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Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Kazimierz

Threading the Needle

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Baligród, Commemoration, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kazimierz, Krakow, Lesko, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Tarnów, Warsaw, Wronki, Włocławek, Zasław, Żychlin

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Erica Lehrer, Jacek Nowak, Jewish Poland Revisited, Katka Reszke, Return of the Jew

I am back from six weeks in Poland. I envisioned regular posts from the field in this blog. But instead, doing fieldwork left little time for writing and reflecting about it. Nevertheless, a structure for my next book project has been emerging. The challenge will be threading the needle between celebrating the renewal of interest in Jewish life in Poland, captured so well in Erica Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited and Katka Reszke’s Return of the Jew, and addressing the ongoing silences, distaste, even hatred expressed toward Jews, as revealed in Jacek Nowak’s interviews with ordinary Poles. Because both are happening at the same time, often in the same places, and sometimes even within the same people.

And I’ve seen evidence of both in my own research. People all over Poland are doing incredible work to preserve cemeteries, renovate synagogues, document first-person accounts, and celebrate Jewish music and culture, often in the absence of any involvement from living Jews. They work with passion to fill what they feel to be a void in their local communities. And they do so despite the resistance they sometimes face from fellow residents and local government representatives. Every place tells a different story, even though many of the same elements can be found in each of them. Over the next several posts, I’ll highlight the places and projects I visited. Watch for the place names to become links to more details.

Włocławek

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Students and teachers from the Automotive High School in Włocławek receive the first place award for their Facebook “fan page” “Włocławska zapomniania ulica” (“Wloclawek’s forgotten street”) at the Polin Museum in Warsaw, June 22, 2016. The contest was “Places of Holocaust Memory Near Us” and the challenge was to highlight a place in the local community. The team from Włocławek chose Piwna Street, called “the street of death” during World War II.

Żychlin

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Detail of the synagogue in Żychlin, converted into a warehouse by the Nazis and used as such for many years after. The roof caved in several years ago. Traces of frescos are barely visible through the empty windows.

Kutno

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New signs at the Kutno Jewish cemetery provide historical information and urge residents to keep in mind this green hillside is a cemetery. Installed by Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Kutnowski (Association of the Friends of the Kutno Region).

Wronki

An arial view of the Lapidarium in Wronki that shows the shape of the raised beds, meant to evoke an open book.

Warsaw

konferencja_zdk_polin-eng_1600_rgbIn Warsaw, the conference Jewish Cultural Heritage: Projects, Methods, Inspirations at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews gave me a good idea of the scope of heritage work throughout Europe, as well as ongoing debates about Jewish heritage projects.

Krakow

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Glass House Orchestra performing at Shalom on Szeroka, the outdoor concert culminating the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.

Tarnów

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Professor Hońdo of the Jagiellonian University helps participants in the Tarnów Tombstone camp for volunteers (Tarnowskie macewy – obóz dla wolontariuszy) decipher the text on a tombstone.

Baligród

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The weeds grow tall in the Jewish cemetery in Baligród, despite indications of maintenance done not too long ago. It takes constant attention to keep these sites from slipping back into obscurity.

Zasław

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Historical information about the Nazi Work Camp in Zasław marking the beginning of the trail from the Zagórz train station to the monument on the mass grave at Zasław. A project of the Stowarzyszenie Dziedzictwo Mniejszości Karpackich (Association of the Heritage of Minorities of the Carpathians).

Lesko

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The synagogue in my beloved Lesko–much of the front facade was rebuilt and reinvented around 1960.

 

Jewish Krakow 1992

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

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

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1992, Erica Lehrer, Jewish Poland Revisited, Postcommunism

During my photography expeditions in 1992, Krakow’s Kazimierz district caught my eye. Kazimierz has long been associated with Krakow’s Jewish population. It became a separate city for Jews when new regulations restricted their access to Krakow’s center during the 15th century. Before World War II, Kazimierz was incorporated into Krakow, but still most residents were Jewish. After the war, a tiny Jewish community congregated in a few remaining Jewish organizations. Despite their small numbers, the district continued to be associated with Jewish culture.

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A menorah motif on the fence around the green space on Szeroka Street, 1992

Over the past 25 years, Jewish life has returned to Kazimierz. It’s an eclectic community of people who define their links to Judaism and Jewish culture in a wide range of ways, including Poles who have recently rediscovered or reconnected with their Jewish heritage, Jews from the US or Israel or elsewhere, and people who simply appreciate Jewish culture. This is not a return to the prewar Jewish community; it is its own unique hybrid. Erica Lehrer describes the disparate strands that are woven together in Kazimierz in her book Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places. It’s well worth reading for anyone interested in understanding something about what’s happening in Kazimierz today.

But back in 1992, the main site of active Jewish culture in Poland was the Remuh synagogue and adjoining cemetery.

Remuh cemetery, 1992. Stones left on a tombstone
Remuh cemetery, 1992. Stones left on a tombstone
Inside the Remuh synagogue courtyard, 1992
Inside the Remuh synagogue courtyard, 1992
Remuh cemetery, the synagogue in the background, 1992
Remuh cemetery, the synagogue in the background, 1992

These are some of the older graves in Kazimierz, with the distinctive vaulted grave covers.

Part of the cemetery is surrounded by a wall made of fragments of tombstones. During World War II, many of these stones had been repurposed around the city as sidewalks and roadbeds, but they were recovered and placed in this wall.

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Wall around the Remuh cemetery, composed of fragments of tombstones recovered from building projects after World War II.

I also visited the larger Jewish cemetery off of Miodowa Street. Here are newer graves, dating from the 19th-20th centuries, including some postwar burials. The opulence of some of the tombstones attests to the prominence of the people buried here.

New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish Cemetery, Krakow 1992
New Jewish
New Jewish

But much of the cemetery was in disrepair. The tree above that is engulfing a tombstone attests to the length of time this neglect had lasted.

A final place that caught my eye, pointed out to me by a friend, Krystyna, was some graffiti inside the courtyard of a broken-down (though still occupied) building in Kazimierz. Someone painted a Madonna, but where her face should have been was a tiny door. I don’t remember what was behind the door, but it looks like there might have been

Madonna graffiti, Kazimierz 1992
Madonna graffiti, Kazimierz 1992
Madonna painted in a recess of a courtyard full of trash and broken down walls, Kazimierz 1992
Madonna painted in a recess of a courtyard full of trash and broken down walls, Kazimierz 1992

electrical circuits or perhaps water pipes. I remember Krystyna being captivated by this image. An artist herself, she wondered about its larger meaning: who would have drawn it, and why they would have put it where a door replaced the face? And why place it in a trashy courtyard in Kazimierz? I can’t remember if she said anything explicitly about the placement of Catholic imagery in the former Jewish district, but I think she did. And I certainly ponder this. It wasn’t a reclaiming of territory for Catholics–if it had been it would not have been placed where it was without a painted face. It was meant to be ironic, I believe. The Madonna of Trash and Disintegration.

 

 

Where’s Ralph?

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Jewish Culture, Kazimierz, Krakow, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, World War II

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Amon Goeth, Ralph Fiennes, Schindler's List

I should have remarked yesterday how strange it was to see Nazi uniforms and people wearing yellow stars in the middle of Kazimierz. Even though the atmosphere was relaxed–people were play acting, or really just standing around and waiting. Those piles of suitcases stood out as a stark reminder of the destruction the scene was designed to recall. Also, the energy shifted when Ralph Fiennes/Amon Goeth strode purposefully to the top of the pile. He exuded an authority that even at a distance was unsettling. And in case you’ve been wondering where Ralph Fiennes is in this photo:

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

Here he is:

RFiennes

Ralph Fiennes preparing to climb to the top of the pile of suitcases while playing Amon Goeth

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 15th 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
Trace of a mezuzah in a doorway, Kazimierz 1986
Kazimierz 1986
Kazimierz 1986
Old Synagogue in 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.

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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, 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.
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, Kazimierz
Inside the Tempel Synagogue, Miodowa Street, Kazimierz 2015
Inside the Tempel Synagogue, Miodowa Street, Kazimierz 2015
Izaak Synagogue, Kazimierz
Izaak Synagogue, Kazimierz
I gave a talk at the Jewish Community Center in Kazimierz, June 2015
I gave a talk at the Jewish Community Center in Kazimierz, June 2015

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