Category Archives: Jewish Culture

Posts about aspects of Jewish culture.

Memory Map Exhibition includes Skierniewice, the Piwkos’ Hometown

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Museum, Piwko, Post-World War II, Skierniewice, Synagogues, Yiddish

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The Atlas of Memory Maps exhibit features maps drafted by non-experts in an effort to preserve the memory of their hometowns, which had been destroyed or radically transformed during and after World War II. Most were published in Yizkor books, memorial books compiled by Jewish survivors. The exhibition is mostly in Polish, but includes some English-language information. The maps contain notations in Yiddish or Hebrew. This virtual exhibition by Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Center includes maps from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Moldavia and Slovakia.

I found a map of Skierniewice among over 150 included in the exhibition. My grandfather Hil Majer Piwko was born in there in 1854, as were his siblings Jankel Wolf (1857), Urysz (c. 1861), Dawid (1862, d. 1865), Nusen Dawid (1866), Chawa (c. 1871), and Fajga (c. 1878). It’s where Hil Majer brought his bride Hinda Walfisz in 1873, and where they started their own family. It’s also where his parents were buried (Cywia Rajch in 1862 and Chaim Josef in 1912), and probably his stepmothers, too.

Here is the map from the exhibition:

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Map of prewar Skierniewice drawn from memory by an unknown author

Comparing it with a contemporary map, it’s hard to figure out exactly how they match up. Maybe someone who can read Yiddish can help me by translating the words on the map. Please leave me a comment if you do! I think the rivers on each map are the same, and the space marked with crosses in the bottom center of the prewar map may be the green space marked “Church of St. Stanislaus” in the bottom right of the contemporary map.

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Map of contemporary Skierniewice. The site of the synagogue is marked with a black dot surrounded by a grey circle. Source: Google Maps

I’ve been to Skierniewice twice, with my cousin Krysia in 2013 and with my cousin Bob in 2018. Little remains of the town’s Jewish heritage.

Skierniewice Rynek in 2013
Krysia and me in Skierniewice, the birthplace of our great grandfather. April 2013
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With cousin Bob, the former synagogue in the background–it’s now an electrical supply store

The synagogue, though the exterior is well maintained, now houses an electrical supply store. On the road running parallel to the river, a few tombstones have survived in the old Jewish cemetery, but they are in what is currently the backyard of a private residence. I wonder if this cemetery was included on the prewar map? The newer Jewish cemetery contains  many more surviving tombstones as well as commemorative markers outlining the history of the town’s Jewish population. It is located beyond the bottom edges of these maps, off a dirt road a short ride south of town.

 

Located in Lublin, Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre is one of the oldest and most active Jewish heritage organizations in Poland. About its origins, Tomasz Pietrasiewicz writes:

The changes brought about by the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 initiated the process of regaining Memory by the Polish society, and Lublin was among many Polish cities which had to face their forgotten past.

When we began our activities at the Grodzka Gate [which historically separated the Jewish and Catholic districts of the city] in the early 1990s, we knew nothing about the history of Jews in Lublin. We were not aware that the enormous empty space on one side of the Gate conceals the Memory of the Jewish Quarter. We did not realize that the Gate leads to the non-existent town, the Jewish Atlantis.There is a huge parking area, lawns and new roads where there used to be houses, synagogues and streets. A large part of this area, including the foundations of the former Jewish houses, was buried under a concrete cover, and the memory of those who lived here was hidden as well. You cannot  understand Lublin’s history without these empty spaces near the Gate. For the NN Theatre, they have become a natural setting for artistic actions, Mysteries of Memory, which uncover the memory of the past while mourning the victims of the Holocaust. (from “History of Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre“).

More information about the exhibition and Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre can be found at the following websites:

Jewish Heritage Europe

Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Center

 

The Odyssey of a Polish Jew

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in antisemitism, Jewish Culture, Memory, Names, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Survival, Tarnów, Warsaw, World War II

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Roman Szydłowski grew up in an affluent assimilated Jewish family in prewar Tarnów, a medium-sized city southeast of Krakow. His “Recollections,” published under the name The War Began in Tarnów, breezily describe the many relatives and acquaintances who populated his youth, though it is jarring how many of their lives were cut short by wartime assaults against Jews.

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The War Began in Tarnów, by Roman Szydłowski

Szydłowski’s book reminds me that Poland is a small country, in the sense that citizens who travel in elite circles know each other, or know of each other. A person raised in a family like Szydłowski’s rubbed shoulders with famous actors, writers, and politicians. Simultaneously, World War II lurks on the edges, and at times overtakes Szydłowski’s narrative, as for example when he describes the explosions at the Tarnów train station, an act of German sabotage that happened on August 23, 1939, a week before the official invasion of Poland began.

The book is interesting for its intimate portrait of everyday life before, during, and immediately after World War II, but it does so from the particular lens of the moment in which it was written: 1982, when Poland was under martial law following the suppression of the Solidarity Movement that had sought to reform the state socialist system. Szydłowski was 63 years old and looking back on his life as he approached retirement. That time and place might explain the glaring absences in his otherwise vivid, detailed, and immediate recollections.

Born Roman Szancer in 1918, the author grew up in comfort in a large apartment at the center of Tarnów. His family owned an enormous mill which his great grandfather established in the early 1800s. It is notable how little Judaism figured in his early life story—it was a factor but hardly a defining one. His first recollection of anti-Jewish sentiment involved one of his classmates who called him “you Jew” in a way that sounded like a slur. Roman couldn’t understanding why being Jewish would be an insult, but he replied in kind, “you Catholic.” When their teacher found out, he made them stop, threatening them with corporal punishment. Later, Roman and the other boy became good friends.

The Szancer family took pride in their unaccented Polish and their assimilation, not only into Polish culture, but also into elite European culture more broadly. As a child, Roman visited relatives in Germany and Austria. His grandmother, a cousin of Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, was the only one in the family who spoke Polish with a strong accent; they had to talk to her in German.

Roman portrays himself as a proud defender of Poland. About the rise of Hitler in Germany, he writes “We feared for the future of Poland, though none of us anticipated that our country, which we considered stable, would soon be pillaged by the Third Reich” (p. 60-1). Szydłowski mentions just a few instances when his early life was touched by prejudice. The first girl he fell in love with was Catholic, and “there were those who couldn’t reconcile with the fact that ‘that Jew goes out with such a pretty Polish girl’,” so they spread rumors that broke them up (p. 74). A few years later at the Jagiellonian University, Jews were separated from the Catholic students and confined to the so-called “ghetto benches.” This didn’t affect Roman directly because he had what people called “a good look.” In other words, he didn’t have the stereotypical features or mannerisms associated with Jews and so could sit wherever he wanted. He makes a point of saying that only the leftist students objected to the “Aryan paragraph” restricting Jews from student organizations; the majority of the student body voted in favor of the restrictions.

Another incident illustrates how distant Roman felt from traditional Jewish life. He describes a Hassidic wedding he attended in the summer of 1939 in a mostly Jewish town. The residents dressed differently than he was used to seeing in the towns around Tarnów, in round hats with small rims, shorter jackets and their pants tucked into manure-covered shoes. About the wedding he writes, “I’m left with an impression of something very colorful, but so far away and foreign as if I found myself suddenly on a distant continent” (p. 125).

Szydłowski’s wartime experiences read like an adventure story, making startling shifts from descriptions of carefree youthful high jinx to hair-raising brushes with death. Because he had connections, he was able to drive east ahead of the invading German army and find refuge with relatives near Lviv (part of Poland before the war, the Soviet Union after 1939, and Ukraine today). He describes his apprehension by Soviet authorities, deportation to the Far East, and eventful return to Lviv, one chance encounter leading to another that eventually got him back to relative safety.

After Hitler broke the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, he witnessed the most horrific events of his own wartime experiences. Thousands of Jews were slaughtered in Lviv, their blood running through the streets. He returned to Tarnów, where he moved freely, neither wearing the Star of David nor staying in the ghetto as dictated by the Nazi occupiers. By December 1941, he settled in Warsaw, where he changed his last name to Szydłowski, thus gaining the protection of a Polish surname. He writes breathlessly about the richness of the culture in the city, where he attended classical concerts, theatre productions, and university classes. All of these activities occurred “underground,” without the knowledge or sanction of the occupying forces.

He explains, “Warsaw during those years was a city impossible to describe. Terrifying contrasts collided at every corner. Luxury alongside poverty, tragedy next to debauchery, death and delight, everything compounded to the maximum. People lived as if in a trance, unsure of tomorrow. Everyone knew they could die soon, so they wanted to get the most out of life” (p. 155). After being arrested under suspicion of conspiracy, and imprisoned in Pawlak Prison, Szydłowski was mysteriously released. He made a quick retreat to the countryside near Krakow, where his “most carefree period of occupied life began” (p. 162). He spent the summer at the ancestral palace of a gentry family who treated him like an esteemed guest. The refuge was an illusion, he admits. A year later, months after he had moved on, German police came and shot the whole family.

What might explain the absences in Szyłowski’s narrative? Why doesn’t he mention the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, even though he was living in Warsaw at the time? He lived in the “Aryan” part of the city under his assumed name, but he must have witnessed the armed revolt mounted by the last remaining Jews in the ghetto. The fighting continued for 28 days until most of the partisans were either killed or took their own lives. Why doesn’t he discuss the massive scale of the Holocaust? He makes no mention of the millions who died, nor any details about the death camps. He does not address the nearly complete absence of a Jewish population in Poland after the war. The annihilation of Poland’s Jews only peaks out in the many biographies of family and acquaintances that ended with them murdered by military police or Germans.

Szydłowski’s recollections also elide any direct criticism of communism. He simply gives a matter-of-fact description of the arrival of Soviet troops after the Germans retreated , without addressing the heavy hand the Soviet Union played in shaping the postwar state-socialist republic. He writes directly about joining the Communist Party in 1946, but only indirectly about his disillusionment and retreat from the party just a few years later. Throughout his narrative, he acknowledges his socialist leanings, as well as the socialist and communist affiliations of his friends, but he also makes a point of emphasizing his disinterest in politics.

Szydłowski ran out of time to finish writing about his 35-year career as a theatre critic and journalist. He died in 1983.

What a difficult way to walk through life, carrying so many ghosts in your memories. And yet, Szydłowski speaks with the voice of an optimist.

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Remains of the Szancer mill, June 2019

Ruth Ellen Gruber on Jewish Heritage

25 Monday Feb 2019

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

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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.

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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

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“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
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

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“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.

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“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.

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“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.

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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).

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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).

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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