Category Archives: Jewish Culture

Posts about aspects of Jewish culture.

Ruth Ellen Gruber on Jewish Heritage

25 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Poland

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Writer Ruth Ellen Gruber gives two lectures at The University of Alabama:

Imaginary Spaces, Dark Tourism, and Writing about Difficult Topics for a General Audience: A Conversation with Ruth Ellen Gruber

205 Gorgas Library, Monday, February 25, 7 PM

Structured as a conversation, Marysia Galbraith (New College and Department of Anthropology) asks Ruth about her work on “Virtually Jewish” heritage in Europe, “Wild West” theme parks, tourism at sites of terror, Holocaust, and slavery, and the practice of writing for traditional print media as well as digital venues like her website “Jewish Heritage Europe.”

 

Beyond Virtually Jewish: New Realities and Real Imaginary Spaces

215 Lloyd Hall, Tuesday, February 26, 12:30-1:45 PM

Ruth discusses new forms of Jewishness, Jewish practice, and religious and cultural expression. She describes how she coined the term “Virtually Jewish” to describe non-Jewish involvement, embrace, appropriation and engagement with Jews and Jewish culture — and what that means in today’s changing conditions. She discusses new realities and new authenticities; new definitions of “Jewish.” And she takes her audience on tours to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Krakow, and other Jewish spaces and places where community and commercialism combine and collide.

REG-krakow-fishman

Ruth Ellen Gruber in the Kazimierz District of Krakow, Poland. Photo credit: Chuck Fishman

Ruth Ellen Gruber has worked on Jewish heritage issues and chronicled Jewish developments in Europe for three decades and currently coordinates the web site www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu. (She also studies the European fascination with the American Wild West, its mythology and its music.) With her 2012 book Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe, she coined the term “Virtually Jewish” to describe the way the so-called “Jewish space” in Europe is often filled by non-Jews. Among her other books are National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe, first published in 1992; Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere), and Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today. A former correspondent for UPI in Poland and elsewhere in communist Europe, she has written for many publications, both popular and scholarly. Her awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and Poland’s Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit. She was the Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston (South Carolina) spring semester, 2015.

Sponsored by: College of Arts and Sciences, New College, Department of Anthropology, Department of Religious Studies, Department of Journalism and Creative Media, and Blount Scholars Program

Learning about Jewish Religion and Culture in Leszno

07 Thursday Jun 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

“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.

DSC03937

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
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
Grave stones outside the former mortuary house, Leszno
Mikvah, Leszno
Jewish quarter, Leszno
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
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.
Torah, crown and cover, 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.

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.

Pavement of Memory

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Cemeteries, Commemoration, Heritage work, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Poznan

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

“We recover history…we record history.”

That is what the Jewish Community of Poznan wrote when they announced a new memorial, “Pavement of Memory,” built with fragments of Jewish tombstones that were recovered during roadwork in Poznan.

1_Jewish Cemetery in Poznan

“Pavement of Memory” composed with fragments of matzevot (Jewish Tombstones), Poznan                            Source: Janusz Marciniak

When the road crew dug up the old pavement, they noticed some stones with strange writing on them. Realizing the letters were in Hebrew, they contacted the Jewish Community. The fragments are too small to make out names or details about whose tombstones they were, but at least they have returned to the cemetery where they belong. All over Poland, fragments like this are being found, out of place, reinforcing road beds, bridge foundations, and lake beds. They were harvested during the terror of the Nazi occupation, and sometimes afterwards under state socialism. With only ghosts to look over them, Jewish cemeteries became a source for scarce building materials.

The extraordinary thing is that when public spaces are designated as repositories of Jewish memory and culture, objects return to them. As cemeteries are cleaned up, fenced, and marked, tombstones come back. In some cases, it’s as if people have known for a long time about these objects. They felt they were out of place and it has sat uneasily on their minds. They are relieved to finally know where these objects should go. In others, as with this road project, people are surprised to find these fragments, but they feel a sense of obligation to honor the memory of the past. To put things back into place.

3_Jewish Cemetery in Poznan.JPG

“Pavement of Memory” at the memorial site in a corner of Poznan’s Jewish cemetery.

These fragments are back home on a wall in the corner of the Poznan Jewish Cemetery.

“Pavement of Memory” was designed by Janusz Marciniak, who also designed the memorial at the Jewish cemetery in Piła and did a series of installations in the Poznan synagogue when it still housed a swimming pool. Janusz’s design is simple and powerful, honoring the integrity of each fragment by hanging them in three rows of ten. And yet together, like a mosaic, they make a unified statement.

4_Jewish Cemetery in Poznan.JPG

Detail of macevot fragments in Pavement of Memory

The words on the memorial plaque, in Polish, Hebrew and English, read:

Był czas, kiedy z macew robiono bruk. Czas, w którym najdosłowniej rozbijano, deptano i kaleczono pamięć o ludziach pochowanych pod macewami. Niektóre z kamiennych okruchów tej pamięci przetrwały i dziś ta pamięć łączy się z wdzięcznością dla wszystkich, którzy przyczynili się do jej ocalenia. „Z owocu swoich ust nasycony będzie człowiek dobrem, a odpłacone mu będzie według tego, co zrobity jego rece” (Prz 12, 14).

הייתה עת שבה עשו ממצבות אבני מדרכת, עת שבה היו באופן ממשי מנתצים, רומסים ופוצעים את זכרם של האנשים הטמונים מתחת למצבות. אחדים מהשברים של אבני הזיכרון

אותן הזיכרון מתאחד שרדו, וכיום עם הכרת טובה לכל אלה שתרמו להצלתו. “מפְרִי פי־אישׁ יִשְׂבַּע־טוֹב וּגְמוּל יְדֵי־אָדָם יָשִׁיב לוֹ” (משלי י”נ יד).

There was a time when matzevot [Jewish tombstones] were used for pavement; a time when the memory of the people buried under the matzevot was most literally broken, trampled, and maimed. Some remnants have survived and today this memory is connected with the gratitude to those who contributed to its rescue. “A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the doings of a man’s hands shall be rendered unto him” (Prov. 12:14).

6_Jewish Cemetery in Poznan.JPG

Bird on an old boulder tombstone in the corner of the Poznan Jewish Cemetery that has been designated as a memorial site.

Are Members of the Jewish Community Still Welcome in Poland?

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in antisemitism, Identity, Jewish Culture, Krakow, Poland, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

A reader just asked me whether members of the Jewish community are still welcome in Poland. Fortunately, Jonathan Ornstein, the director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, answered this very question in his New York Times op-ed, In Poland, a Grass-Roots Jewish Revival Endures.

JCCJewishFutureDezco_Co_Uk

Building a Jewish Future in Krakow: Jonathan Ornstein at the entrance to the JCC Krakow. Source: http://dezco.co.uk/life/jewish-life-in-krakow-poland/

It’s worth reading the whole article, but here is an excerpt:

“The concern is genuine, warranted and appreciated. We, the Polish Jewish community, are weathering challenging times. The country we call home can feel a little less welcoming these days. On one hand, young people who only recently discovered their Jewish roots have eagerly joined newly opened Hillel student organizations in Warsaw and Krakow. But they hold in the back of their minds a question of what the future may bring.

“Polish Jewish leaders, too, are grappling with an uncertain future as we continue to build Jewish life in an environment that has taken a turn away from democracy toward populism. That shift is never a good sign for Jews — or anyone in a free and open society. And now the Holocaust bill, which criminalizes statements that the Polish nation had any responsibility in the Holocaust, may complicate our good relationship with our non-Jewish neighbors.

“What we have managed to rebuild over the last 30 years with the help of those neighbors is real. It is strong and it has emerged not only from government policy, but also from grass-roots efforts. We’ve built Jewish schools, synagogues, community centers and museums by working hand in hand with non-Jewish high school students, senior citizens and many others. Not only have they allowed these institutions to be born and flourish, but many have stood up and taken an active part in Jewish rebirth.

…

“So the answer is: Yes, come visit Poland. Walk down the historic streets that I walk without fear as a proud Jew. See beyond the camps. Go beyond the history, both the beautiful and the tragic. Stand with a community that has been through so much suffering, yet has emerged optimistic and eager to rejoin the Jewish world.”

Jonathan can be trusted on this. He has been at the forefront of the revival of Jewish life in Krakow since the JCC opened there ten years ago. It’s an extraordinary organization, and I was lucky enough to help out as a Shabbos Goy during the Jewish Culture Festival in 2016, when hundreds of people attended the largest shabbat dinner in Poland since World War II.

IMG_0951

JCC Shabbat Dinner, July 1, 2016

The JCC welcomes Holocaust survivors, Jewish visitors from around the world, and Poles rediscovering their Jewish heritage or who just feel an affinity to Jewish culture and history. It was a space where I felt right at home, as an American raised in a secular Christian household with a Polish-Catholic mother who descended from Polish Jews. It’s a space where I can be Jewish or Christian, Polish or American, but regardless I’m welcomed simply because I’m there and I want to learn more about what it means to be Jewish in Poland.

Holocaust Remembrance Day in Włocławek

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Cemeteries, Commemoration, Jewish Ghetto, Memory, Polish-Jewish relations, Włocławek

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

,

Thanks to Mirosława Stojak for all the work she does to preserve the memory of Jewish history and culture in Włocławek.

Here is a video from Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) when she and students and teachers from the Automotive High School visited the memorial at the site of the World War II Jewish ghetto, also the prewar Jewish cemetery.

Flim credit: Q4.pl, http://q4.pl/?id=17&news=170583

The interviews are in Polish, but even if you can’t understand the words, you can see that these people remember the Jewish history of their city. And they are passing on those memories to the next generation.  They lit candle lanterns in front of the commemorative monument, and the students placed pebbles upon which they had written words like “traditions,” “love,” and “memories.”

There’s more about Włocławek’s Jews on Ms. Stojak’s website Zydzi.Wloclawek.pl. The tagline of her site: “Ku pamięci, z nadzieją, na pojednanie,” “In memory, with hope, for reconciliation.”

The Family Burial Plot

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Cemeteries, Family, Genealogy, Jewish Culture, Jewish immigrants, Photographs, Pifko-Winawer Circle, Piwko

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

I was shocked to learn that the family burial plot is just 20 minutes from where I grew up. No one had ever told me about it.

AbrahamBerthaPifkoTombstone_BKosovsky

Gravestone of Abraham and Bertha Pifko, Washington Cemetery. Photo credit: B Kosovsky

I met my 2nd cousin Bob right around the same time my 1st cousin Krysia found his photo of Abraham and Bertha Pifko’s gravestone. Abraham and Bertha were Bob’s great-grandparents, and Krysia’s and my great-uncle and aunt. Poking around some more on the Internet, I figured out that this photograph comes from Bob’s Flickr account, in a folder containing photos of all the tombstones in the Pifko-Winawer Circle in New Montefiore Jewish Cemetery.

Since I was on Long Island for a visit, I decided to see the Family Circle for myself. I went with my friend Krystyna, who is Polish, on our way to Copiague, a town on the south shore of Long Island with a large Polish community and several Polish delis. I’ve driven that route many times to get black current jam, kasha, makowiec, white cheese, and other foods I miss so much from Poland, as well as my son’s favorites: kielbasa and ptasie mleczko, rectangles of marshmallow covered in chocolate. I’ve tried buying kielbasa from the grocery store, but Ian won’t eat it; he insists only the real stuff from Poland is any good.

You can practically see the cemetery from the road, but I never knew it was there. Nor did I know that my relatives were buried there. This is what family silence does. Because we weren’t supposed to know about our Jewish heritage, I had never been there, not even to visit the graves of Stanley and Stella Winawer or Pauline Kanal, relatives whom I remember so fondly.

Pifko-Winawer Family Circle, New Montefiore Cemetery, Organized 1938
Philip and Goldie Pifko’s gravestones
Sarah Winawer’s gravestone
Memorial bench for Jacob and Libe Winawer

It’s a large cemetery. Krystyna and I had to figure out how the sectors, blocks, and rows are organized, but eventually we found the Pifko-Winawer Family Circle. The size of the plot is astonishing. It contains dozens of graves. A hexagonal pillar toward the front is labelled “Pifko Winawer Family Circle Organized 1938.” Other faces of the hexagon include the last names Pifko, Lewis, Davis, Kanal, Shapiro, Winawer, Jaret, Jacoby, Jacobs, and Portny. Written on the back face is “In Memorium; Abraham J. Pifko; Max Winawer Rosen.” I had only begun my genealogical research and only recognized a few of those last names. Even today, after six years of genealogical research, I’m still not sure how I’m related to the Davises, Jacobys, and Portnys.

We wandered through the rows of gravestones—raised blocks with blunted front corners, backed by low evergreen hedgerows. Among them, I found Babcia’s sister Sarah Winawer, “beloved mother, grandmother, great grandmother, March 16, 1880-Feb. 16, 1964.” This is the sister my immediate relatives called Lusia, the one who died a few months after I was born and who said before her death that she would look down on me from heaven. She rests beside her husband Saul, and near their children Nathan, Stanley, and Pauline. Another son, Milton, is not there; much later, I learned he chose a different cemetery because his wife Nettie, who was not Jewish, couldn’t be buried in New Montefiore. I recognized names of other relatives Aunt Pat has told me about—Abraham Pifko’s daughters: Eva Lewis and Sarah Lewis who share a last name because they married brothers; and Pauline who was there with her husband Fred Rosen.

I found Babcia’s brother Philip with his wife Goldie, whose graves are on the side of the family plot, facing perpendicular to the others. Their stones have Hebrew lettering on top and English on the side. The others either have both languages on top, or English on top and Hebrew on the sides. Could this signal something? Perhaps Goldie felt a closer affinity with the Hebrew/Yiddish language?

I did not find Abraham and Bertha’s grave. When I asked Bob about it, he explained that they are buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn. Abraham died before the family circle was established, and even though his great-grandmother wanted to be buried with the rest of the family, her spot was waiting for her with her husband. Another sister, Liba’s grave is not there, either, though she and her husband are remembered on a memorial bench with the inscription, “In memory of Jacob and Libe Winawer.”

Walking among my extended family, I felt the joy of finding them, and simultaneously the sense of loss that I never got to know, or even know anything about, most of them.

Pifko-Winawer Family Circle, New Montefiore Cemtery
My brother Chris resting on a commemorative bench at the family burial plot.

Is it odd that I spoke in Polish the first time I visited family graves in a Jewish cemetery? I don’t think so because Babcia’s family prided themselves in their ability to speak the language well. In some ways my ancestors straddled the boundary between Polish and Jewish culture. But the gulf was wide, and when my grandmother converted, she closed the door on her Jewish heritage, just as her father expelled her from the Jewish world in which she had been raised.

Jewish Warsaw in the Shadow of Skyscrapers

30 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by in Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Synagogues, Warsaw

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

I discovered Jewish Warsaw tucked between streets I’ve walked dozens of times. My first surprise was that the apartment I rented in an ugly green socialist-era tower is literally around the corner from Plac Grzybowski (Grzybowski Square), where Jewish life survived into the communist era.

DSC00155

6th floor view of Plac Grzybowski. From the left, a socialist era apartment, All Saints’ Church, modern skyscraper, (at the center) green space, with the site of Jewish Theater behind it and the roof of the Gmina Żydowska behind that, (bottom right) back of building with Charlotte Menora Cafe.

I’ll say more about Plac Grzybowski in a minute, but I was even more surprised when, while mapping out a running route, I saw that I was also just a block away from Nożyk Synagogue, the only synagogue in Warsaw that survived the war. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never been there before, nor is this the first time I’ve been so close and didn’t even realize it. When my best friend from childhood Kim visited with her father in November 2014, we stayed at a hotel on Grzybowska Street, and were it not for the newer building across the street, we could have seen the synagogue from the hotel entrance. Kim and her family introduced me to Passover Seders, and bagels with lox and cream cheese, and I’m sure they would have loved to see the synagogue. In my defense, the synagogue sits in the green space at the center of the block, with tall buildings all around it. It’s easy to miss. The street access to the synagogue looks like the entrance to a parking lot, and from Grzybowska Street, the only access is via pedestrian walkways.

DSC02259

My friend Kim with her father Sandy and my son Ian in Saski Park, Grzybowska Street in the background, November 2014

This isn’t the first time I have seen a synagogue tucked within the central courtyard of a city block. I wonder what the historic reasons were for that. Regardless, I imagine that in the difficult years after the Holocaust, this location offered the synagogue some protection; only people looking for it would find it. This is also where the Gmina Żydowska—the Association of Jewish Communities—has its offices. I should have come here before.

Nożyk Synagogue, Warsaw
“About the Jewish Community”

Built in 1902, the synagogue is a solid stone rectangle with arch-topped windows all around. Above the front door, two arch-topped tablets contain the Ten Commandments, and above them is a Star of David. The building survived World War II because the Nazis used it as a warehouse. Jews returned to worship there after the War, and at present, it remains the main synagogue of Warsaw, home to the Orthodox community. The offices of the Gmina Żydowska fill a modern addition across the back of the building.

Both times I walked by the synagogue, a few men were inside praying. More people walked by briskly, probably residents of surrounding buildings. Along the edge of the parking area, large information boards contain headlines like “We, the Jews of Warsaw,” “About the community,” and “Kosher…what does it mean?”

All the pieces fit together from my 6th floor balcony. I can see the metal roof of the synagogue’s modern addition. I also look down at the corner of Charlotte Menora in Plac Grzybowski; this is one of four Charlotte Cafes in Poland. They all specialize in French pastries, but this one also includes Jewish offerings such as bagels and rugelach. My friend Beata took me there last summer. She also pointed out the center of the square that has been converted into a shaggy grassland and wildflower garden. Pathways lined with benches lead down to a central fountain. This novel use of space started out as an art installation by Joanna Rajkowska called “Dotleniacz,” which in English means “Oxegenator;” The project was later reworked into its present, more permanent form.  Beata also showed me Próżna Street, the only street in the ghetto where the original buildings weren’t destroyed in the systematic bombing after the Ghetto Uprising in 1943. On one side of the street, the townhouses have been painstakingly restored. On the other, netting covers the buildings to prevent pedestrians from being harmed by falling elements of the crumbling façade. One of the renovated buildings is home to the Austrian Cultural Forum. Some of my Polish friends say they feel uncomfortable about this because of Austrian support for the Nazis.

Park in the middle of Plac Grzybowski
Próżna Street at night

Grzybowski Square is actually shaped more like a triangle. Charlotte Menora and the intersection with Próżna Street are on one long side. At the second long side, a pile of debris peaks above a barrier fence where the Jewish Theater was torn down last year. This theatre continued to operate all through the communist period, offering performances in Yiddish. Posters on the fence announce that the theater will be rebuilt, along with the TSKŻ, which stands for Towarzystwo Społeczno – Kulturalne Żydów, The Social and Cultural Association of Jews. Sophie, whom I met because she shares the last name of my great grandmother, lived in Warsaw until 1968. Her face lit up as she recalled going to youth activities at the TSKŻ. But she, like most of Poland’s remaining Jews, left in 1968 when the government waged a campaign against Jews. That’s also when many of the TSKŻ branches closed. In Warsaw, the organization hobbled along until after the end of communism, and has since been growing once again.

“Coming here, The new location of the TSKŻ. Jewish Theater and Office-Services Building”
All Saints Church
Pope John Paul II statue in front of All Saints’ Church

At the third, shorter side of the triangle stands the All Saints Church, where Christian Poland asserts itself even in this Jewish part of town. I’ve read that the church was right along the border of the ghetto, and it was where converts to Catholicism living in the ghetto would come to pray. More recently, symbols of Polish nationalism have been placed across the front of the church. Numerous plaques commemorate Home Army soldiers who fought against the Nazi occupation and in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. These soldiers belonged to companies with names like “Buttress,” and “Brave,” and had wartime pseudonyms such as “Goliath,” “Fisherman,” and “Rooster.” A sculpture of Pope John Paul II stands on the steps leading up to the church, and a monument honoring the Home Army soldiers who produced weapons for the partisans is in the park across the street.

Plac Grzybowski is virtually unrecognizable from the first time I saw it. Marta, a family friend from Warsaw, pointed out the Jewish theatre to me in what I remember as a wide, crowded, dirty intersection with no central green space. It might have been 1990 or 1991, or maybe even 1986. Marta also painted a picture for me of how the square looked still earlier in time, before the war, when the streets were filled with Jews, many of them orthodox men with long beards and black coats, and women wearing wigs or kerchiefs.

The view from my window encapsulates this city–a mishmash of old and new, Catholic and Jewish, nationalism and subversion. Add to this the layers of memory every place contains, along with the energy of a capital city, and you can feel the beating heart of Warsaw.

Sholem Asch: A Yiddish Playwright Ahead of His Time

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Jewish Culture, Kutno, Pre-World War II, Yiddish

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

 

Kutno’s native son Sholem Asch is in the news a hundred years after writing a play that deals with issues that remain controversial today. His work also shatters a lot of assumptions about Jewish life in Poland in the early 20th century–Written in Yiddish, it features a brothel, a Torah scroll, and love between two women. Asch’s play God of Vengeance was written in Yiddish in 1907 and first produced in Berlin in 1910. I found an electronic version of the 1918 English translation (you can follow the hotlink above). In the play, Yekel, who lives with his family above the brothel he owns, tries to improve his family’s status by commissioning a Torah scroll and marrying his daughter Rifkele to a Yeshiva student. Instead, the young daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes and in a pivotal scene, they kiss. The play highlights the tension between piety, reflected in the Holy Scroll that is supposed to bring respectability to the family and the economic and sensual attraction of the brothel downstairs, as well as observations about women’s empowerment and oppression.

The play has been getting attention recently because of Paula Vogel’s Broadway play Indecent, a play about a Yiddish play that was ahead of its time (as the NPR report about Indecent is titled). Vogel’s play centers around the 1923 staging of God of Vengeance in New York’s Apollo Theater (also on Broadway), notable because the whole cast, the producer, and one of the theatre owners were arrested and eventually convicted of indecency. The play had been controversial where it had been staged throughout Europe, but it also received critical acclaim.

The popularity of Indecent has led to renewed interest in Asch and his play, which was recently produced at LaMaMa Experimental Theater in the East Village (In God of Vengeance, a Nice Jewish Family Lives Above a Brothel).

30godofvengeance-master768

From left, Eleanor Reissa, Shayna Schmidt and Shane Baker as Orthodox Jewish parents and their marriageable young daughter in Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” at La MaMa. Credit Richard Termine for The New York Times

 

 

More Jewish Heritage Work in Kutno

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Jewish Ghetto, Kutno, Memory, Names, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Synagogues, World War II

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

This is part II about heritage work in Kutno. The first is Jewish History of Kutno.

While in Kutno, I visited the Society of Friends of Kutno (Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Kutnowski). The organization has been active since the early 1970s, and has put out an annual periodical about local history and customs for about 20 years. Most issues of the publication contain an article about Jews. In 2016, these articles were compiled in a book along with other historical materials about Kutno’s Jews, including Holocaust witness reports and photographs, and a list of people who lived in the Kutno ghetto.

okladka zarys historii

Outline of the History of Kutno Area Jews, published by the Friends of Kutno

The chairwoman of the Friends of Kutno Bożena Gajewska is an energetic and upbeat woman. She accepted the position because of her interest in local history and her desire to promote that history among local residents. She isn’t paid for this; she volunteers for the organization after getting off work. The Friends of Kutno have their office in a historic wooden villa that was recently renovated by the city. Most of their funding comes from grants. Over the years, they have placed historical markers where the synagogue, Jewish cemetery, and ghetto used to be. Other recent projects related to Jewish culture include field trips for local residents to the Polin Museum in Warsaw, to a production of a Sholem Asch play at the Yiddish Theatre in Warsaw, and to the Chełmno Extermination Camp, where Kutno Jews were transported when the ghetto was liquidated. Kutno was selected as a site where the Museum on Wheels (a traveling branch of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews) would visit; this happened in August 2016.

DSC08529

Marker reads, “In this place the 18th century synagogue stood. It was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, evidence of the hatred of one human to another, and to his works.”

Pani Bożena says she’s noticed that orientations toward Jews have improved since the Polin Museum has opened. Thanks to the Museum, you can talk about Jews, whereas before, the word “Jew” had negative connotations, and was even used as an insult. This made people unsure what to call practitioners of the Jewish faith. Polin has helped to rehabilitate the term. While this may seem like a manifestation of the particularly fraught relationship between Poles and Jews, Mark Oppenheimer just published an opinion piece in the New York Times (Sunday, April 23, 2017, “Reclaiming ‘Jew’”) in which he notes that it’s the same in the US. “Jew” is almost never used as a noun; rather, the adjective “Jewish” is used, as in “Jewish people” or “I’m Jewish” (never “I’m a Jew”). Oppenheimer quotes the comedian Louis C. K. who called “Jew” a funny word “because ‘Jew’ is the only word that is the polite thing to call a group of people and a slur for the same group.”

The Polin Museum has also contributed to a surge of activity related to Jewish history and culture throughout Poland. This has led some townspeople to complain to the Friends of Kutno, “Why is everything always about Jews?” Bożena says she reminds these people that the Friends are interested in all aspects of regional history, and Jews were a part of that history. They address plenty of other topics, as well. For example, they recently published the biography of a native son who was an ultra nationalist during the period when the majority of Kutno residents were Jews (I can’t remember his name but maybe someone reading this can remind me).

Pani Bożena drove me to see some historical sites around town. The Jewish cemetery is on a hill overlooking a neighborhood of concrete apartment buildings. The hillside is covered with tall grass and wildflowers, and crisscrossed by dirt tracks where people walk their dogs, kids play, and people hang out. Many leave their trash behind. The Friends of Kutno recently put up signs around the cemetery that say “Here is the resting place of Kutno Jews, who settled in the city from the beginning of the 16th century. The cemetery located on this hill was established in 1793. Jews were buried here until March 1943. Please maintain its solemnity.” Below this historical information is the reminder, “Keep in mind as you go into this vast expanse that this is a cemetery; people are buried here, you walk on their graves, even though there are no longer tombstones…” Further, the sign states the cemetery is a registered monument and thus legally protected, and any vandalism is subject to a sentence of imprisonment. Nevertheless, within just a few months, four out of six such signs were vandalized. The metal poles were snapped at ground level. Bożena condemned the destruction, but also minimized it as the work of thoughtless hooligans (as opposed to a deliberately antisemitic act). In September, the poles were replaced and the signs stand once again.

Bożena showing me the new sign at the Jewish cemetery in Kutno
An older monument at the top of the cemetery hill

We passed people with dogs as we walked to the top of the hill to an older monument. It contains the same historical information as the new metal signs in Polish and Hebrew (but not the reminders about proper behavior and legal issues), and is shaped like two adjoining tombstones. Heading back down the hill, past some children playing, we saw the bases of some grave markers peaking out of the grass. Many tombstones were recovered and are stored at the Kutno Museum.

Bożena dreams of building a fence around the cemetery so there will be a more substantial barrier against further vandalism. They have received all the necessary approvals, but are in need of funding.

From the cemetery, we went on to the site of the ghetto, which is outside the center of town on the grounds of a former sugar factory. The factory was used by various industries after the war, but now is closed. The buildings, some dating from the late 19th century, stand behind a high fence and a guard patrols the site. Historic markers tell the story of the ghetto. A granite plaque reads:

Here on the terrain of the former Konstancja Sugar Factory

Germans established a ghetto for the Jewish population of Kutno and the surrounding area.

After its liquidation in 1942, the surviving Jews perished in the camp at Chelmno.

Honoring their memory, the People of Kutno.

Kutno, April 1993

A more recent sign contains a bit more historical information in both Polish and English (if you want to read it, click on the photo below to enlarge it).

Former site of the Kutno ghetto.
Wall plaque at the site of the Kutno ghetto
Historical marker in front of the main gate of the factory where the Kutno ghetto used to be.

Bożena told me that over 8000 people lived in the ghetto from 1940-1942. Those who got there first occupied all the most obvious places, so later arrivals had to build shacks from scrap wood, or find ways of populating balconies and any other inhabitable space throughout the large factory hall. In 1942, they were all transported to the camp at Chełmno by train (the tracks are right across the street from the factory) and by truck.

Thinking about the people I met in Kutno (and elsewhere), one thing I am trying to sort out is why Christian Poles get involved in Jewish heritage projects. Not surprisingly, the reasons are varied. One is interested in historical artifacts; he has no political agenda. Another of my companions tried to place this history into a more pro-Polish framework. He explained that the Nazis forced Christian townspeople to do horrible things as part of a strategy to damage relations between Poles and Jews. “All people really want is to live in peace (Chcą w spokoju żyć)”, he continued, “Poland is in the heart of Europe, a pretty terrain that has historically been attacked from all sides.” Others feel personally drawn to Jewish culture. One of my acquaintances in Kutno believes she has Jewish heritage. She seems to understand my quest for my own family history. “It’s important to know where you’re from,” she told me. She hasn’t found anything as concrete as my family photograph (the one I use at the top of the blog) to confirm her feeling that she has Jewish roots. All she can point to are allusions in family stories she remembers from childhood, and sometimes people have told her she looks Jewish. But anyone she could have asked has passed away.

But what’s clear from my visits to Kutno is that fragments of Jewish history remain, and some have been marked as such thanks to the efforts of a small group of residents who think it is important to include the stories of Kutno’s Jews in the history of their town.

Healing Collective Trauma: Jewish Heritage Work in Poland

18 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Cemeteries, Commemoration, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Trauma, Wronki

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Healing Collective Trauma: Jewish Heritage Work in Poland is the title of the paper I presented at the Society for Psychological Anthropology Meeting in New Orleans on March 12. Here is the abstract I submitted:

The legacy of the Holocaust weighs heavily on Polish communities that were witness to unspeakable events. The paper examines how collective and personal trauma and recovery are intertwined, particularly in relation to Jewish heritage work in Poland. It emphasizes the affective engagement of heritage workers, most of whom are Catholic Poles, working on local projects intended to bring the history and culture of the community’s absent Jews back into the public sphere. Person-centered ethnography helps to reveal how participants talk about the work they do in relation to notions of self and society, and associated personal and social meanings. It further reveals their particular narratives about past and present relationships between Catholics and Jews in Poland, which they often pose as a challenge to the silences of the socialist era and the present-day reemergence of xenophobic nationalism. As members of the post-memory generation—they grew up with stories about former Jewish residents and the destruction of their communities, but they did not actually experience these events themselves—heritage workers are able to work towards reconciliation in ways that older generations could not. They have coming-of-age stories associated with the moment historical events became real to them, and their emotional distress about the past became the force that compelled them to do something about it in the present. Their personal narratives suggest motivation stems from the convergence of attachment to their native place, a sense of responsibility to those who are no longer present, and a desire to realize a more inclusive community that accepts past and present diversity within the Polish polity.

In memory of the Jewish community that inhabited Wronki from 1507-1939. Lapidarium of tombstones from the destroyed Jewish cemeteries of Wronki
Lapidarium of Jewish Tombstones, Wronki
Piotr Pojasek pointing to one of Wronki’s Jewish cemeteries. Some pedestals of tombstones remain buried, as well as a large spruce tree that was planted when the cemetery was still functioning.

The paper starts with the story of Piotr Pojasek, who grew up in an old farmhouse near Wronki. From childhood, he knew that the curb on his street had been made out of Jewish tombstones during the Nazi occupation, but it was only as an adult that he really realized how wrong that was. And once he became engaged emotionally and morally, he knew he had to do something about it. It took many years, but in 2014, the lapidarium of the tombstones was completed. Applying the categories of memory as defined by Aleida Assmann, I use this case to explore how individual memories can shape social memory, and in turn national and cultural (collective) memory. The point is that individual connections to the past, as Piotr had through the uneasy presence of the tombstones outside his front door and the stories his father told him, are what compelled action. By collecting and sharing historical evidence and the stories of witnesses, social memory about the impact of the Holocaust grew, and developed a resonance for others. Eventually, a large coalition of local, national, and even international sponsors succeeded in building a public monument that revives and perpetuates collective memory of the Jews who lived there, of the inhuman circumstances of their death, and of the Polish citizens who recognize this as an important part of the history of their community.

Commonly, scholarship on collective memory focuses on public symbols and commemorative spaces, and has little to say about the transmission of meaning on the individual level. In my work, I am trying to show the relevance of individual memory workers and their personal engagement with the past as well as their local community. They are the ones who can bring things together, forging personal, affective links that make others care about far distant people and events.