Hiding in Plain Sight: Lesko 1992

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Lesko, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Synagogues

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Funny what we forget. I got an SLR camera for my ethnographic fieldwork in the early 1990s, thinking it would be an important tool for documenting everyday life. I even experimented with shooting and developing black and white film (this was a film camera). The photos are interesting because they capture things I deliberately went out to photograph. As it turns out, fragments of Jewish culture figure prominently; they’re the subject of 28 out of 112 photos. Here are some of them from Lesko:

Tombstones (some painted) in the Lesko Jewish Cemetery. 1992

Marcin beside a tombstone taller than he is. 1992

Front facade of the former synagogue in Lesko. 1992

This ornate facade of the synagogue features the Ten Commandments and the inscription in Hebrew: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (see Virtual Sztetl). The building was partially destroyed during World War II, and rebuilt in the 1960s and 70s. That’s when the round tower was enlarged and the curved roofline was added. You can tell because the newer features are made of brick instead of the original stone. Here are photos of the interior and exterior of the synagogue in 1932 (from fotopolska.eu):

Lesko Synagogue 1932

Lesko Synagogue 1932 interior

Last spring, I learned that the iron railing that used to surround the central alter is now a balcony on a building in the center of town. I actually took this photo of it in 1992, but had no idea where the balcony came from.

The balcony on this building used to be the iron railing around the alter in the synagogue, Lesko 1992

It’s one of the prettiest buildings in town, especially since it was renovated and repainted golden orange. Still, this railing brings to home the fact that fragments of Jewish life and its destruction are hiding in plain sight. I suppose its appropriation is what preserved this particular part of the synagogue. But knowing what it is and where it came from, it seems horribly, terribly, out of place.

Kazimierz

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Identity, Jewish Culture, Kazimierz, Krakow, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Synagogues

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Schindler's List

Raised on stories about Mama’s magical homeland of Poland, I visited for the first time in 1986. This was before the fall of communism, when the country was still in the grips of a state socialist government. But although I went in search of my roots, I didn’t think about my heritage as being Jewish. I knew nothing about Polish Jews, and I didn’t identify as Jewish. Nor did I mention it to anyone; there would not have been much to tell since I didn’t know anything about this aspect of my family history. Moreover, and perhaps primarily, I had somehow internalized the unspoken understanding that Poles are Catholic, and Jewish heritage wasn’t supposed to be talked about.

I review the memories in my mind, searching for clues about how I thought about Polish Jews. Again, I am reminded that I didn’t think about my own Jewish heritage during my first visits to Poland, except perhaps to repress it. I preferred the family narrative about our Polish Catholic background to the reality of our more complex past. From time to time, I saw anti-Semitic graffiti, or heard prejudicial remarks about Jews. But mostly, neither I nor the Poles I met paid much attention to the past lives of Polish Jews.

But not entirely. For instance, during the summer school I attended in Krakow, a fieldtrip was organized to Kazimierz, the former Jewish quarter of the city. Jews settled there near the end of the 15^th century when faced with restrictions against living in the city center. By the 1930s the population of Kazimierz reached about 60,000 Jews. Most died in the Holocaust, leaving the district abandoned. After the war, it was not a popular place to live and those who moved in did little to maintain or update the historic buildings. By the 1980s, most of Kazimierz was in disrepair. Some buildings had fallen down completely while others had cracked, grey, and dirty walls. In fact, much of the Old City of Krakow looked run down. But Kazimierz was worse, even on Szeroka Street, the historic center of the Jewish district.

Trace of a mezuzah in a doorway, Kazimierz 1986

Kazimierz 1986

Old Synagogue in Kazimierz, 1986

It’s hard for me to distinguish memories from my first visit to Poland and subsequent ones in the early 1990s, but I think I went to the Remuh Synagogue already in 1986. That’s where a small group of older Jews continued to congregate. I also visited the walled cemetery next to the synagogue, where at least some of the gravestones and arched grave coverings were maintained and, judging by the small stones left on them, visited regularly. I think it was in the 1990s I was told that many of these older Jews were not in fact Polish, but rather came from the former Soviet Union. Such talk left me with the impression they weren’t real Polish Jews, but rather opportunists exploiting the growing interest in Jewish heritage tourism.

Some of the historic buildings started to be renovated already in the early 1990s. The first Jewish-themed business I remember was Ariel, a restaurant and café on Szeroka Street. It featured Jewish food and displayed Jewish memorabilia and artwork. I took some of my friends from Bieszczady, my rural fieldsite in the southeast of the country, to Ariel. I wanted to impress them with the cultural diversity of Krakow. Looking back at my fieldnotes from that time, I was surprised to see I noted that my friends were fascinated by this former Jewish district. They asked me if the café was in a Jewish style, and if the people around us were Jewish. So perhaps even then, Poles were more interested in Jewish culture than I realized.

Ariel Cafe in Kazimierz 1993

Over the years, Kazimierz has become more and more popular. The first to come were artists and students seeking an edgier, cheaper part of the city to live in, as well as tourists seeking traces of Poland’s Jewish past. I have read that a turning point came after Steven Spielberg filmed Schindler’s List in the district. This was in early 1993, while I was still living in Krakow. A fake wall was built to enclose Szeroka Street near Starowiślna Street, and movie-set facades resembling World War II era businesses were painted on abandoned buildings. In effect, Spielberg turned the area into the Jewish ghetto, even though the actual ghetto was a few miles away in the district of Płaszów. I watched filming one day. An actor dressed as a Nazi officer (I now realize it was Ralph Fiennes playing Amon Goeth) strode to the top of a pile of suitcases over and over again. Mostly, everyone was just standing around. I was able to pick Spielberg himself out; he was wearing one of his signature ball caps. Some of his kids were there, and I think I saw his wife as well.

Filming Schindler’s List, 1993. Ralph Fiennes is in the background, playing Amon Goeth

Filming Schindler’s List, Kazimierz 1993. Note Ariel Cafe in the background and the fake facades on the surrounding buildings.

After witnessing the filming of Schindler’s List, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief and become absorbed into the story when I watched the movie in the theatre. It didn’t help that one of my friends, a swarthy Brazilian whose father’s family was Polish, appeared larger than life in the first “Jewish” crowd scene.

Today, so many parts of Kazimierz have been reconstructed or renovated that it can be easy to forget how derelict it used to be. In addition to the many cafes and restaurants, the synagogues, prayer houses, and other Jewish institutions have been restored. Even more significantly, eclectic forms of Jewish life have returned to the district, most visibly at the Jewish Community Center, which holds Shabbat dinners and Jewish cultural events, and functions as both a gathering point and an information center for Jewish residents of Krakow and visitors from around the world.

Inside the Tempel Synagogue, Kazimierz

Inside the Tempel Synagogue, Miodowa Street, Kazimierz 2015

Izaak Synagogue, Kazimierz

I gave a talk at the Jewish Community Center in Kazimierz, June 2015

Memory in Fragments: the talk at UA

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Brześć Kujawski, Buk, Cemeteries, Family, Heritage work, Israel, Jewish Culture, Lutowiska, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Poznan, Pre-World War II, Research Methodology, Skierniewice, Synagogues, World War II, Wronki, Włocławek

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Fulbright Program, Postmemory, University of Alabama

The lecture I gave at UA September 3, 2015 about my research during my Fulbright Fellowship is now available on vimeo. I’ve never seen myself lecture before. It’s a little unsettling. Still, here it is, flaws and all (for instance I know that Poland entered the European Union in 2004, even though I misspoke here).

I talk a little about the Fulbright Program–the kinds of grants available and some tips for applying.

It’s also a good introduction to my ideas about reassembling Jewish life: the strands that I’m following, what has been lost, what can be recovered, and how memory projects at sites throughout Poland intertwine with my own search for my family history. I hear echoes of some of the scholars I’ve read–Iwona Irwin Zarecka and Marianne Hirsch, as well as my sometime collaborator Malgosia Wosińska. There is no way to bring back what has been lost, but fragments of the past can be reassembled to form a new kind of life that allows for connection with what used to be and what yet might be.

Tracking Down Jewish Radymno

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Radymno, Synagogues, World War II

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Although I knew the former synagogue still stands in Radymno, had to look several times before I actually found it. I’ve visited for years, and yet my friends never even told me the town had a prewar Jewish population. But until June, I never thought to ask them about it, either.

When I finally did ask, my friend couldn’t tell me much. She repeated a common refrain, especially in southeastern Poland: Jews used to say “nasze kamienicy, wasze ulicy” [“our buildings, your streets”]. It’s not clear that any Jews ever actually said this, but nevertheless, this is often what is remembered about them—Poles may have been the majority but Jews were richer. It’s a telling way of marking the distinction between Poles and Jews. Rather than all residents being regarded as Poles of various religions, Jews remained separate. Moreover Jews are remembered as being complicit in asserting their difference, and indeed their superiority. My friend didn’t mean it this way, but I’ve commonly heard this expression deployed as a justification for why Poles didn’t like Jews. Not only were Jews the property owners, they rubbed it in.

Jewish property ownership poses different challenges today. Some current residents fear prewar owners will return to claim what was theirs. My friend told me about two men who came to Radymno a few years ago and looked at some buildings that had once belonged to Jews. She also described a building in the center of town that is falling apart, but nothing can be done about it. It can’t be torn down because it is a historic structure, but no one will invest in its renovation for fear they will lose possession of it if the owner comes back. She also mentioned another property, a plot of land surrounded by fields whose last owners were Jews. The town hasn’t pursued a clarification of ownership because it isn’t worth enough to hire a lawyer and try and collect the few zloties of tax owed on it each year. So it just stands fallow. I suggested the owner is probably dead. She said of course, it’s been so many years. I clarified there probably aren’t even any descendants, and she responded “of course, because of what happened to Jews.” She didn’t elaborate, nor did she use the words Holocaust, murder, or genocide.

My friend’s mother-in-law had heard her mother’s stories about Jews. She grew up right next door to where they live now. Still, when we asked her about it, she responded she doesn’t know much. She was too young, and her mother didn’t tell her much. She remembers her mother complaining about the sound of the calves at the slaughterhouse across the fields. Kosher law demanded that they be killed with a single knife stroke, and with an empty stomach. Her mother could hear the calves crying in hunger as they awaited slaughter. There still is a slaughterhouse in the same spot, but it has been rebuilt and expanded. At first, my friend’s mother said it used to be owned by Jews, but then she said she wasn’t sure. Jews definitely used it, even if they weren’t the owners.

Her father opened a grocery store in Jarosław, a nearby town. All his neighbors were Jewish shopkeepers. He had to give up the business after a year and a half because they lowered their prices to the point that he could not compete.

Her mother also told her how all the Jews were collected by the Germans and taken to the cemetery where they were shot. She mourned the loss of two young pretty Jewesses, whom she knew because they did seamstress work together.

My friend’s mother-in-law said some Jews and Poles się przyjaźnili [were friendly with each other]. They lived side by side.

She also recalled where the Jewish cemetery was, not far from the water treatment plant.

My friend drove me down a dirt road past the plant, but there was no cemetery. When the road narrowed to two wheel tracks in tall grass, we turned around. My friend pointed to a stand of trees in the distance, saying she thought the cemetery was there. She tried to find someone at the water treatment plant but no one responded. From there, she stopped at a store, but chanced on a man who lives in a nearby city. The young men working at the car wash knew nothing about the cemetery, either. She finally found an older woman who pointed to a different, less traveled dirt road. We drove up it, but it didn’t get us to that stand of trees. My friend kept looking for a road leading in that direction. I can’t help wondering if maybe at some point in the past she hd been told the cemetery was there.

We drove past the slaughterhouse her mother-in-law had mentioned. It’s a big operation, rebuilt and expanded since the war. The building closer to the road, essentially a box shape, is probably the oldest.

From there, we took a back road up the hill into town and I finally got to see the former synagogue. It is now a beverage wholesaler. My friend’s uncle lives next door. I took some photos while she went to ask him if he knew where the cemetery might be.

The Radymno synagogue now houses a beverage wholesaler.

The front of the synagogue is an imposing two-story square façade that has been renovated, leaving no clear elements of synagogue architecture. From the back, though, the bricked-in semicircular tops of the former synagogue windows are visible. Through windows, you can also see staircases on either side that used to go to the “babiniec,” the upstairs balcony for women. My friend’s uncle used this term when he described it to us, so clearly he knows a bit about the building’s former life as a synagogue. He said nothing has been added to the building. It still has the same footprint, and it stands at its original height. I asked him how he knows, and he simply responded, “after all, I live next door.”

The synagogue from the back

Brick arches used to be the tops of the synagogue windows.

My friend’s uncle also knew how to get to the cemetery. He said he last went there over 30 years ago. As a high school student and a young man, he and his friends used to go there sometimes to have fun (in other words to drink). He remembers some tombstones were still standing, though many others had been brought to the river where people would wash their clothes on them. The writing was still visible on them, but later, the stones fell apart. Today there is nothing left.

Looking back toward Radymno from the cornfield beside the Jewish cemetery

The overgrown site of the Radymno Jewish cemetery.

He took us past the slaughterhouse and up a different dirt road. It petered out in a cornfield, right beside the stand of overgrowth and trees that Jasia had kept pointing toward. Still, we still couldn’t reach it because of a deep gully that separated it from the cornfield. Besides, the overgrowth would not have been penetrable without proper footwear, pants, and probably a machete. I suggested returning in the winter might be best.

At least I know the site to return to.

Grassroots heritage work in Bieszczady

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Dukla, Heritage work, Lesko, Nazi Camps, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Sanok, Synagogues, World War II, Zasław

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Bieszczady, Jewish culture and history

There is a pattern in the frequency (or rareness) of my posts. When I’m focused on other writing projects, I also write more for the blog. When I’m traveling, interviewing, and attending events, I write less. This month I’ve been traveling.

It seemed important to bring my new research focus to my old fieldsite, and see what is happening in relation to Jewish culture and history in the Bieszczady Mountain region.

The Lesko synagogue. Destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt in the 1960s.

I’ve written elsewhere about how striking it is that, despite the fact that before World War II more Jews lived in Lesko than Poles, only very rarely have contemporary residents volunteered any information about the former Jewish residents. Even though I walked by the former synagogue (bigger than the Catholic Church) and the massive Jewish cemetery countless times, it really only sunk in to me last November that Lesko was a sztetl. One of my friends in Lesko described it really clearly. She said that somehow she always knew that the Jewish history of the town was something that you don’t talk about. It was a taboo topic. This has only recently started to change. Only in the past few years has she noticed that people talk about Jewish culture and history openly. She thinks this is a good thing. Realizing how little she knows about the subject, she has started to educate herself about prewar Jewish life and the Holocaust in Bieszczady.

Interior of the Lesko Synagogue. Now owned by the town, it functions as a gallery of regional art.

Generally, I have found that when I ask, most people have a story or two to tell about Jews in Bieszczady, either something they have read or a some fragmentary memory their grandmother told them. Though also when I told one friend about my interest in Jewish culture and history, she responded, “There were Jews in Bieszczady?” Even though she went to high school in Lesko, she only vaguely remembered the Jewish cemetery and had no recollection of the synagogue. Whether she really didn’t know or just continues to think this is a topic that polite people don’t talk about, I’m not sure.

Nevertheless, some important grass roots work is being done: by Arkadiusz (Arek) Komski in Sanok, Ewa Bryła and her brother Piotr in Zagórz, and Jacek Koszczan in Dukla. Arek is working on a dissertation about the Jews of Sanok. We met at the Słotki Domek Cafe in Lesko after he finished work, and then the next day he showed me the places associated with Jewish life in Sanok.

One of the former synagogues in Sanok

Commemorative marker, Sanok

His interest in the topic originated with a curiosity about history, and particularly the history of his hometown. He has published articles about the Nazi work camp in neighboring Zasław and about the locks that were found at the Jewish cemetery. Last year, he realized a project to place a commemorative marker across the street from the former site of the great synagogue.

Arek also let me know that he was awaiting the arrival of a group of students from Dartmouth College, led by Rabbi Edward Boraz, who were going to clean up and inventory the tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Lesko (see Project Preservation). He has helped them already, first when they came to the cemetery in Sanok, then to Ustrzyki Dolne, Korczyna, and last year to Lutowiska.

Through Arek, I met Ewa, who helped found the Stowarzyszenie Dziedzictwo Mniejszości Karpackich (Association for the Heritage of Carpathian Minorities). Arek joked that for Ewa, working on heritage preservation is a full time hobby. Her interest emerged out of her own Bojko/Ukrainian roots; her parents and grandparents spoke Ukrainian among themselves, though they only spoke Polish with her and her brother. To date, the association has helped clean up as many as thirty Uniate (Ukrainian) and Jewish cemeteries in the region.

Information about the prison camp and murder of Bieszczady Jews in Zasław, near Zagórz

Another of the association’s projects is a heritage trail and information sign at the site of the Nazi work camp in Zasław. This is where most Jews from Lesko and neighboring communities were taken and forced to work at a neighboring factory. Approximately 10,000 prisoners were shot on the site, while perhaps 5,000 were sent to extermination camps at Belżec and Sobibor.

Monument at the site of mass murders in Zasław, near Zagórz

I stopped by Dukla on my way back to Krakow, and despite the rain Jacek and Ania, who works at the local tourist office, showed me around. Jacek had already started collecting Judaica around the time of his retirement from the border patrol. An infectiously upbeat and energetic man, he needed something to occupy himself and so decided to get to work protecting and publicizing the sites associated with Dukla’s prewar Jewish population. He told me that the town was as much as 80% Jewish. We walked by the former Jewish school, where boys learned various trades. It is across the street from the old government building; Jacek says that the associate mayor used to be selected from among the Jewish population. Similarly, most of the stone buildings around the market square (rynek) were owned by Jews. Jacek told me the fate of the last rabbi who hid under his rynek home, but then was caught and killed by the Nazis when he tried to escape to Krosno.

Writing still visible on the wall of the ruined synagogue in Dukla

Ruin of the 18th century synagogue in Dukla

Former synagogue, now a grocery store in Dukla

Two synagogues stood side by side. The one dating from the 18^th century was burned by the Nazis with Jewish residents inside. The neighboring mykwa was also destroyed. Jacek would like to see the remains of this synagogue conserved. All it would take is reinforcing the window arches and putting in a platform on the inside for viewers to walk on; right now a chain link fence surrounds the site. The other synagogue, dating from the late 19^th century, is now a grocery store. Dukla also has two Jewish cemeteries, the older one with burials up to World War I, and the newer one beside it used during the interwar period. Jacek mows them himself.

Jacek also coordinated the construction of a monument near the entrance of the old cemetery recognizing the 70^th anniversary of the murder of Dukla’s Jewish population. Funders include the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage (FODŻ) and descendants of former Jewish residents. While there have been many contributors to these various projects, Jacek is clearly the energy behind them, insuring that they are realized, and doing much of the physical labor himself.

Jacek reading a tombstone in the new Jewish cemetery, Dukla

Remembering the murder of Dukla’s Jews

In each of these cases, someone (or several people) from the local community has taken the initiative to insure that Jewish culture and history is brought back into the public landscape. They are not Jewish themselves, but something compels them to remember, and to teach others about the former residents of their towns.

Lutowiska’s Ecomuseum of Three Cultures

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Lutowiska, Memory, Polish-Jewish relations, Synagogues

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Nestled at the Ukrainian border in the Bieszczady Mountains of southeast Poland, Lutowiska integrates the remnants of the village’s multiethnic past in a walking trail called the Ecomuseum of Three Cultures (here’s a brochure and map ekomuzeum_trzy_kultury-2).

When I moved to Bieszczady in 1992 to do my dissertation fieldwork, some residents of the region had only just started to exercise new postcommunist freedoms by talking openly about their Ukrainian heritage. For the first time, they felt free to speak Ukrainian in public. But neither then nor now, has anyone ever spoken to me in a similar way about their Jewish heritage. Either no one is left, or no one wants to admit it. In Bieszczady, silence persists with regard to the topic of Jews. This is all the more startling when you realize that the prewar towns—Lesko, Lutowiska, Ustrzyki Dolne, Baligród—were all sztetls. Jews outnumbered Christians. According to a guidebook from 1914 (M. Orłowicz Ilustrowany Przewodnik po Galicyi, republished in 1998), Lutowiska had 1700 Jews, 180 Poles, and 720 Rusyns (the name used for the Ukrainian speaking population).

A former Jewish home across the street from the school in Lutowiska. Characteristic for the time, it was made of wood with a stone foundation.

Today, Lutowiska is a large village on the road that runs south from Ustrzyki Dolne into the high mountains of Bieszczady National Park. Immediately after World War II, it fell on the Soviet side of the border, but it was annexed to Poland in 1951 as part of a land swap. Residents were forced to move, as well; those from the chunk of Poland that was ceded to the Soviet Union were moved to the region between Ustrzyki Dolne and Lutowiska that had been depopulated during and after the war. I did my original fieldwork with some of the children of these resettled farmers who never got used to the rocky, hilly soil and colder weather of the higher elevations and longed for the rich, flat farmlands they were forced to leave behind.

So one possible explanation for the silence about the Jewish residents who were brutally murdered during the war is that very few prewar residents, those who would have had personal memories of Jews, remained in Bieszczady. Of course, this isn’t a sufficient explanation. It seems that many forces converged to produce this absence of memory. The state socialist government evoked Marxist internationalism to deemphasize ethnic differences while at the same time trying to solidify Poland’s claim over the land by Polonizing the resident population. Church rhetoric, too, frequently demonized Jews. Certain stereotypes persist in everyday discourse—Poland was weakened by Jewish domination of commerce, and Jews running the contemporary press constantly criticize the Church and the government. Some repeated a phrase they said Jews used to tell Poles, “the streets are yours but the buildings are ours.” But mostly in my experience, not even disparaging stereotypes broke the silence surrounding the topic of Jews; they simply were not talked about.

This backdrop of silence makes it all the more remarkable that, when a group of young Lutowiska residents got together in the early 2000s to explore ways of promoting their village, they decided to view the region’s multiethnic history as an asset rather than a liability. They were not specifically interested in Jewish heritage. Rather, they had a more pragmatic goal: to create attractions that would encourage tourists passing through on their way to the high mountains to stop for a while in Lutowiska. To achieve this, they developed a project called the Ecomuseum of Three Cultures, a 13 kilometer walking trail with information tablets at various sites associated with the village’s cultural and natural history. The three cultures were distinguished most clearly by faith—Roman Catholic (generally understood to be Polish), Uniate (generally understood to be Ukrainian), or Jewish. The trail includes views of the high peaks of the Bieszczady Mountains and the site where the classic Pan Wołodyjowski (1968) was filmed. It winds past the 19^th century Catholic church, the former site of the Uniate church, and the ruins of the Jewish synagogue.

One of the main designers of the museum, Agnieszka Magda-Pyzocha, teaches at the local school. She explained to me that nearly everyone forgot that the synagogue ruins still stood right at the heart of the village. For years, the old walls were used by the Polish Army’s Border Patrol as a trash dump. Agnieszka explained:

I remember when I was a child I walked there and saw that some stones stood, trees growing out of them, and nearly nobody knew. By looking in various sources, talking with people, and looking at photographs, we discovered that this was the synagogue that used to be here. Several truckloads of trash were carted away, the whole place was cleaned, and in this way it became an attraction that most residents had known nothing about for all these years.

Synagogue ruins and information sign, Lutowiska

An information board next to the synagogue ruins outlines the history of Jews in Lutowiska. It points out that, contrary to popular belief, most Jews were poor. Most were petty traders and craftspeople, though a few were farmers. The wealthiest Jews in Lutowiska were the Rand family. Mendel Rand started out as a traveling trader of sewing supplies. He worked hard enough to buy a country inn (karczma), and eventually bought the home of the local nobleman. On June 22, 1942, Nazi soldiers instructed Ukrainian peasants to dig trenches near the Catholic Church. That evening Ukrainian police gathered 650 Jews remaining in Lutowiska and neighboring villages Two Nazi officers shot them all, and had them buried in the trenches. A teenage boy escaped and hid in the Jewish cemetery, but he was discovered and brought back. Only seventeen-year old Blima Meyer survived; she was pulled out of the mass grave still alive (A. Potocki, Żydzi na Podkarpaciu 2004).

Lutowiska synagogue ruins

Information sign next to the synagogue, Lutowiska

A boy connecting with his Jewish roots.

The Jewish cemetery is on a hill that is visible from the synagogue, but to reach it you have to go down to the school, back around the playing fields, and up a dirt road. It holds as many as 1000 headstones, some dating back to the 18^th century. The cemetery was easier to get around in November than it was in August because the grass and weeds had died back. It is on a hill, with a steep slope to one side that is also covered with tombstones. Many stones are decorated with lions or deer (on males’ graves only), birds or candles (females only), crowns or torahs (for men with knowledge of the torah). In places, trees have grown into and around the grave markers. As Agnieszka noted, there is no graffiti or trash in the cemetery. She also told me a group of students from Dartmouth were there for about 3 days this summer. They built steps up to a gate they installed, cleaned some of the stones (they had an expert help them do this), and cut the grass. On the Internet, I saw Dartmouth Rabbi Edward Boraz organizes service trips to a different Jewish cemetery each summer. It’s called Project Preservation.

Tombstones in the Lutowiska Jewish Cemetery

Agnieszka likes to visit the cemetery: “It’s peaceful there, and sometimes it’s so pretty when the sun is setting and the light is falling a certain way. I lie down in the grass between those tombstones, birds sing, I feel peaceful and some sort of connection.”

At first I couldn’t find the plaque marking the site where 650 Jews were murdered by Nazis. Between the Catholic church and cemetery, there was a monument to those killed at Katyn and another for victims of Ukrainian aggression. I asked someone walking by and she explained the place I was looking for was up the road on the other side of the church. Notably, she knew, and was very pleasant about sharing the information with me.

Monument at the mass grave, Lutowiska

And there it was, a short way off the road down a shrub-lined pathway—a simple monument with two plaques. I almost cried when I saw it. The inscriptions read:

Mass grave for Jewish and Gypsy victims of terror murdered in 1943 [sic] by Nazis

In memory of 650 victims of fascism shot here by the Gestapo in 1943 [sic]—The people of Lutowiska 1969

It is disturbing to stand on a place where hundreds of people were brutally murdered.

I was deeply moved to see perhaps a dozen candle lanterns and a bouquet of red roses left at the site, probably earlier that week on the occasion of All Saint’s Day. Granted, it’s barely marked from the street. There is just a small sign on a tree saying “National Memorial, Places of Martyrdom.” But it is well maintained. It has not been forgotten as have so many other places I’ve visited associated with Jewish life.

Marker for “National Memorial, Places of Martyrdom”

Thanks to the Ecomuseum of Three Cultures, Lutowiska feels like a place that has embraced its history, even the tragic events. They have literally cleaned the trash out of the synagogue ruins and marked the site with a sign that hints at the life Jews had there, and how it ended.

Memory and forgetting in Poznan, part 2

29 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish relations, Poznan, Synagogues

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Monument to the victims of the Poznan labor camp

Despite the cold, Anka, Małgosia and I visited a few other sites associated with Jewish culture and history. The monument to the victims of the Poznan labor camp is on Królowa Jadwiga Street even though the actual detainment site was a block away in the old football stadium. The socialist-era monument is a tall concrete pillar with what looks like a menorah at the top. Anka pointed out the dedication on back of the monument stating it was erected on the 40^th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; even sites commemorating local events reproduce the idea that the Holocaust happened elsewhere—in cities such as Warsaw and Krakow.

The actual stadium was abandoned in the 1990s when a new one was built for the Warta football team. Warta is Poznan’s smaller club, rival to Lech, who got a big new stadium for the European football championship Euro 2012. Małgosia conducted ethnographic research in which Warta fans turned out to be the only ones who know the function the stadium served during the war. Essentially, it was a work camp where Jews were briefly held before being shipped off to the death camps. Many detainees were shot right there on the spot. We walked through the broken down gateway, up a set of stairs to an earthen berm surrounding what used to be the playing field. Today, the site is covered with trash, and trees grow everywhere including where the bench seating used to be. Only the concrete supports of the benches are left. Goal posts stand on the field, left over from 2012 when local teams competed in a kind of lighthearted protest against the massive outlay of funds for Euro 2012.

Looking out from the old football stadium toward the outdoor market and new high-rises.

For the most part, this is forgotten space, despite its proximity to the center of the city. It is separated from Królowa Jadwiga Street by a dilapidated outdoor market. On this frigid day, there were no customers, just very cold sellers who urged us to their buy their wares. I was told the outdoor market used to be bigger. When they were in high school, it was the place to get real Adidas and blue jeans. With all the competition from new shopping centers, the market has shrunk. There is an ongoing debate about what to do with the old stadium—what primary purpose should the space fill? Should it be a place for sports activities? A nature preserve? A place of commemoration for those who suffered and died there? Or should it become another housing development or mall?

What is the origin and meaning of this sculpture? Why is it in the newly named Square of the Righteous among Nations of the World?

Heading back toward the center of the old city to thaw out at a café, we chanced upon an unmarked, decaying stone sculpture. I think it was Małgosia who said it suggests some sort of Holocaust memorial. Then we noticed the sign designating the area as “Square of the Righteous Among Nations of the World.” I’ve since learned that this is a new name, approved by the city just this year.

We made two more brief stops on our tour. We peaked into the Church of the Most Holy Blood of Christ (Najświętszej Krwi Pana Jezusa) on Żydowska (Jewish) Street, where I showed Anka and Małgosia the ceiling frescos depicting Jews profaning the host.

Frescos over the alter depicting the profaning of the host

In Sinners on Trial, Magda Teter outlines the historical context in which this story was told:

On Fridays, as late as 1926, and perhaps even up to the eve of World War II, in a small Catholic church on what has been known as “the Jewish street,” a few meters off the main market square in the city of Poznań, the faithful did not sing the prayer Kyrie Eleison, “God Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy.” Instead, the church followed a liturgy that diverged markedly from the approved official liturgy of the Catholic Mass. The song’s text that replaced the words of the Kyrie Eleison told of Jewish desecration of the host in Poznan:

O, Jesus, unsurpassed in your goodness,

Stabbed by Jews and soaked in blood again

Through your new wounds

And spilled springs of blood

Have Mercy on Us, Have Mercy on Us, Have Mercy!

The hearts of stone from the Jewish street

In the house once known as the Świdwińskis’

Sank their knives in You

In the Three Hosts, the Eternal God

Have Mercy on Us, Have Mercy on Us, Have Mercy!

The song recounted the story of three hosts stolen by a Christian woman from a Dominican church in Poznań in 1399. According to the story, she delivered the three hosts to Jews who desecrated them, “stabbing” them with knives. Unable to dispose of them, the Jews took them outside the city and buried them in swamps. The hosts miraculously emerged to reveal themselves to a shepherd boy. The Christian woman and the Jews were punished by the magistrate, and the Church of Corpus Christi was constructed on the site after the miracle (2011: 89-90).

Teter goes on to suggest that this story might have been used as a rationale for building a new church on Żydowska Street. Pani Alicja, the head of the Poznan Jewish Community, told me that she has been waging another battle to have an informational plaque installed in the entranceway of the church explaining that the story of the profaning of the host is a legend, not historical fact. To date, church representatives have only agreed to post an explanation in the basement where most people will never see it.

The exterior of the former "new" synagogue in Poznan. The words "Pływalnia Miejska" (City Pool) can be made out above the long windows. The pool was closed just three years ago in 2011.

The exterior of the former “new” synagogue in Poznan. The words “Pływalnia Miejska” (City Pool) can be made out above the long central windows. The pool was closed just three years ago in 2011.

Our final stop was the former synagogue near the end of Żydowska Street. When built in 1907, it was considered the “new” synagogue. It could hold 1200 worshipers, and was richly ornamented with a copper dome. During the war, the Nazis stripped off the dome and transformed the synagogue into a swimming pool. It continued to function as a pool even after the Jewish Community regained possession of the building in 2002. Małgosia has seen the interior. She described how the bottom of the sanctuary was tiled with the pool at the center, but the upper part remained just like a synagogue. She also said she has been in the attic above the wooden beams of the sanctuary which is still filled with old papers and books. The building is in bad shape and in need of major renovation. Efforts have so far failed to turn it into a Center for Dialog and Tolerance (see this essay by Janusz Marciniak, which includes photos of the exterior in 1907 and today. An essay by Teddy Weinberger describes his visit to the synagogue when it was still a pool; he includes photos of the interior as a place of worship and as a swimming pool).

Rosh Hashanah, Poznan, September 26, 2014

30 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Jewish Culture, Poznan, Synagogues

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contemporary Jewish practice in Poland

It seems fitting that I would celebrate Rosh Hashanah for the first time in Poland, considering that generations of my family lived and worshiped here. It’s our removal that is bizarre, not our presence on Polish territory.

I have been told there are only about sixty Jews in Poznan today. Most Jews in this part of Poland left when the region was under Prussian rule in the 19^th century. The story contained in a number of sources is that they left because larger German cities farther west offered them more economic opportunity. I can’t help wondering, though, if they were also seeking a place with greater freedom and less persecution (a subject for further research). Over 20% of the city’s population was Jewish in 1837, but by 1922 only 1.2% were, about 2000 residents (Rafał Witkowski, 2012, The Jews of Poznań, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Miejskie Posnania). By contrast, 30% of Warsaw’s citizens at the time were Jewish.

I met the head of the Poznan Jewish Community (Gmina Żydowska), Pani Alicja Kobus, shortly before Rosh Hashanah. She has the energy and charm I remember in my grandmother and her sister, my Auntie Nunia. Pani Alicja established the Jewish Community about 15 years ago. She said nothing was happening in Poznan related to Jewish culture and heritage so she had to start from scratch. All the momentum was in Krakow and Warsaw, and much of worth in and around Poznan was being forgotten. So she negotiated with the city, and got permission to begin operations in a space the city gave her in a rough part of town. Through persistence and a lot of work, she managed to reclaim the former Jewish Community Headquarters, the building that houses the Jewish Community offices today. She said that she has had to fight for everything. She is a bulldozer. She only goes forward; she doesn’t give up. She doesn’t let obstacles stand in her way, even when people refuse her or tell her what she is trying to do is impossible. She attributes her success to this level of effort, along with the unfailing encouragement of others, as well as divine intervention. She often refers to God and miracles.

I asked pani Alicja if I could attend the events she was planning for Rosh Hashanah. She said I could, adding, “We’re such a small community, we have to be open.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the Jewish Community Headquarters the evening of Rosh Hashanah. The building is unmarked. Last time, I had to be buzzed in. This time a few people were standing outside. One greeted me as I arrived and told me the door was open. As I climbed the wide wooden staircase to the first floor, I heard the sound of many voices. The main room was packed with people standing and sitting around two long tables laid out with tablecloths, candles, and all kinds of dishes. Two large, round challah were placed at the head of one table, and each plate had a large challah roll on it.

Pani Alicja greeted me from across the room and invited me to sit near the head of a table already full of people. She introduced me to several of the people around her. The atmosphere was warm, and the conversations friendly.

Pani Alicja got the attention of the crowd. She expressed her joy at seeing so many people (I counted over fifty, but there were more; I never saw everyone at once). She called our presence there a miracle (cud). “Just look around you,” she said, noting there were guests from the US, Germany and Israel. She lit the candles at the head of the table. It was a moving moment for me.

The synagogue is one floor up, in a smaller room with high ceilings and windows. Pews fill the back, with room to seat about 30 people. The men sit behind a partition on the side by the windows and the women sit on the side by the door. A table with a lectern faces the pews. A cabinet in the corner behind the table holds the Torah and the crown, gifts from international donors. Along the wall by the door is an old synagogue pew with faded Hebrew lettering. Pani Alicja told me it dates back to the 1800s. Someone had it in his attic, and she convinced him to donate it to the synagogue.

Rabbi Jaakov has the long ringlets (peyot), black coat and hat characteristic of Hassidic Jews. He spoke to us in Polish, explaining a little about the ceremony, how it differs from a typical Shabbat, and how to read the prayer books, which contain a combination of Hebrew, transliterated and in Hebrew lettering, and I think Polish translations. He promised to guide us through the ceremony, telling us which page to turn to in the prayer books, and explaining the various prayers and songs. In other words, he took on a teaching role as well as leading the service. He read the prayers and songs in Hebrew, with his back to us, swaying forward and back.

Some men were given prayer shawls, and removed the Torah from the cabinet. They took turns carrying it around for everyone to touch. Many also kissed their hand. There was a call for a young male volunteer to blow a horn, the shofar. One said he has tried but couldn’t. Finally someone stepped up. He was supposed to make one long and then three short toots. His first attempts didn’t produce much sound. Eventually, some awkward sounds came out. Pani Alicja remarked it was important “tylko żeby było” (just to make it).

Rosh Hashanah, Poznan Jewish Community, September 26, 2014. http://www.gloswielkopolski.pl/

After the service, everyone returned downstairs to the tables, which were covered with a variety of dishes. Besides challah, there was carp in vinegar, beet salad, tsimis (sweet carrot salad), pomegranates, and various meat dishes, which guests identified as kosher. Rabbi Yaakov blessed the bread, which was broken and passed around. There were plates of honey to dip the challah into. Pani Alicja made a toast, and the feast began.

The event was strange and familiar at the same time. My secular upbringing makes any religious service unfamiliar. Here, especially, everything was new to me—the language, the rabbi’s motions, the separation between women and men. But the feeling was not strange—that of solidarity, of connection to something bigger than we are. It felt, oddly like a kind of homecoming.

More about Lesko

22 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Heritage work, Lesko, Synagogues, World War II

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While he was in Poland in August, my older brother Wiley had some valuable insights about Jewish heritage and about our family. This was his first time in Poland and his fresh perspective gave me a lot to think about.

This is what he posted on Facebook about Lesko:

“The largest structure in Lesko, Poland is a synagogue yet there are no Jews. Larger than the church. Not only are there no Jews there is no memory that there were any Jews. Let’s remember that 3,000 human beings, Jews, were murdered from this town, half the population, and there are those that care.”

The interior of the Lesko Synagogue.

Inside the synagogue: List of 3000 residents of Lesko and surroundings murdered by Nazis during the years 1939-1944.

About this photo, my brother’s commented, “Someone took the time to list the names. Thank you.” About me he remarked, “Taking the time to read the names and remember.”

Today, the synagogue belongs to the county (gmina) and is used as an art gallery. Just this month, I learned that the gallery is closed from fall to spring because the building has no heat. The Dom Kultury (Community Center) which manages the building wants to apply for funds to renovate the synagogue. The most pressing problem is moisture issues. Water creeps through the old stone walls and plaster, weakening the structure and even damaging the art housed within it.

Żychlin, part 3

10 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Synagogues, Żychlin

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Promised photos of the Żychlin synagogue before the roof fell in:

Sketch of the Żychlin synagogue, with well in front and mikvah on right. From “Memorial Book of Zychlin” Ami Shamir . The Zychliner Organization of Israel and America”. Tel Aviv 1974. Posted on “Zychlin-Historia.com.pl

Żychlin synagogue during the Interwar Period. From Zychlin-Historia.com.pl

Around 2008, roof still intact. From H. Olszewski

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Synagogues

Hiding in Plain Sight: Lesko 1992

Kazimierz

Memory in Fragments: the talk at UA

Tracking Down Jewish Radymno

Grassroots heritage work in Bieszczady

Lutowiska’s Ecomuseum of Three Cultures

Memory and forgetting in Poznan, part 2

Rosh Hashanah, Poznan, September 26, 2014

More about Lesko

Żychlin, part 3