most Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus in Poznan
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Ross has also written Fake Lake, about the beautiful Lake Rusałka that was built with Jewish slave labor and reinforced with Jewish tombstones, and Swim-a-gogue about the pool that until recently filled the main sanctuary of the synagogue (I’ve written about it too, in Swimming in the Synagogue).

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Lake Rusałka, where the CityTrail runs are held in Poznań. Built with the forced labor of Jews during World War II, many of whom died in the process.

 

 

Poles Remember

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Cemeteries, Commemoration, Dukla, Memory, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations

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All Saints Day

Today is the Catholic holiday, All Saints Day, the time to honor the dead. Customarily, Poles visit cemeteries to clean and decorate the graves of their family members. During the day, chrysanthemums in all shades adorn tombstones. At night, candle lanterns on graves make the cemeteries glow. Twinkling hillsides can be seen from far away.

I’m pleased to see that some Poles also remember Poland’s now-absent Jewish population on November 1. I’ve seen this in Warsaw and in Lutowiska. And here is a photo Jacek Koszczan posted on Facebook today showing the candle lanterns on the commemorative monument at the town of Dukla’s Jewish cemetery.

Candle lanterns on the monument commemorating Dukla's Jewish population, November 1, 2016, All Saint's Day.

Candle lanterns on the monument commemorating Dukla’s Jewish population, November 1, 2016, All Saint’s Day.

He and other citizens of Dukla made the trip out to the cemetery to light a candle for the dead. In this, I see an expression of honor that transcends religious difference.

Jacek has done a great deal to reassemble the memory of Jewish life in Dukla. In fact, he was honored last month by the Polin Museum for his work. The Polin website explains, “Jacek Koszczan is the founder and director of the Organization for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the Dukla Region–Dukla Shtetl. His work involves both obtaining and archiving knowledge about the Jews of Dukla and its surroundings, as well as educational activities. Jacek Koszczan is the initiator and builder of a monument commemorating the 70th anniversary of the murder of Dukla’s Jews, the volunteer caretaker of the Jewish cemeteries, mass grave, as well as the ruins of the Dukla synagogue. Thanks to his efforts and knowledge, he succeeded in facilitating the honoring of two Dukla-region families with the medal for the Righteous among Nations.”

Jacek Koszczan receiving his award from the Polin Museum for his work on Jewish heritage in Dukla, October 21, 2016. Photo by Janusz Czamarski

Jacek Koszczan receiving his award from the Polin Museum for his work on Jewish heritage in Dukla, October 21, 2016. Photo by Janusz Czamarski

All in all, Jacek has been instrumental in the return of the memory of Jews to his community. I have been impressed by his energy, enthusiasm, and generosity. For him, this is a labor of love–for his community, for the memory of those who suffered, and for humanity in the face of evil.

The Phantom Limb

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Catholicism, Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Lesko, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, stereotypes

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Fieldwork 1991-3

It was a beautiful sunny day in Alabama. As I walked across the quad enjoying the promise of spring, I bumped into a colleague, Joanna Biermann, who is going to Warsaw next month to participate in a conference associated with the annual Beethoven Festival. She has been an invited guest several times already, and has made some good friends in Warsaw as a result. We took a half hour to catch up, sipping tea on a bench under the large oaks behind the library. In response to my current research, she quoted a friend of hers who describes Polish Jews as the nation’s phantom limb; the pain remains even after the Jews are gone.

The beauty of ethnographic fieldwork is you record everything, even what seems at the times peripheral to your area of focus. That means I have over twenty years of fieldnotes I continue to mine for information about other aspects of Polish culture. Recently, I returned to the notes from my earliest fieldwork in 1991-1993 looking for references to Jews and Jewish culture. I coded them using ethnographic software, and now I’m trying to pull out patterns in the way Poles talked about and acted toward Jewish subjects. The first thing that strikes me is how often Jews were mentioned in interviews and informal conversations, despite the fact that most of the people I spoke with had limited or no contact with actual Jews. Most of the participants in my study were still in high school in the early 1990s. That means that by the time they were born in the 1970s, most of the Polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust had left, pushed out by organized political campaigns and by everyday prejudice.

LeskoSynagog

Lesko Synagogue in 1992

The comments I recorded are mostly superficial, and usually fall back on stock phrases, sentiments, and stereotypes. Since I mostly did group interviews in the early 1990s, I was able to witness young peoples’ debates about the role of Jews in Polish life. Their views were so varied that no unified perspective emerged. One person would claim that Jews are still prevalent in government, or in journalism, and others would disagree. One criticized Poles for intolerance, while others interjected that tolerance was a fundamental value that has made Poland a hospitable environment for minorities (including Jews) for most of the nation’s history. Some addressed a lingering distaste, or even hatred of Jews; others countered that these are dying artifacts of an older generation that young people do not share.

Most commonly, Jews were linked to property and wealth. I was told that Jews used to say, “You own the streets but we own the buildings.” Even today, this phrase is repeated. Usually, it’s a way of highlighting the discrepancy between the political domination of Poles and the economic power of Jews. Some imply that because Jews expressed disdain for the impoverished Poles, it justifies Poles’ resentment and dislike of Jews. But also, because I’ve heard this phrase so many times in so many ways, I know it’s often repeated without much thought at all, as one of the few things anyone ever told them about Jews.

Some participants in my study expressed continued concern about Jews reclaiming property or Jewish capital flooding into Poland and buying up the country, yet again leaving Poles with nothing. Others defended everyone’s right to invest in Poland, emphasizing the importance of being open to other groups, or countered that Poles are envious of anyone who gets ahead. One person suggested that Jews should be admired for their ability to create and organize; Poles should learn from them, not assume that they are schemers.

On the ten-day walking pilgrimage to Częstochowa (I really did this—all 300 km—to the monastery housing Poland’s most important icon, the Black Madonna), a priest entertained the pilgrims on the journey with stories that used humor as a vehicle for discussing the differences between Catholics and Jews. Although he tried to show that the two faiths have shared origins and fundamental similarities, he sometimes crossed the line toward mockery. For instance, when explaining why Catholics don’t abide by Sabbath restrictions, he told a story about an Orthodox Jew who hadn’t locked his business before sunset on the Sabbath, so he used his cat to turn the key.

On another occasion, I spoke with a priest who felt the Polish people and the Catholic Church are under attack by accusations of intolerance and antisemitism. He talked about slander in the press, and referred to an article that linked antisemitism in Germany to the irrational antisemitism that persists in Poland despite the virtual absence of Jews. He complained that this view is biased and has no place in an article about Germany. He further complained that when Poles tell the truth, for instance that most communists in Poland during and after WWII were Jews, Jews accuse them of antisemitism. These are the same Jews, he went on, who told Poles, “You own the streets but we own the buildings.” The priest also argued that press reports are overwhelmingly negative and misrepresent the Church, giving it a bad name. But then he went on to label as Jews two prominent journalists—Adam Michnik, the editor of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and Jerzy Urban, editor of the satirical news weekly Nie. On another occasion, he got into a heated defense of Poles, saying he doesn’t understand why they have a reputation in the West for antisemitism.

Both of the priests reinforced the distance between Poles and Jews, though in different ways and with different degrees of vitriol. They offered little possibility for Jews to be regarded as Poles.

The person who expressed the most nuanced view of Poles’ relations with other ethnic and religious groups was the director of one of the high schools in Lesko, a small town in the southeastern mountain region of Bieszczady. Even before I started the taped interview with him, he told me that the biggest ethnic problem in Poland was going to be with Lithuanians and Jews who want their former properties back. For example, the dormitory of the high school is claimed by prewar owners who were Jews. At the time, it wasn’t yet clear if the building would be returned, and if the money spent on its renovation would be reimbursed. During the interview, he had this to say:

“There are minorities [in Poland], everyone knows that. It’s an interesting situation. The typical American may not understand because in the US there are many nationalities that cultivate their own traditions, but nevertheless remain primarily American. But because of the unjust politics toward minorities during the Interwar period, hatred was awakened between Poles and Jews and Poles and Ukrainians. This was easy to do because Poles were in their own country but poor, while Jews owned the buildings and businesses. Jews are condemned for being rich, while Ukrainians are pushing for higher positions. But there are no attacks. Everyone lived together, went to school together, met and got to know each other’s culture. They were all free to study their religion. Also, in Lesko, there was a Greek Catholic church, a Catholic church, and a Jewish place of worship, and nothing happened. Everyone could believe what they wanted, and no one was persecuted for what they think. Jews were destroyed by Germans[…] After the war, state politics was also in error. It acted as if minorities didn’t exist at all.”

Although he reiterated stereotypes, he also sought to balance positive and negative views of Jews and their history in Poland.

Others hinted at an ethos of tolerance. They talked about historically mixed communities that functioned peacefully, and about the need for acceptance of all people. One student in Krakow said, “If we are really are democratic now, there has to be a place for Jews [in Poland]. We can’t say ‘Polska dla Polakow’ [‘Poland for Poles’].” Others, like the student who showed me the Jewish cemetery in Lesko shortly after I moved there in 1992, expressed sadness that Jews are no longer present. He said it’s too bad the cemetery is neglected, but Poles have no money and there are no more Jews to insure its upkeep. He said he likes to come to the cemetery; it’s a peaceful place.

Much of the talk I recorded in the early 1990s seems predicated on the assumption that there were more Jews present than actually were at the time, and they were hiding in plain sight. Some felt threatened by the potential wealth and power of these covert Jews. But others asserted that there are no more Jews in Poland. If any remained, they assimilated— it was Jews who felt threatened by Poles after the war and during communism, so they stopped admitting their ethnicity, changed their last names, and forgot their culture and traditions. These are two sides of the same coin because in fact, public Jewish life and religion disappeared from nearly every Polish village, town, and city. But the past 25 years have shown that a notable proportion of contemporary Poles have some Jewish heritage and an increasing number of them (though still a tiny fraction of the contemporary Polish population, and a tiny fraction of the prewar Polish-Jewish population) is becoming more curious about their origins. Already in 1992-3, the sense was growing among the teenagers I spoke with that it isn’t necessary to hide one’s ethnic/religious roots anymore. After the fall of communism in 1989, something significant had shifted and institutional barriers against ethnic and religious minorities had weakened.

Still, so much about Jewish lives and deaths were left out of the comments I collected, as if the pain of their amputation from Polish communities was too much to bear.

Okopowa: Warsaw’s Jewish Cemetery, All Souls Day 2014

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Cemeteries, Family, Jewish Culture, Memory, Warsaw

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All Saints Day, Mourning, Okopowa Cemetery, Powązki Cemetery

November is the month when I think about death the most. It starts with the Catholic holidays All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2). It’s the month when the leaves fall from the trees and the long nights settle in. But it’s also the anniversary of my more personal encounters with death. My brother Ron’s accident was a few days before Thanksgiving in 1990. Nine years later, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, my dad had his accident while visiting me in my new home in Alabama. Both were injured in a fall. Both were in the hospital for two to three weeks before dying.

I think we all learned how to deal with this kind of loss from the first experience. The first time, no matter how dire the news was from New York, I held on to the certainty that Ron would pull through. I let my mother persuade me that it made no sense to come home right away, when he was still in such bad shape. I should finish the semester in graduate school in San Diego and come home as scheduled on December 11 when Ron would be well enough to appreciate my presence. I think she was trying to protect me from the shock of his injuries. And I believed her because she was my mom, and because it was easier, and because the prospect of him dying was inconceivable. But he didn’t last that long and I never got to see him alive again.

The second time, we knew not to assume anything. We held on to hope until the last moment, but we were more prepared for Dad’s passing. My brother Chris was already there, but my other brother Wiley flew in from California. We all sat vigil, visiting Dad every chance we could get and supporting each other in our grief.

So while I love Thanksgiving, this is also the time of year I think about my brother and my father. And I grieve for them all over again.

Especially after Ron died, I struggled with grief. There didn’t seem to be any way to talk about it or express it publicly. I think this is particularly difficult in California, a place that celebrates life and youth. The cemeteries are hidden from view or turned into parks. That’s why it resonated with me to spend All Saints Day in Poland. During this holiday, families visit their relatives in the cemetery (those who are living and those who are dead). They clean the graves and decorate them with chrysanthemums and candle lanterns. At night, the whole cemetery glows with candlelight, and throngs fill the cemetery pathways. Death isn’t hidden away, and the people you love remain a part of your life even after they die.

Whenever I’m in Warsaw, I make a point of visiting my step-grandfather’s grave in Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery. I clean the stone, place flowers, and light candles. This is the closest thing to a relative I have in Poland, and one of the only remaining traces of my family’s lives there. Last year was the first time I was able to make it there on All Saints Day. I went with my son, who by now is familiar with the custom of visiting, cleaning, and decorating graves. He likes to watch the candles burn.

DSC01729

Ian watching the candles at his great grandfather’s grave, Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, November 1, 2014

The first time I went to Powązki was in 1986, during my first visit to Poland. I spent a couple of days with Marta, a professor of American literature who had worked as my grandmother’s companion back in New York. She took me to my grandfather’s grave. She knew where it was because my grandmother had told her where to find it. She made a point of visiting every time she visited her own relatives in the cemetery, and she kept the grave tidy for Babcia.

I vaguely remember we stopped in at the Jewish cemetery also. But it’s also possible I’m confusing my memories of the large Jewish cemetery in Krakow, or the one in Prague, which was in a more confined space. It’s possible I visited Okopowa, the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, on a later trip to Poland.

Last August, when I was at Powązki with my brothers, I noticed what looked like a synagogue on the other side of the wall, right there near my grandfather’s grave. Looking at a map, I realized that the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery abuts Powązki (a Catholic cemetery), as does the Evangelical Cemetery. Either I had forgotten this, or simply never knew how close they all were to each other.

On November 2, All Souls Day, I visited Okopowa with my friend Beata. She has lived in Warsaw for close to 20 years, but had never been there before. Beata said she had been wanting to visit the Jewish Cemetery for a long time. We parked in front of her friends’ glass high-rise apartment building right across the street from the entrance.

The regular admission fee was waived for the holiday. A good number of people strolled the alleys. A man in a yarmulke led a tour. Beata, Ian, and I made our way past a reconstruction of the original cemetery gate and a low wall made of the fragments of tombstones. The wall also includes commemorative plaques for Holocaust survivors who emigrated and were buried elsewhere.

The reconstructed gate and wall constructed of fragments of tombstones
The reconstructed gate and wall constructed of fragments of tombstones
"Father, You wanted to, so you symbolically returned to your country." Alia Skowronek died in the USA
“Father, You wanted to, so you symbolically returned to your country.” Alia Skowronek died in the USA

Okopowa remains an active burial ground, and people have continued to be buried there after World War II through to the present. The cemetery shows signs of ongoing attention and care, though broken and overgrown stones fill the vast expanses beyond the main walkways. There are many large tombstones and some family plots, suggesting affluent families. Even older tombstones include Polish as well as Hebrew inscriptions, and some have writing in Polish only. This signals to me a higher degree of assimilation in Warsaw relative to the smaller towns I have visited in central and eastern Poland (Lesko, Żychlin, Lutowiska, Skierniewice, to name a few) where most if not all inscriptions are in Hebrew. It’s different in western Poland, where tombstones were commonly in both Hebrew and German.

Off to one side, I found an area partially filled with older tombstones that have clearly been reset because they are all upright and evenly spaced in rows. These have the larger lettering characteristic of tombstones dating from an earlier period. They fill about 1/3 of the space; the remaining 2/3 are covered in weeds. Along the opposite wall more tombstones are stacked as if they are waiting to be set out in rows. I wonder what is being done here. Might these stones have been recovered from other locations?

Tombstones waiting to be set in rows? Where did they come from?
Tombstones waiting to be set in rows? Where did they come from?
Older looking graves reset in rows
Older looking graves reset in rows

The cemetery also contains an area filled with symbolic graves for the victims of the Holocaust, and another large round depression marked by a ring of rough stones painted white with a thin black stripe through the middle. This is where victims of the Warsaw Ghetto are buried. Numerous candles were lit on and below the plaque explaining this, as well as on some sand fill that seems to have been recently placed in part of the depression. Some of the candles are in cans with Hebrew writing on the outside. I’m told these are from Israel.

Symbolic graves of Holocaust victims
Symbolic graves of Holocaust victims
Candles left on the site where victims of the Warsaw Ghetto are buried
Candles left on the site where victims of the Warsaw Ghetto are buried
"Here rest the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto 1941-1943" The plaque looks like a tombstone. The top is covered with stones and lighted candles cluster around its base
“Here rest the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto 1941-1943” The plaque looks like a tombstone. The top is covered with stones and lighted candles cluster around its base

Several headstones are adorned with white and red ribbons and Polish flags with “PW,” the symbol of the Polish Underground Army. These are soldiers who died during their service in the war, clearly both Jews and Polish patriots. Some resisted the pressures to identify as just one or the other. They were both, despite the antisemitism, despite Hitler.

Blima Mikanowska, AK soldier
Blima Mikanowska, AK soldier
Tombstone of Józef Walfisz. A distant ancestor?
Tombstone of Józef Walfisz. A distant ancestor?

I passed the grave of Józef Walfisz, who died 15 Aug 1874 at the age of 13. Walfisz was my great grandmother’s maiden name. Could this be a relative?

We had to leave because a man told us the cemetery closes at 4 PM. I understand why. Dusk was falling and the cemetery has no electric lights. A few candles glowed, but not enough to light the way as in the Catholic cemeteries on All Saint’s Day.

The Okopowa Cemetery evokes the rich life of Jews in Warsaw—it’s a physical reminder of their numbers and their affluence (and their level of assimilation). It also embodies how Jewish life in Poland was cut off, brutally and decidedly. But I also see here evidence of continued care and use, something that is not present in places where no Jews are left to visit their relatives and eventually be buried themselves.

How Catholic were they?

26 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Family

≈ 4 Comments

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Halina Bereday, Maria Bereda(y) Galbraith

I always thought of my babcia as very religious. On her wall, she kept Jesus on the cross and a Madonna in a gilded frame. Her expressions of faith tended toward the mystical. She believed in miracles and blessings. She prayed on the rosary. She blessed my friend Kara’s baby daughter the first time she held her. She must have been about 90 then.

A bad photo, but one of the few I have of Babcia's apartment on Riverside Drive, showing her Madonna in a gilded frame.

A bad photo, but one of the few I have of Babcia’s apartment on Riverside Drive, showing her Madonna in a gilded frame.

And yet, she never took me to a church service. I wonder if any of my brothers or cousins remember going to church with her?

My mother used to say Babcia was “more Catholic than the Pope.” I don’t think mom appreciated such public expressions of faith. Sometime after 1985, Babcia moved to an assisted living facility in Flushing. It had mostly Jewish residents including many Holocaust survivors. It may have even been run by a Jewish service organization. I’m pretty sure one of our Jewish relatives helped her get a place there, though of course at the time no one told me anything about that. Babcia did not like living there. Doubtless, much of it had to do with her declining health that made it impossible to stay independent in her old apartment, but she also seemed disdainful of the other residents. She flaunted her Catholicism and rebuffed their attempts to befriend her. I don’t think the managers cared much for Babcia, either. When her health declined to the point she couldn’t take care of herself, they said they have no place for her in their more advanced care facilities. She moved for the last time to a nursing home back in Manhattan, around the corner from St. John the Devine Cathedral. Babcia spent most of her life denying her Jewish heritage. I suspect it was too uncomfortable for her to be surrounded by Jews in a Jewish-identified institution.

When my mom talked about her Catholic faith, she essentially did so in the past tense. She was very devout as a child, and wanted to become a nun. When she was fifteen, she went to a boarding school in Belgium run by nuns. One story she told me about living there was that her mother sent her a box of chocolates. She gave them all away, believing that kind of self-sacrifice was an expression of her faith. Then, that night she cried herself to sleep because she wanted one so bad.

Mama liked to sit in churches, but she didn’t go to services. Or if she did go, she didn’t take communion. She said it’s because she doesn’t go to confession. When I asked her why not, she said everything she experienced during and after the war made her grow distant from the church. Mama’s temple was our backyard. She called herself a pantheist, and said that when she wants to pray she just goes outside and meditates. Her mantra was “ocean.” For as long as she could, mama had a chair she would move around the yard depending on the sun and which flowers were in bloom. Thanks to Krystyna, she still gets out into her garden most days.

Mama in the garden

Mama in the garden

My brothers and I weren’t even baptized. Mama said it was because my dad didn’t want Catholic kids, and she didn’t stand up to him. Rather, she wanted to let us make our own decision about religion when we grew up. Was this odd? At the time I didn’t think so. My dad was an atheist. He had the mind of a scientist and just couldn’t take the leap of faith that, well, faith requires. Later in life, he tried. Maybe it was because his best friend Max became a believer. He read Thomas Merton, and even bought me one of his books. But he simply couldn’t overcome his skepticism. Instead, after retiring, he studied philosophy. My son seems to have inherited this skepticism; at the age of seven he decided God does not exist; he hasn’t changed his mind yet.

I still wonder, though, what could have turned Mama away from the church. Maybe witnessing the destruction of war made her question the existence of God. At least the Christian God, because she remained deeply attuned to God in nature. I think she said it had something to do with her injuries, the long series of failed surgeries, the scars they left behind, and then the final straw, getting tuberculosis and losing a year of her life at a TB hospital in Denver. I also wonder if it had something to do with her Jewish heritage and her failed love affair with a priest. But I’ll leave that story for another post.

Why we grew up Christian

18 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Family, Jewish Culture

≈ 4 Comments

What really happened is hard to reconstruct. I’ve asked my brothers, my cousins, my aunts, and each tells the story a little differently. Still, the general outline remains the same. I will call Babcia Halina because that’s the name she used in the US (I’ll discuss the fluidity of names in another post). Halina was a rebel. One of the youngest in her family, she resisted the constraints imposed on her by her conservative father. She even ran away and moved in with an older sister in Warsaw. My cousin Krysia remembers that the main reason Halina left was because her father would not let her go to college. In Warsaw, she attended university. Still, Halina’s parents persuaded her to marry an older man who was a friend of the family. It was an arranged marriage, not a love match, and the two turned out to have very different characters. I think she found him stodgy and conservative.

Halina was already the mother of two small children when she met Zygmunt on a train. Well, one cousin heard she was on a tram not a train. But everyone else says it was a train; some say she was on her way to her country estate, or to visit relatives, or maybe to visit friends. But anyway, they met. It was an instant attraction, and by the end of the journey, Zygmunt told her, “I see you weeping on my grave.” That’s what Chris remembers he said, and I like it better than my version.

Zygmunt Bereda was a wealthy businessman, a wheeler-dealer, a man of big passions, and a Catholic. He became part of Halina’s social circle. Maybe he turned out to be a neighbor of the friend she went to visit; maybe he was a business partner of her husband (again, different people explain it differently). They ended up divorcing their spouses and running off together (though perhaps this happened in the opposite order). Halina became a Catholic. Uncle George and my mom were baptized. They took steps to bury their Jewish heritage. They all took the name Bereda and had false papers made that changed Halina’s maiden name from Piwko to Barylska, and Mama’s birthplace from Warsaw to Wilno (Vilnius). Zygmunt and Halina’s son, Uncle Sig, was born in 1927. They hid the truth well, leaving my generation to find out by accident.

Babcia’s conversion was not just pragmatic. She embraced Catholicism with her heart and soul. She performed a kind of mystical faith. She believed in blessings and visions. She kept the cross and the Madonna on her walls. I get the sense she had retreated from Judaism long before her love affair provided an opportunity and a reason to become Christian.

Of course there were many other reasons she might have preferred to be Catholic in Interwar Poland. Anti-Semitism made it a bad time to be a Jew. And then, during the Nazi occupation, being Jewish would have been a death sentence. But those are subjects for another post.

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