We packed a lot into our trip from May 25-29. Fourteen international volunteers joined numerous local volunteers at the Żychlin cemetery, where we finished clearing and surveying the depression where we suspect victims of the March 1942 liquidation of the Jewish ghetto were buried. In addition, on May 25, there was the ceremonial transfer of a Torah fragment recovered in Żychlin to the Saski Palace Museum in Kutno. On May 26, two Żychlin descendants and two participating University of Alabama students visited the Żychlin school to talk about Żychlin’s Jewish history and our project. On May 27, most of the 8th grade students joined our clean-up activities in the Jewish cemetery. On May 28, we traveled to the Former German Death Camp Kulmhoff for the unveiling of a memorial marker on the Wall of Memory for the victims from ADJCP towns.
News coverage of the Żychlin Cemetery Project, 2026
Please keep an eye out for more posts about the Żychlin Cemetery Project and other ADJCP activities.
Ceremonial unveiling of the memorial plaque at the Wall of Memory in the Rzuchowski Forest. Source: Museum of the Former German Death Camp Kulmhoff website.
While we were staying in Kutno, both Tanja Cummings and I decided to visit the Kutno Jewish Cemetery, located on a large grassy hill surrounded by suburban streets, bloc apartments, and a school. Some remnants of the historic wall separate the space from the private yards of its neighbors.
For years, descendant Yosef Kutner (see his website Jewish Kutno) has been working to rebuild a sturdy wall around the cemetery to make it safe for the return of hundreds of recovered tombstone fragments.
I also took a few photographs on a sunny afternoon a few days later.
Memorial monument at the top of the hillStones left by school groups who visited the cemetery Graffiti taints a symbolic grave
Sun setting on the Hassidic monument
View of the Kutno Jewish Cemetery from the memorial at the top of the hill
I witnessed a dog walker, several groups of high school aged boys, and some solo young men drinking beer. Other signs of disturbance included trash, graffiti, and dug holes.
The condition of the cemetery raises the question about appropriate use of the space, given its historic and sacred value and the lack of a living Jewish community to watch over it. Should it be secured behind a locked wall? That might prevent both intentional and unintentional desecration, but there could be unintended consequences. It would cut the space off from the day to day lives of current residents, marking it as “other” and beyond their responsibility.
Might it be left available for respectful use by the people living in Kutno today? After all, they are the ones in a position to keep an eye on the place. What constitutes respectful? Would walking count? What about walking dogs? How about picnicking, playing ball, sunbathing? How do you stop people from leaving behind trash, dog droppings, and graffiti? Signs that identify the space as a Jewish cemetery and outline its history have not worked.
“Żychlin’s Jewish past is not a footnote. It is a central chapter in the town’s history, and every step we take here helps restore dignity to those who lived, prayed, and were murdered here,” writes Michael Mooney. He joined the Żychlin Cemetery Project last year through our partner the Matzevah Foundation, and this year he returned with his daughter Ariel, a college student. Michael and Ariel brought energy and curiosity to our activities, as well as a willingness to do the hard physical labor of clearing our target site of the stubborn shrub blackthorn.
Michael wrote this Facebook post about our activities:
Ariel and I arrived yesterday afternoon in Kutno, Poland, where we are staying for the duration of our volunteer work in Żychlin. We immediately met the international volunteers who have gathered here this year — people joining us from across Poland, the United States, and several countries in Europe. It’s a remarkable group: committed, thoughtful, and united by a shared purpose.
This morning we took part in a moving ceremony in Kutno, where a fragment of a pre‑war Torah scroll from Żychlin was formally entrusted to the Museum Pałac Saski. The event brought together representatives of the Jewish community and the Catholic Church — including Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich and Bishop Wojciech Osial — in a shared act of remembrance and responsibility for Jewish heritage in central Poland.
After the ceremony, our group continued our work at the Jewish cemetery in Żychlin, a place that holds both the memory of centuries of Jewish life and the trauma of its destruction.
Work at the Cemetery Today
• Clearing vegetation along the perimeter of a suspected mass‑grave area, where Jews from Żychlin were likely executed during the liquidation of the ghetto. This continues the work we began last year, slowly reclaiming the land from decades of overgrowth.
• Beginning the repainting of the cemetery gates, restoring dignity to the entrance of a sacred site that has been neglected for more than 80 years.
Every brushstroke and every branch removed is an act of remembrance — a way of returning visibility and respect to a place that was meant to be forgotten.
A Stop at the Żychlin Synagogue
Before heading to the cemetery, we stopped at the former synagogue of Żychlin — today only a shell of what it once was. The building is completely inaccessible: every doorway bricked shut, the interior long collapsed, the structure left to decay in silence.
One of our volunteers, Lawrence, whose father was a survivor from Żychlin, stood with us as we placed a memorial candle outside the sealed entrance. The candle remained unlit — a symbol of a light that once burned here but cannot yet return inside.
As we stood there, neighbors stepped out of the surrounding houses to watch. No one spoke.
The building was silent.
The street was silent.
Only the memory remained.
The Jewish Community of Żychlin
For more than 400 years, Żychlin was home to a vibrant and deeply rooted Jewish community. On the eve of World War II, Jews made up over half the town’s population, roughly 3,000–4,000 people. They built synagogues, schools, businesses, and a rich communal life that shaped the town’s identity.
All of it was destroyed between 1939 and 1942.
The Murder of Żychlin’s Jews
In 1942, the Jews of Żychlin were rounded up and deported to the Chelmno extermination camp, where they were murdered.
Local testimony and post‑war accounts also indicate that executions took place on the grounds of the Jewish cemetery itself. Two areas within the cemetery are believed to contain mass graves, where groups of Żychlin’s Jews were shot and buried during the liquidation of the ghetto. These sites were never formally marked or commemorated, and for decades nature concealed them.
Our work today — clearing brush, restoring the gates, and tending to the land — is part of the long process of bringing these places back into historical visibility and honoring those buried there.
Why This Matters
The Torah fragment entrusted to the museum this morning, the silent synagogue we visited, and the work at the cemetery this afternoon are all part of the same story:
A story of a community erased —
and of descendants, volunteers, and allies working to ensure it is never forgotten.
Żychlin’s Jewish past is not a footnote. It is a central chapter in the town’s history, and every step we take here helps restore dignity to those who lived, prayed, and were murdered here.
Thank you Marysia Galbraith and Bożena Gajewska
Michael (center) with his daughter Ariel and Żychlin descendant Lawrence Zlatkin
Report #2 about Roberta Books and Marysia Galbraith’s trip to meet Polish partners in preparation for the ADJCP‘s memorial visit to central Poland. Reports include contributions by Roberta.
September 8-12, ADJCP Members Roberta Books and Marysia Galbraith, Jewish Kutno Member Yosef Kutner
Panorama of the Kutno Jewish Cemetery from the top of the hill, Roberta stands beside the memorial monument on the left
The cemetery is the largest one in our area, covering 3 hectares. Yosef’s mission was to inspect the boundaries to see the condition of the fence. We found some fragments of the prewar brick fence. There are several access points to the cemetery, making it a place where Kutno residents cut through on their way to school or home, or where they walk their dogs or children play. Despite signs posted by the TPŻK explaining this is a cemetery and should be respected, piles of trash in remote corners of the cemetery suggest it is used as a place to drink and socialize. We located a sunken area where a tree grows, the likely sight of the Ohel of Rabbi Israel Joshua Trunk (1821-93), and larger sunken area hidden by overgrowth that might be the site of a wartime mass grave.
Sign reminding visitors to respect the Jewish Cemetery
Possible fragment of the original brick wall that surrounded the cemetery
Possible site of Rabbi Trunk’s Ohel
Sunken area that may be site of mass grave
Roberta next to the commemorative monument, Kutno cemetery
Next, we met the Kutno Regional Museum Director Grzegorz Skrzynecki and others at a defunct brewery warehouse where the museum stores hundreds of matzevot fragments recovered from the places they were used in road and construction projects (a common practice during and after the German occupation). The volume of stones is astounding, though still just a fraction of the matzevot plundered from the cemetery. You can see many of them with English translations of the decipherable texts in Yosef Kutner’s book Broken Memories: Remains from the Jewish Cemetery in Kutno. Yosef compiled the book from photographs, so this is the first time he saw the actual stones. Piled as they were, most of their identifying numbers are not visible. Nevertheless, there on the surface, Yosef found the top of his great grandfather’s tombstone. Mr. Skrzynecki explained that more fragments were found during a recent road project. They didn’t make it into the book, but I’m sure Yosef will find a way to share that information once he has it.
Yosef scans the recovered matzevot fragments, many of which he includes in his book Broken Memories
Meeting to discuss cemetery protection and maintenance
The meeting to discuss the future of the Kutno Jewish Cemetery followed. It was attended by key figures from the Jewish Community of Poland (Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich), from the town of Kutno (Deputy Mayor Zbigniew Wdowiak, town attorney Agnieszka Wojkowska-Pawlak, museum director Grzegorz Skrzynecki, museum public relations and marketing Katarzyna Erwińska, library head Magdalena Konczarek, and Michael Adamski, head of the Department of Culture, Promotion, and Development), from the Association of Friends of the Kutno Region–TPŻK (Bożena Gajewska), and from international Jewish heritage groups (Yosef from Jewish Kutno and Roberta and me from ADJCP).
Yosef Kutner presenting his proposal for the Kutno Jewish Cemetery. Rabbi Schudrich seated on the right
This description is based on Roberta Books’ memo: The city deputy president opened the meeting with a presentation of the many actions the Town of Kutno has undertaken in support of remembrance of the Jewish history of Kutno, including the biennial Asch Festival.
Josef Kutner followed with a slide presentation about the Jewish cemetery of Kutno, and his proposal for protection of the property. His proposal includes fencing the entire property with a brick wall that resembles the wall around the Christian cemetery, confirming the location of two mass graves mentioned in the Yizkor book and commemorating the mass graves with an appropriate marker, and limiting access to the site in order to prevent partygoers and others from disrespecting the site. Kutner also advocated creating a memorial with the preserved matsevot and marking the site of Rabbi Trunk’s Ohel.
The town attorney then discussed the ownership of the site. Important records for verifying with legal clarity that the Jewish Community of Kutno owned the site, in particular the Land Registry Book, are missing and unlikely to be located. Despite 20 years of effort, the town has been caught between legal requirements and administrative rulings that have called into question their legal right to maintain the site. Although no interested party questions that the site belonged to the Jewish Community of Kutno, legally this remains a murky area.
Rabbi Schudrich responded that he has dealt with similar problems in Poland on a number of occasions and he is confident that he can sort this out satisfactorily. He told the parties that they should begin planning while the legal issues were being sorted.
Schudrich and the deputy president talked about the change in mentality that they expect will come about when the plans began to come to fruition. When Jewish cemeteries are protected, local residents begin to take pride in them and matsevot have a way of coming out of hiding and returning to the cemetery.
The deputy president voiced his full support for the cemetery renovation, including covering the costs of a new wall. He noted that he, too, had drawn up preliminary plans for fencing the cemetery. They differ from Kutner’s proposal in two key ways. His design would be constructed of metal with brick pillars, not brick like the historical wall or the wall surrounding the Christian cemetery. Also, it would have multiple access points rather than the single access point in the Kutner proposal. The deputy president wants current residents to remain able to walk across the site; he pointed out that its location in the middle of the city would complicate closing it off. He wants the site to be respected as an integral part of the town. He noted that Rabbi Schudrich was consulted throughout the development of the plan, and he supported this idea.
I want to emphasize the good will everyone projected toward each other as well as the resolve to push through the twenty-year roadblock that has stalled the project to secure the cemetery. Since the meeting, Yosef Kutner has continued to share materials about the likely location of the mass grave and to push for his vision for the cemetery restoration.
Additional meetings
After lunch, we visited the city library, where director Magdalena Konczarek showed us a short film they produced about Sholem Asch, his work, and the biennial Kutno Sholem Asch Festival. The library sponsors the festival, which has been held every other year since 1993. They also have an extensive collection of materials related to the Jewish history of Kutno and of Asch. They have published several academic volumes based on papers delivered at the conference that occurs in conjunction with the festival, as well as Polish translations of Asch’s work. For the memorial trip in May, Magdalena and library historian/regional specialist Andrzej Olewnik will mount an exhibition featuring their collection.
We continued to the offices of the TPŻK where we met Bożena Gajewska (until recently the organization president) and the vice-president Grażyna Baranowska (former librarian and organizer of the Sholem Asch Festival). Bożena reaffirmed her commitment to continue working on projects associated with Jewish Kutno, and Grażyna affirmed the continued support of the TPŻK.
The next day, we viewed an exhibition in the Kutno Community Center about the Eizyk brothers who bred and grew roses before and after the war. From this successful business, the city adopted the moniker “City of Roses.” The exhibition was part of the annual Rose Festival that attracts thousands of visitors to Kutno.
Students at the Jan Kasprowicz High School in Kutno, together with Roberta, Marysia, and principal Ciurlej
On September 12, we visited students at the Jan Kasprowicz High School (Liceum II). Roberta and I agree that such outreach to young people was one of the most important (if not the most important) part of our visit. We were welcomed by school director (principal) Artur Ciurlej, teacher Anna Ambrosiak, and a room full of students eager to hear from us. They showed us a short video about their recent activities related to Jewish memory (including dancing lessons!), and then Roberta and I each told our personal family story, explained our ancestors lived nearby, and talked briefly about our desire to restore Jewish memory. The meeting took place in English, but the students clearly understood us; they asked thoughtful questions and shared some of their own experiences with us. We spoke for more than a class period, even after the bells rang. Some students promised to meet us again in May, although they will have graduated by then.
Final note: Clearly, we have strong partners in the Kutno city government and with the TPŻK. They all expressed the desire to work with us and seem to have a sincere interest in preserving and promoting the Jewish heritage of the city. They are eager to participate in the memorial trip in May.
While going through photos, I came across this map from the Muzeum Uzbrojenia in Poznan showing the movement of the Polish army (shown in red) through central Poland when the Nazis invaded in September 1939 :
Red arrows show movements of Polish armed forces through central Poland in September 1939
It’s a little hard for me to read, but I believe Poland had a stronghold in the Kutno region and for a few days they held back the Nazis (shown in blue).
This region is exactly where my family came from. My great grandmother was born in Żychlin and eventually settled with her husband and children in Włocławek. They would have been long gone when the war started, but some of my grandmother’s siblings were still living in Włocławek. Here’s another layer of memory I need to integrate into my family story. How profoundly destabilizing it must have been for them to watch as the Polish forces fell and they became foreigners in their own country.
It turns out I’m not the only one who dreams of doing Jewish heritage work in the land of my ancestors. The Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland has just gained nonprofit status and welcomes members.
It started at the initiative of Leon Zamosc, who reached out to others on JewishGen seeking information about ancestors from the region around Kutno and Włocławek. As the message from the founders explains:
The concept of a regional organization of descendants developed out of an initiative to visit the districts of Wloclawek, Gostynin, and Kutno in order to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the destruction of the region’s Jewish communities during the Shoah. About 60 JewishGen researchers responded to the initial invitation, including 16 who volunteered as consultants for the planning of the Spring 2022 trip. In those early exchanges, some participants proposed the creation of a more permanent organization that would allow us to develop other activities related to the cultural heritage of the region’s shtetls. After studying the options, a subcommittee of 9 participants suggested ideas for possible activities and recommended the establishment of the ADJCP – Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland.
On the 2022 trip, we’ll participate in memorial activities at the Chełmno Death Camp. We will also learn about the history and culture of Jewish residents of the region, spending time in the larger cities of Włocławek, Kutno, and Gostynin. In additon, participants will have the opportunity to participate in small group excursions to the smaller cities and towns where their ancestors lived. We hope to contribute to a heritage project while we are there.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 may have been established as early as the 16th century, also. 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.
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.
Uncovering Jewish Heritage 