Category Archives: Jewish Culture

Posts about aspects of Jewish culture.

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

 

 

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

Jewish history of Kutno

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by in Archives, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kutno

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When I first visited Kutno in 2013, I only stopped for a few minutes on the way from Poznan to Warsaw. I had found a record of my great grandmother on JewishGen, and the original document from the 1860s was in the Kutno archive. I got there too late to see the record (the archive was about to close), but I spoke briefly with one of the archivists, and asked her if any traces of Kutno’s Jewish culture can be found today. She said she didn’t know of anything, except perhaps some fragments of tombstones in the municipal museum.

I returned to that museum in early 2015, and the director showed me their small display of Jewish artifacts.

Jewish candleholders in the Kutno Museum
Torah in the Kutno Museum
Fragment of a tombstone in Kutno Museum

Finally last summer, I met some people who have spent years documenting the history of Kutno’s Jews. It turns out a lot is going on. There is a biannual festival in honor of Sholem Asch, a highly regarded Yiddish writer who was from Kutno. There are also commemorative markers at a number of sites around town. And a book was just published—a collection of articles about the Jews of Kutno (Karol Koszada, Elżbieta Świątkowska, Bożena Gajewska, Zaryz Historii Żydów Ziemi Kutnowski, 2016, Kutno: Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Kutnowskiej).

I’ve been to the archive a few times now, often enough to break through the reserve of the archivists a couple of times. One told me that school groups sometimes come to visit. “This is a good thing,” she told me “because youths need to know that heritage is not always as straightforward as some people make it out to be. Things change.” She also said that youth don’t necessarily value the past, but seeing the records in the archive helps them to connect with history.

At the Kutno public library, I met Andrzej Olewnik, a librarian with a deep interest in town history. He seemed delighted to meet someone who shared his interest; his whole face smiled as we talked. Pan Andrzej is also a collector, and finds documents associated with Kutno in auctions. He showed me old postcards and photos, including a photo taken in the Kutno ghetto during the Nazi occupation. He also showed me one of Sholem Asch’s business cards, given to him by Asch’s great grandson. He keeps these treasures in protective plastic covers, but slid them out so I could examine them more closely.

Sketch of Kutno synagogue, in Kutno Museum. My shadow reflection is on the far left.
Postcard of the Sugar Factory in Kutno
Passport application of Icek and Ruchla Holeman, 1865. In the collection of the Kutno Museum

The library has a collection of books about Kutno history. One features historic passport photos from the Kutno museum collection, many of which belonged to Jewish residents of the region. It turns out that the museum has other items related to Jewish culture they keep in storage. Some tombstones were found in a sidewalk and brought to the museum. The museum has them in storage, but took photographs of the inscriptions, which are in Yiddish and Hebrew. They are looking for someone to transcribe and translate them.

Another book Andrzej showed me was the Kutno Yizkor book. Yizkor books were compiled after World War II; in them, Jews who survived the Holocaust collected all the information they could about the Jewish population of their hometowns, including historic documents, demographic data, and personal accounts. This one was written in Hebrew—only some Yizkor books have been translated into English. Other books are by or about Sholem Asch, including precious Polish language translations of some of Asch’s plays.

Andrzej showed me digital photos of the prewar synagogue. It was right in the center of the street. Traffic would go around it on both sides. It had columns on one side, and the main entrance on the other. A map from the 1820s shows there was a long narrow green area in front of the building. Across the street from the synagogue there used to be the Jewish school, and behind that the ritual bathes. Andrzej had photos that were taken from the air showing synagogue’s destruction. First the roof was removed in 1940. Later, explosives were embedded in the pillars and the building was blown up.

Grażyna Baranowska, another librarian, organizes the Sholem Asch Festival which takes place every other year. It started as a literature contest, in which contestants competed for prizes for their original writing or their reading of literary texts. Then, it expanded into a culture festival. Next, an academic conference on the life and work of Sholem Asch was added. For the past two festivals, the great-grandson of Asch, David Mazower, has come from England. The next conference is in September 2017 and the festival is in October or November 2017. I’m trying to work out a way to attend this year.

The Curious Tale of the Fake Rabbi

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Identity, Jewish Culture, Polish-Jewish relations, Poznan, stereotypes

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Purim 2015
http://www.gloswielkopolski.pl/

Not long ago, a reporter revealed that that the man acting as Poznan’s rabbi was not in fact a rabbi. He called himself Jacoob Ben Nistell and claimed to be an Israeli from Haifa, but it turns out he is actually Jacek Niszczota, a Catholic Pole from Ciechanów, a town 60 miles north of Warsaw.

I’m not quite sure what to think of the story, but it resonates with Ruth Ellen Gruber’s characterization of much of Jewish activity in contemporary Europe as “virtual.” In her book Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe (2002), Gruber describes the myriad ways Jewish spaces, performances, and even people are in fact idealizations, representations, or stylizations of Jewishness. They are done up in “Jewish style” but often without actual Jews. This has occurred throughout Europe, where the interest in all things Jewish far exceeds the capacity of the tiny or absent populations of Jews to fulfill. Instead, non-Jews renovate synagogues, restore cemeteries, run Jewish restaurants, perform Klezmer music, and lead Jewish heritage tours.

Jacoob/Jacek’s self-presentation as Hasidic rabbi can be added to this long list of virtual Jewish performances, with the important qualification that his role was deceptive. He claimed to be a real Hasidic Jew, not someone just dressed up as one. He wore his hair long, with the distinctive side curls. He also dressed in a black brimmed hat and long black jacket. I don’t believe his intentions were malicious. Nor am I sure how much he deliberately deceived people, and how much people saw him as they wanted him to be. When I met him, he didn’t tell me “I’m a rabbi.” Rather, he said “They call me a rabbi,” his sweet smile and amused tone suggesting he was willing to go along with what others were saying about him. He did, however, claim to be from Israel. I didn’t quite believe him; more accurately, I questioned whether I heard him correctly because it didn’t fit my reading of him. He seemed Polish to me. Others tell me he put on an Israeli accent, but I can’t always recognize accents of Polish speakers. When I talked with him about a possible interview, he did not refuse, but he did not seem very eager either so I never pursued it. He seemed quirky and harmless, a bit of a happy jester.

Nevertheless, Jacoob/Jacek was deceptive and his actions are highly offensive. I saw him at a number of commemorative events: praying at the grave of Akiva Eger, a respected early 19th century Poznan rabbi; saying kaddish at the unveiling of the commemorative monument and lapidarium in Wronki; leading prayers at the Jewish Religious Community in Poznan. What got him caught was the media attention he received when he appeared at an ecumenical meeting with a Catholic priest and a Muslim imam. Someone from his hometown recognized him and alerted the media.

At that point, it became clear that there had been rumblings among Israelis and other Hebrew speakers that Jacoob/Jacek didn’t actually know Hebrew. Rather he read texts phonetically, putting emphasis and accents in the wrong places.

So that leaves me with the question why no one at the Jewish Religious Community (which is an official religious association for practicing Jews) challenged the veracity of his claims. Either they were genuinely deceived or they chose not to do anything about it. It’s problematic either way. If they didn’t know, it reveals how tenuous their knowledge of Jewish religious practice, culture, and language is. If they did know, it suggests they allowed the deception to go on. Even though Jacoob/Jacek was never declared a rabbi officially, I did hear him referred to affectionately as “our rabbi” (“nasz rabin”) and he was allowed to lead prayers in contexts that everyone expected would be done by a real rabbi. The Jewish Religious Community has a legal status. It is supposed to be the official institution for practicing Jews. What it turned out to be instead in this case is part of the virtual Jewish space. The idea, look, and performance of Jewishness was deemed sufficient.

I feel sympathy for Jacoob/Jacek, who has disappeared since his deception was revealed. I wonder what compelled him to pretend he was Jewish, and why he adopted the stereotypical form of a Hasidic Jew. It’s anachronistic in so many ways. Being any kind of Jew is a rarity in Poland, and the only Hasidic Jews in Poznan are occasional foreign visitors. Even historically, when Jews lived in Poznan in greater numbers, very few were Hasidic. This was even pointed out to me by a prominent member of the Jewish Religious Community. He gestured toward Jacoob/Jacek and assured me that even in the past, Poznan Jews tended to be more modernized.

“Who, 30 years ago in this country, would have pretended to be a rabbi, to say nothing of 70 years ago?”asked the Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich in an article in the Times of Israel. He described Jacoob/Jacek as “very sweet and smiley,” much the same as I saw him.

Poles Remember

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Bottles of Vodka

19 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Survival, Włocławek, Żychlin

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Two times over the course of my visit to Żychlin, my host Henryk told me a story about a young Jewish boy who survived the war and returned to the town to collect his family’s jewels. A bad Pole threatened the boy’s life unless he showed him where the valuables were hidden. The frightened boy showed him. They sat down at a table and for each one item the bad Pole gave the boy, he took several for himself. The boy took out a roll of money and offered to buy the jewelry. Then, the brother of the bad Pole came in and saw what was going on. He told his brother, “Here, I have two bottles of vodka. We’ll drink together.” Then he gave the boy all his money and jewels back.

The story made an impression on Henryk. He said a woman from Włocławek had told it to him. Because they were talking on the phone, he didn’t want her to tell him the real names of the men. He wants to save it for when they meet in person. That kind of information is better shared face-to-face. The second time he told me this story, it occurred to me I might know the woman he had spoken with. Indeed, it turned out that it was Mirosława Stojak, who has made it her personal quest to learn all she can about Włocławek Jews. Henryk promptly called Mira so we could talk. I met Mira during my first visit to Włocławek in 2014, and then again when I was there in June.

Mira uses her talents as a poet, writer, and actress to share the stories of Włocławek Jews. In her book Utkane Sercem Włocławskim Żydom, she includes the story that so captivated Henryk, called “Two Bottles of Vodka.” Here is the translation of the story:

Two Bottles of Vodka

Utkane Sercem Włocławskim Żydom by Mirosława StojakWinter 1946 was cold. All around, snow covered homes, roads, and trees. Long icicles hung from the roofs. On a January afternoon, Ariel came on the snowy road to the home of his relatives. Before the war, together with his sisters, he was there a few times. During his last visit in 1939 Ariel’s father, a merchant from Żychlin, knew that soon Germans would attack Poland militarily. Sixteen-year-old Ariel, a short boy, emaciated after the experience of the camp, walked pensively listening to the scrape of his creaking shoes. In his ears rang what his father once told him:

“You have to save yourself, and whoever survives should return here…”

He knew perfectly well that his visit would not be viewed happily by the new owners of the house. He was even afraid that he would be treated poorly. He wasn’t sure, either, if the home still stood, or if it was bombed during the war. He hoped not. He walked slowly, every once in a while touching an icy rock. He passed ruins of houses and ashes, people shoveled snow. He heard dogs barking. Before the war he loved dogs, and they even had two beautiful German shepherds at home. Now, they reminded him of scenes from the camp and he was horribly afraid of them. In Auschwitz they were trained to murder. Ariel picked up his pace. Soon the sun would set and it would be dark. After a while, he saw the home of his uncles and aunts, who didn’t much care for visitors during the war. Fearfully, he knocked on the door. A young man stood before him, tall and well built. He had an unfriendly expression on his face, as if he had been expecting him. With his strong hand, he pulled Ariel inside, shutting the door, and yelled,

“Where is it?”

The frightened Jew led him down the stairs to the basement, and then the “brute” pushed him against a wall and demanded he say where the treasure is. A few strikes of a hammer against a wall and in the hands of his “captor” appeared a casket. Now, the boy was led upstairs and into the kitchen. The man grabbed his shirt and sat him on a chair at the table, then sat down across from him and opened the box. Inside was the ancestral jewelry of Ariel’s family. There were brilliantly shiny rings, broaches, and necklaces. Taking the valuables out of the casket, the man put them on the table, between himself and Ariel, loudly counting:

“Mine, mine, yours, mine, mine, mine, yours, mine, mine…”

When he finished, there were just three family heirlooms in front of Ariel. Tears appeared in his eyes. They reminded him of his mother, who always wore a string of white pearls around her neck when she went to synagogue. Now they lay in front of him on the table awaiting their verdict. The boy slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a role of banknotes, explaining that for him the jewelry has sentimental value for his family and he would gladly buy them back. The “brute,” without thinking, took all the valuables lying on the table for himself, and in a deep resonant voice called out,

“Józek!”

In the kitchen doorway appeared a “man like an oak,” big and broad-shouldered, who asked contemptuously,

“What?” and looked at the table.

The brute moved aside, his eyes not leaving the valuables. Józek who was much older was supposed to settle the matter. Ariel began quickly explaining, persuading him to agree to his proposition to buy the jewelry. He asked Józek to take the money and give back the valuables and then everyone would be satisfied. Józek thought; he silently looked at the young Jew and the table with an appraising eye. Frightened, Ariel imagined them closing him in the basement and starving him, or God forbid, murdering him. Wouldn’t it be ironic to die here and now, after he had the good fortune to miss death at the hands of the Nazis? After a while, Józek broke the silence, yelling:

“Karol!”

A boy who was perhaps eight years old came into the kitchen. Freckled, with wavy hair and an intelligent look. From the pile of money lying on the table, Józek took one bill, gave it to the boy and told him:

“Go and buy two bottles of vodka.”

The boy, like a shot, ran from the cottage. Józek pushed the jewelry and money in the direction of Arial and said:

“Take it and go!”

Ariel ran as fast as his legs would take him. It was a marathon. He didn’t even touch the rock; he didn’t hear the barking dogs. He sped ahead with all the strength in his legs, not looking back. When he got to the station, the train stood ready for departure.

Mirosława Stojak recounting stories about Włocławek Jews, October 1, 2015

Mirosława Stojak recounting stories about Włocławek Jews, October 1, 2015

Mirka told me she met the boy from the story when he visited Włocławek (now of course, he’s an elderly man). His wife wore some beautiful jewelry; she doesn’t know if these were pieces he recovered, but it is nice to think that they were. At his request, she changed all the names when she wrote down the story. Nor did she write about the further misfortunes the boy experienced before he found his way to safety in Israel. I won’t either—the most important thing is that he survived.

How Żychlin Remembers, part 2

01 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in antisemitism, Jewish Ghetto, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, stereotypes, Synagogues, World War II, Żychlin

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The next morning I met Tadeusz Kafarski for a tour of the city. He was with Józef Staszewski, the director of the Żychlin branch of the Association of Children of War. Because Józef was born in 1929, he remembers wartime better than Tadeusz, who was only a year old when the Nazis invaded. The two sometimes disagreed about details, but together they reconstructed for me Jewish life in Żychlin. As they pointed to the buildings that stand here and now, their descriptions transported me back and forth through time, to prewar life, wartime murder, and communist era absence. I had the odd sensation as I did so many times on this trip of being both here (in the present) and then (in the past), my mind trying to reconcile what stood before my eyes with what used to be. My guides led me back in time with varied fragments of information:

On Łukasieńskiego Street, we passed concrete apartment buildings built in the 1970s on the site of the second, larger Jewish ghetto.

Mr. Helmer, the richest Jew in town, lived across from the market square, to the left of Narutowicza Street, in what is now a well maintained two story building.

One block south, near the synagogue (the blue Star of David on the map below) on Kilińskiego Street, we passed the former home of a Jewish doctor, a building that used to be a dairy collection point, and another that was the preschool Tadeusz attended. A man named Merc lived nearer the synagogue. Behind some houses was the Jewish slaughterhouse, but Christian Poles also bought meat from there.

Jews and Poles lived side by side, even though this part of town was predominantly Jewish. Today, this section of town is run down though these particular buildings seem in good shape.

Map of Żychlin 1940-42 showing the ghettos in red, the first one is on the left and the second is on the right. The dark green shows the main areas where Jews lived--note that most were not in what became the ghetto. That meant gentiles had to move out of those areas when the Jews were forced to move in.

Map of Żychlin 1940-42 showing the ghettos in red, the first one is on the left and the second is on the right. The dark green shows the main areas where Jews lived–note that most were not in what became the ghetto. That meant gentiles had to move out of the ghetto areas when the Jews were forced to move into them.

As we wound through the dusty streets, the contemporary residents stared at us suspiciously, though some who know my guides greeted them, “Dzień dobry (Good day).”

The patch of tall weeds in front of the synagogue (on Jana Kulińskiego Street) used to be a fenced garden. The garden continued to be maintained after the war, even though the Polish residents used the synagogue as a warehouse, as did the Nazis. The lower sections of the windows were bricked in and new doorways were installed in the sides of the building to facilitate loading and unloading.

What’s left of the Żychlin synagogue. Note the windows used to extend much father down, and the more recent doorway (now blocked) added when the building was used as a warehouse. The weedy area in the foreground used to be a fenced garden.
Pan Józef beside the site of the well and mikvah
Worn stones–something I learned to value as a student archeologist. These were used in place of asphalt before World War II

As a child, Józef went inside several times with his parents, though he could only describe the general layout of the interior. The candlelit altar was on the east wall, the main entrance on the west. Above the entrance was a balcony that would have been for the choir in a church but in the synagogue was for women to pray in. In a neighboring building, the rabbi would change. On the other side of the synagogue were a well (with the best water in town) and mikvah. After the war, everyone used that bathhouse.

Józef said, “There is just one faith; Jews believe in God just like we do.” He declared children played together regardless of religion. He described distinctive aspects of the Jewish population. Men wore head covers and beards. They would take their shoes off in the synagogue, but had to keep their head covered. The Jewish “priest” was the only one with side curls. He wore a black hat, black clothes, and a white shirt. Jews stayed home Friday and Saturday; they didn’t work. They held their hands at their waist and rocked as they prayed. They read scrolls. Jews used to bury their dead in a sitting position with money on their eyes. Men carried the unclothed, shrouded body to the cemetery. They returned to God as they began. When they left the cemetery after the burial, mourners dispersed in different directions . He asked why and was told it was so the spirit doesn’t return home with them.

Are these personal memories or stereotypes picked up from other sources?

My guides told me about a man named Rozenberg. They pointed to the yard of his bakery, and then we walked around to what used to be its storefront on Narutowicza Street. Rozenberg lived in a multi-story home on the other side of the street. He married a Christian named Czajka. Jozek said the Rozenbergs’ children Krysia and Rudek were Jewish. He played with the boy. After her husband died, Czajka married her brother-in-law, a judge. They had two more children. After the war, the family was harassed by the police so they sold all their buildings and went to Israel. One child moved to Norway.

The Germans occupied the town on September 15. At first, they didn’t treat anyone harshly, but they did take their property—first the stores and richer buildings owned by Jews, and then jewelry and everything anyone had that was valuable.

The main entrance to the ghetto used to be across from Rozenberg’s bakery. This was the second ghetto, established later for the poorer Jews. The first ghetto, where the richer Jews were sent, was on the grounds of an old factory outside the center of town. As Jews were forced into the ghetto, Poles whose homes were within the ghetto territory had to move to homes on the other side of the street—homes that had been emptied of their Jewish residents.

In July 1942, the second ghetto was liquidated. It took five hours because thousands of people were loaded onto wagons, and then everything was removed from their homes and segregated into piles. Some Poles helped, forced to work under threat of death. My guides disputed claims that Poles plundered Jewish possessions. They insisted the Germans took everything valuable, then piled up all the remaining dirty and broken things and burned them.

We crossed the street to the main square. Right there in front of the church there used to be a row of market stalls run by Jews. The church owned the land, but didn’t have any problem with Jewish venders. We continued behind the church and across another market square to the town library. This solid stone structure was originally built for Hempel, the Nazi mayor of the town remembered for his cruelty.

My guides Tadeusz Kafarski and Józef Staszewski in the town square
The Żychlin town square
Director of the Żychlin Library, Ewa Andrzejewska
Nazi Mayor Hempel’s villa is now the Żychlin Public Library

Tadeusz told me the wartime mayor’s villa was built with tombstones from the Jewish cemetery. Jews were pressed into service carrying the heavy stones. It was backbreaking labor made more difficult by the extreme heat. When one of the workers asked for a drink of water, the Nazi officer shot and killed him. Then, he held up a stick threateningly and asked who else wants a drink. No one dared ask for water after that. Józef told the story a little differently. He said the man who asked for water was dragged to the nearby lake and drowned.

Pani Ewa Andrzejewska, the director of the library, said her aunt who took care of Hempel’s children described him as ruthless, “A typical German.” He furnished his house with things he took from the richer people in the city. He rode a white horse. She also suggested my guides were a little too invested in showing Poles in a positive light to me—emphasizing heroism and victimization and minimizing complicity. She said that on one hand, Jews and Poles lived peacefully together. She was raised to not feel any prejudice. But on the other, many have negative sentiments toward Jews. She even went further to say Poles are genetically indisposed toward Jews. I challenged her on this saying that since sentiments toward Jews have changed over time, it’s a matter of history, not biology. She still didn’t agree, and repeated that Poles have a problem with this.

A dream of mine would be to help preserve and maybe even rebuild the town synagogue. My hosts said the TMHŻ has looked into turning it into their meeting space. Ewa said the ownership of the building is in dispute. So for now it just sits there, slowly crumbling away.

Leaving town the next day, I was once again stopped at the railway crossing as a train sped by. I didn’t mind having one last moment in this town where my great grandmother lived. I felt saddened and rooted by what I had learned, and grateful for the acquaintances who showed me Żychlin as it is now and as it was then.

How Żychlin Remembers, part 1

01 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Bolimów, Jewish Ghetto, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Sobota, Synagogues, World War II, Żychlin

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My visit to Żychlin began and ended at the railway crossing. I had meandered up from the highway, passing through the small communities of Bolimów and Sobota where my ancestors lived over a century ago, and had to stop as a train sped by. I called pan Henryk to make sure I was on the right road. He assured me I was, and met me a few minutes later. Henryk, whom I met in 2014 through his website Historia Żychlina, had arranged meetings, tours, and interviews for me with resident fans of local history.

Bolimów synagogue, now the police station at 6 Farna Street
Central Square, Sobota

Tadeusz Kafarski, Vice President of the Association of Enthusiasts of Żychlin History (TMHŻ) joined us for a look around the train station. He and Henryk pointed across the tracks where during World War II transports took 2500 Jews from the Żychlin ghetto to Kulmhof (Chełmno) Camp near Poznań. They debated exactly where the trains had stood, but later, Henryk and his wife took me to a platform across from the main train station, saying that is where it happened.

Pan Tadeusz describing the transports that took away the Jewish residents of Żychlin in 1942.
Żychlin Train station, boarded up and unused
Looking across the express train tracks to the platform where Jews were loaded onto transports
A closer look at the same platform

The station building signals the effects of communism and its demise on this community. My guides told me the prewar station was imposing and beautiful. The postwar building that stands today—boarded up in places, broken windows and graffiti in others—is more functional than attractive. Its size shows that this used to be a major stop on the route from Moscow to Berlin. But since the express tracks were laid following the fall of communism, only a few trains stop here each day. Instead, every few minutes, one zips by at breakneck speed. The place was deserted, except for a group of teenagers who were hanging out.

Tadeusz told me he remembers the transports as they left the station with their human cargo in 1942, even though he was only four years old. During the war, when his family was forced to move from their home, as were many residents, they were resettled in a former Jewish residence. From the street it looked like a normal cottage with a living room on one side and a kitchen on the other. A distinctive feature of this house, though, was the stairs from the kitchen to the basement and the door from the basement to the courtyard behind the house. This private entrance was used sometimes by the men of the family who didn’t want to be seen returning in their dirty clothes.

Others whom I met during my visit shared similar memories of childhood. Janusz Tomczak, who was a teenager during the war, remembers seeing the land covered with wagons. Only later, he understood that these belonged to the Jews who were being taken to the camps. Józef Staszewski was with some older boys when the ghetto was being liquidated. It was a few days before Easter. He was a scout at the time and he made a vow to God he that he would choose death before he betrayed his friends. A couple of blocks from where they stood, Nazis loaded people into wagons and took them away. Now he knows that the captives were segregated by age and ability, and the children and elderly were led to special vehicles and then gassed inside them.

To be continued….

 

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

04 Thursday Aug 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WloclawekUlPiwna1853

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

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

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QR code linking to a brief history of Piwna Street.

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

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