Posts about Poland as a nation.

Archives and Ancestors

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Archives, Family, Names, Piwko, Skierniewice

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I went to Łódź in search of my great grandfather’s birth certificate. It was my first time there. I had heard Łódź is an ugly, dying industrial center, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it is full of attractive 19^th century brownstones. Many are in disrepair, some are in ruins, but others have been renovated and recall the former prosperity of the city. I need to reread Reymont’s Ziemia Obiecana, a novel involving relations among Polish, German, and Jewish cloth manufacturers; as I recall, it provided a snapshot of the business relationships as well as the prejudices among them.

Plac Wolnośći, archive on the right.

The archive is in an old building in Plac Wolności, a circular intersection which, depending where you look, evokes either socialist monumentalism or the bourgeois elegance of the century before. Archives are odd places, and archivists generally seem more comfortable around paper and books than around people. In Łódź the documents I wanted are on microfilm. In other places, I have been fortunate enough to leaf through the original record books. They are large ledgers with thick yellowish paper. Some of the hardbound covers are riddled with insect holes. The handwritten entries can be hard to read—some scribes were neater than others; some added their own unique flourishes.

Still, I hit the jackpot—records from Skierniewice dating from the 1840s-60s. I found Hiel Piwko’s birth certificate and traced his line back two or three more generations. I found out that his father and mother came from smaller towns near Skierniewice, Rawa Mazowiecka and Bolimów. These older records are in Polish, though the handwriting can still be hard to decipher. I learned that my great-great grandfather Josek was a tanner (garbarz). This is consistent with what Aunt Pat has in her notes, but Hiel’s mother is listed with a different name—instead of Lucyna King, she’s Cywia Rajch. I traced back further after getting home, and found reference on JRI (Jewish Records Indexing) to her birth certificate, which lists her as Lieba Cywia Raich. Pat also lists Babcia’s sister Libe Piwko as Lucyna, so that likely explains the first name. Lucyna, Libe, Lieba can easily be versions of the same name. Could King and Rajch be related, too?

The birth records follow a standard pattern. They identify the father, the date he came to the record office, his age, town, and sometimes profession. Next, two witnesses’ names, ages, towns, and sometimes professions are listed. Then comes the name of the mother, her age and town, and finally the sex, birthdate, and name of the child. The witnesses and father sign, along with the clerk. I’ve been paying particular attention to signatures, which are occasionally in Hebrew, but are mostly in Polish.

The language used in these record books mark the political transformations of the 19^th century. After the Uprising in the early 1860s, records in the Russian partition switched to Russian instead of Polish. In Lęczyca (where I went the next day to trace the ancestry of Pinkus Kolski, who married Babcia’s sister), although the records were in Russian, peoples’ names were listed in both Russian and Polish.

I also was able to trace other historical facts about the Piwko line. Great-great grandmother Cywia, Josek Piwko’s first wife, died in 1862 at age 32, just a month after giving birth to a son Dawid. According to Aunt Pat’s records, Cywia (Lucyna) died of cholera (but at age 27). Hiel would have been just 7 years old in 1862. Three years later, Dawid died. Within a year, Josek had another son, Nusen Dawid with a new wife, Sura Burgierman. She was 24 and he was 42.

According to Aunt Pat’s notes, Josek had four wives. I am still looking for mention of the other two. Maybe I’ll find something when I get the Russian language records I collected in Grodzisk Mazowiecki translated.

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).

Memory and forgetting in Poznan

29 Monday Dec 2014

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

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Małgosia and Anka at the Jewish cemetery. The building in the background holds trash bins for surrounding apartments. The resident we spoke with felt uncomfortable about keeping the trash in a cemetery.

In early December, I visited the Poznan Jewish Cemetery for a second time with Anna Weronika Brzezińska, a professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Adam Mickiewicz University, and Małgosia Wosińska, a doctoral student at the same institute. We chose the coldest day of the season for our tour of sites associated with Jewish culture. Still, it was great to get the perspective of other ethnographers on some of the places where Jewish heritage is marked and unmarked in Poznan.

The gate into the courtyard was locked as usual, so Anka pushed the buttons on the intercom until a resident answered and buzzed us in. Anka shared her knowledge of the history of the cemetery (see some of this in my previous post). On a copy of a map from 1900, she pointed out how large the Jewish cemetery was, and how it abutted two large Catholic cemeteries. All were established in what at the time was the outskirts of the city to make room for development of the city center.

Commemorative graves and old tombstones recovered around the city. The apartments overlooking the site were built just outside the cemetery walls in the early 20th century.

Poznan continued to expand so that by the early 20^th century, there was another initiative to reclaim these cemeteries for other purposes. First, buildings were built along the roads, including the apartments on Śniadecki Street (visible on the other side of the wall behind the tombstones) and the Poznan Trade Center (Targi Poznańskie) on Głogowska and Grunwaldzka Streets. During World War II, the Jewish tombstones were removed and repurposed for roadways, sidewalks, and other building projects. The Catholic cemeteries (which already seem to have been at least partially missing in the 1927 photo) were also damaged, though they were not the object of systematic wartime destruction as was the Jewish cemetery. After World War II, in the 1950s, the socialist government liquidated what remained of all of the cemeteries in this area. This served a dual purpose for the secular socialist regime—so the land could be developed, but also because the cemeteries were affiliated with religions.

It changes things to realize it was not just the Jewish cemetery that was redeveloped, but also Catholic ones. Later, when we passed a park across from the train station, Anka said it used to be yet another Catholic cemetery. Taken together, they indicate a general attitude about the past—a willingness to forget, especially when specific ties to specific people are broken. State socialism also had its effects—the challenges of normal everyday life that made Poles reluctant to look to the past or the future, and the authoritarianism with which urban development was realized. This isn’t to say that Jewish memory wasn’t deliberately erased from the city landscape, but rather to put those practices into a broader context of erasure and rebuilding.

The commemoration project was controversial. Months earlier, Pani Alicja at the Gmina Żydowska explained to me that they can’t reclaim land that has been built on. This would have ruled out most of the former cemetery land because it is under the Poznan Trade Center. The only alternative was in the courtyard, but some residents protested against putting it there. I asked Anka if residents had known beforehand that their homes overlook a cemetery. She said maybe, but they would have had other things on their minds. Also, many families moved into the area after the war ended so they would not have ever seen the cemetery.

As we headed to a back gate to look at the other side of the cemetery wall, an elderly man approached on his way out from his apartment. He gladly unlocked the gate for us and paused to chat. He said he has only lived there since the 1970s, but his wife remembers playing in the empty field behind her apartment when she was a child (in what used to be the cemetery). She sometimes came across human bones sticking out of the sand.

He said some residents didn’t like the idea of the memorial, but he had no objection. On the contrary, it was a neglected space before, with broken-down garages and lots of trash. He tries to tell people about the history of the place when they visit. However, there aren’t many visitors. The few who come are usually from abroad. He hasn’t witnessed any ceremonies occurring in the courtyard. This seems odd to me. Surely some heard the prayers and chants during the Kaddish in September, but I didn’t see a single person look out their window. When asked Anka and Małgosia about this later, Anka defended the residents, saying only bathrooms and kitchens face the courtyard. Most people have no reason to look out those windows.

The resident also told us about a large wooden cabinet adorned with three carved roses that his wife’s family found in their apartment when they reclaimed it (during the war, all Polish residents were forced out and Nazi officers lived there). Once, they had a visitor who asked if they had Jews in the family, explaining that the cabinet probably came from a prosperous Jewish family around Lviv. Perhaps a German officer liked it, claimed it, and brought it back to Poznan. The number of roses (one, three, or five) represents increasing status within the Jewish community.

As we prepared to leave, Małgosia remarked that Jewish culture remains hidden in plain sight, even in places like this where the effort has been made to preserve it. Because of the locked gates, most people can’t come in.

How do you remember Jewish lives when nothing remains?

27 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Poznan

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Akiva Eger

A defining question of my study is turning out to be: How do you remember Jewish lives in Poland when nothing remains? Or when there are only scattered traces?

I certainly started with next to nothing when I began the search for my own family story. Since then, I have found so much—most extraordinarily many living relatives. I’m gathering up the fragments of the past—a half remembered story, a photograph, a birth record. And pieced together, something fuller is emerging. It’s still impossibly far from the rich lives that have passed, but it nevertheless gives me a much better sense of where I come from.

All this resonates with an article I read in the Atlantic, which although it is about the tension between science and belief in God, makes the point that the more knowledge we gain the more we become aware of how much we still do not understand (“Why God Will Not Die” by Jack Miles, December 2014, pp. 96-107). Miles explains, “Scientific progress is like mountain climbing: the higher you climb, the more you know, but the wider the vistas of ignorance that extends on all sides” (p. 100). Maybe this is what my search is destined to be like. Every relative I find points to many more ancestors and descendants who remain to be discovered. Every historical artifact hints at another vast realm of Jewish culture that remains hidden.

So how do you remember Jewish lives when nothing remains? When I met pani Alicja Kobus, the head of the Gmina Żydowska (Jewish Community) in Poznań, she told me about numerous ways in which the Gmina has fought to commemorate Jewish heritage throughout the region. Pani Alicja calls herself a bulldozer; she keeps at it no matter what obstacles she faces. She doesn’t give up. She also attributes her success to cudy (miracles), and to the material and spiritual support provided by numerous allies. Among the projects she described to me, one stands out—the reclaiming of a section of the Jewish cemetery. The story is pretty extraordinary.

The Jewish cemetery on Głogowska Street was established in the early 1800s, in what at the time was the outskirts of the city. The Poznan city leaders liquidated a number of cemeteries in the city center, including the old Jewish cemetery near what is now Plac Wolności, so the city would have room to expand. A photo taken in 1927 (on the webpage of the Poznańska Filia Związku Gmin Wyznaniowych Żydowskich w RP/ Polish Branch of the Union of Jewish Communities in the Republic of Poland) shows the Trade Center in the foreground and the Głogowska Street cemetery in the background.The cemetery was devastated by the Nazis during World War II, and the tombstones were either destroyed or carted off for construction projects. During the communist period, the adjoining Targi Poznańskie (Poznan Trade Center) was expanded into the former cemetery site.

Pani Alicja says it took something like eight years to create a memorial at the cemetery site. She focused her energies on a strip of land between some apartment buildings and the Trade Center, where a row of mismatched, ramshackle garages stood. Reclaiming the space for a cemetery memorial required the support of city officials, local residents, and international interest groups, including the descendants of Rabbi Akiva Eger, a highly regarded Talmudic scholar who was buried in the cemetery in 1837.

As pani Alicja tells it, opponents to the project were slowly persuaded, or they met with misfortune. One elderly woman refused to sell her garage, saying “I don’t want Jews in my courtyard.” Alicja responded, “You already do have Jews in your courtyard” (pointing out that the whole space was within the cemetery grounds). Not long after, the elderly woman passed away. A member of the city government who opposed the project got caught up in a scandal and resigned. Other residents were swayed by the promise that the neglected space would be renovated, with new gates and building facades. Finally, in 2007, the commemorative site was completed.

The memorial site is hard to spot from the street. The best clue is the Stars of David that ornament the new metal gates closing off the courtyard from the busy street. Inside the gate, granite plaques mounted on the archway wall outline the history of the cemetery, the rabbis who were buried there, and the international sponsors of the project (Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe, and the British descendants of Rabbi Eger). The text is repeated in Polish, Hebrew, and English. In a narrow strip of grass sloping up to a plaster-covered brick wall (where the garages used to be) stand six tombstones commemorating Eger, his wife, and other descendants who were also rabbis. The black stones are inscribed with Hebrew writing. White gravel fills a rectangle in front of each stone, the foot marked by a metal roofed glass enclosure for candles. Old stone tombstones lean against the wall, while a few stones with large, rough writing are scattered on the grass. These grave markers were found around the city, many dug out of roadways and other wartime construction projects.

The site is closed to the public because it is in a private, locked courtyard. The first time I visited was when rabbis and others came from Zurich and England to say the kaddish on the anniversary of Eger’s death. They gathered around the grave and sang and prayed for about an hour, nodding as they read in unison. The visitors were all male; they wore black hats and long coats, their payot curled in front of their ears. Observers from the Poznan Jewish Community watched at a respectful distance, except for a few key members including Pani Alicja who stood with the visitors.

Kaddish for Rabbi Akiva Eger, October 6, 2014

It struck me that throughout the kaddish, I didn’t see a single resident of the surrounding buildings. As it got dark, I could see the lights in many apartments. Didn’t they hear the singing? Weren’t they interested in what was happening right outside their windows?

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.

Only a few survived in Lesko

17 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Lesko, Polish-Jewish relations, Survival, World War II

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I have often remarked how the synagogue in Lesko is larger than the Catholic Church. It stands as a silent reminder of the prewar Jewish majority. Lesko is a small town of about 6000 residents on the edge of the Bieszczady Mountains in the southeast corner of Poland, and the site of my ethnographic fieldwork since 1992. The Bieszczady region was home to a multicultural population until the devastation of the mid-20^th century turned it into Poland’s underpopulated, ethnically homogenous “wild east.” The Jews became victims of the Holocaust, while many Ukrainians and Poles escaped the German-Soviet front during the war. After the war most of the remaining Ukrainians were removed to the Soviet Union or the land acquired from Germany by the postwar Polish state, and Poles were resettled from across the Soviet border or emigrated voluntarily from overpopulated communities in western Poland.

Lesko Synagogue, 1992

While in Lesko last week, I asked some of my friends what they know about the town’s Jews—is there anyone who can tell me what happened before and during the war? Did any Jews survive? Are there any Jewish descendants left in the area? Ever since embarking on this investigation of Jews in Poland, I have wanted to find out why the topic of Jews has come up so rarely during my frequent visits to Lesko over the past twenty years. Sure, I was shown the synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery on my first tour of the town, and rarely, someone mentioned that certain buildings used to belong to Jews, but that’s where it ended. Unlike in Krakow, where having a Jewish ancestor became for some a badge of distinction, in Bieszczady no one ever mentioned their own or anyone else’s Jewish heritage. It simply was not talked about. Or maybe I never asked?

Based on my initial conversations last week, there is still a lot of reluctance to think about, let alone talk about Lesko’s Jews. But a few people gladly engaged with the topic.

First the reluctance. Often there is a pause, and then the response, “No, there is nobody left. Or at least they don’t admit it (nie przyznają się).” I got the same response in places like Lutowiska, which was over 60% Jewish before World War II. In Lutowiska, nearly all the contemporary residents have roots in other parts of Poland or in the former Soviet Union (borders were not fixed there until the 1950s), which might explain the general ignorance about the village’s history. Many of Lesko’s residents arrived after the war, but there is also a good number of autochthonous families who remain in the town.

The one person several people suggested might be willing to talk to me was Romuald Zwonarz, whose father Józef saved the lives of several Jews by helping them hide from the Nazis for nearly two years. Fortunately, pan Romuald agreed to meet me. Over a long conversation, he told me his father’s story, mostly by sharing published accounts with me, annotated with marginal comments and sticky notes that correct errors and point out inconsistencies. He did not want to be recorded because he aspires toward a perfect historical record and is too painfully aware of the false starts and misremembered details that taint spoken language. Still, he is proud of what his father did.

Rena, Jafa, and Natan Wallach 1947

Józef Zwonarz and his wife Franciszka

The story is told in rich detail in Bitter Freedom, written by one of the survivors, Jafa Wallach shortly after she settled in the United States. Jafa wrote it to her daughter Rena to explain their wartime experiences and why they left Rena with strangers from the age of four to six. It’s an amazing account of an awful story. Basically, Jafa along with her husband Natan, who was a doctor, her two brothers, and toward the very end her sister, all hid under Józef’s mechanic workshop in a crawl space they dug themselves. It had earthen walls and was barely tall enough to kneel in with your head against the ceiling. Even more extraordinarily, the workshop was situated between Gestapo headquarters and the Ukrainian police offices in the center of town. Józef worked long hours repairing the occupiers’ vehicles, and then would sneak water and food to the hidden Jews at night. He also helped to find a safe place for Rena with a forest guard in a remote hut several kilometers from Lesko. Józef was recognized in 1967 as one of the Righteous among Nations, though he could not receive his medal until 1980.

From Romuald and his family’s story, I learned there was a work camp for Jews across the river from Zagórz. Lesko’s Jews were taken there before being killed on the spot or at the concentration camp at Belzec. Jafa only knew of a few who survived in hiding or with false (Aryan) papers. Romuald mentioned a few more he is aware of. Out of 30,000 Jews in the region before the war, only eighty survivors gathered in nearby Sanok after it ended. Those who came out of hiding were not made to feel welcome. As Jafa explains, some asked them “What are you doing among the living?” while others just looked with expressions of indifference.

I count on it that on future visits, I will learn of other people who remember Lesko’s Jews and are willing to talk about them.

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

Żychlin, part 2

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Jewish Culture, World War II, Żychlin

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The Jewish cemetery is on a hillside on the outskirts of Żychlin, surrounded by a metal fence. The place is overgrown, though not too long ago someone cleared out some of the underbrush, leaving cut branches in piles. The tombstones were decimated during World War II. The remaining fragments were assembled into roughly formed monuments, which are disturbing for several reasons. For one, there are so few remnants relative to the size of the cemetery. Second, most are just pieces of the original stones. Third, the monuments have a haphazard quality. I wished for something better able to display the details of the remaining tombstones, and more visually compelling. Three such piles (I don’t really know what to call them) are near the entrance gate. A fourth is behind a monument with the inscription in Polish and Hebrew, “In memory of our brothers buried in this cemetery as well as for those murdered by Hitler’s criminals at Chełm [Concentration Camp] 1942.” The plaques are covered with graffiti—mostly peoples’ names, though “Wisła,” the name of a soccer team, is also inscribed. The only grave in what seems like its full form is that of a rabbi. The upright rectangular stone has a plaque inscribed in Hebrew, and domed stones cover the gravesite.

Monument made of fragments of tombstones

Commemorative monument

Grave of the tzadik Szmuel Abba, son of Zelig (sztetl.org.pl)

No one remembered for sure, but pani Agnieszka said she thinks a foundation paid for the renovation of the cemetery in the early 1990s. Later, pan Józef at the local government offices recalled the work was done during the first term of the postcommunist local government, which would put it about 22 years ago.

Other events directly associated with the destruction of Jewish life and lives occurred in Żychlin. Nazi occupiers marched 200 Jews to the cemetery and shot them. Pan Józef recalls his father and two other neighbors were awakened by the Nazis and told to dig graves for murdered Jews. There were also two Jewish ghettos in town. The smaller one was on the grounds of an old factory. A long, low workers’ residence (which remains occupied today) was also where Jews lived in the ghetto. The larger ghetto was nearer the center of town. One side of it ran along Budzyńska Street, which was the most common address for Jews in the early 20^th century (see Tomasz Kawski, Gminy zydowskie pogranicza Wielkopolski Mazowsza i Pomorza w latach 1918-1942, 2007, pp. 270-77). Pan Henryk explained that the area used to contain smaller, older homes. All the Jews were moved to the area on one side of Budzińska Street, and all the Poles were moved to the area on the other side. Jews were only allowed to walk on the side of street that was in the ghetto. The Jews were removed in 1942 to death camps in other parts of Poland. All the buildings in the ghetto were burned. Pan Henryk gave me a photo of Jews’ possessions stacked in piles in a barren field that had been the ghetto, and a thriving neighborhood before that. In total about 4000 people lived in both ghettos. Most were from Żychlin, though some came from the surrounding area. No one returned after the war.

The former ghetto area is now filled with block apartments dating from the 1970s. Some older homes survived along Budzyńska Street. Pani Agnieszka pointed out typical characteristics of Jewish buildings. They tend to be shallow with windows on just the front and sides, and a flat windowless back as if the owners anticipated adding on another home that would share the back wall. She pointed out one house where after the war bedding and other valuables were found above a false ceiling in the attic. There was mention of other places where hidden treasures were found or where former residents returned to dig up the valuables they left behind, but the details were fuzzy. So maybe they really happened, though maybe they are stories built out of the stereotype of rich Jews.

A former Jewish home with characteristic flat back

Żychlin, part 1

01 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Synagogues, Żychlin

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My great-grandmother Hinda Walfisz was born in 1854 in Żychlin, a town near Kutno and perhaps 100km from Warsaw. Before World War II, its Jewish residents (the first of whom settled in the 16^th century) comprised as much as 60% of the population. None returned after the war. Many were shot by the Nazis; others were moved into ghettos and then to the death camps. Today, Żychlin has about 10,000 residents, including descendents of prewar Catholic families and others who migrated to the town after the war.

My guides where local historians Henryk and Agnieszka Olszewski. Pan Henryk emphasized to me that local history is his passion, but that he is an amateur (his word). I found him through his blog http://zychlin-historia.com.pl/ in which he documents his ongoing discovery of historical information about the town. Henryk’s wife Agnieszka said she couldn’t avoid becoming interested in history through her husband. She took the lead when describing the places we visited, while pan Henryk talked more about the supporting documents he has found through the people he has met, in Polish archives, and online.

Henryk and Agnieszka, Żychlin historians

From the very beginning, pan Henryk stressed to me that Jews and Christians lived well together. There were no pogroms in Żychlin. He drove us through former Jewish neighborhoods to the synagogue, Jewish cemetery, and World War II ghettos.

Former Jewish homes

The synagogue is in a neglected part of town, surrounded on two sides by the backs of buildings. The roads here have not been resurfaced in a long time. They have ruts and holes, and one paved with rounded stones probably dates back a hundred years. Pani Agnieszka explained that all the buildings around there used to be owned and occupied by Jews. Now they belong to the town and are rented. It doesn’t look like anyone bothers to maintain them. For instance, the wall of one house has a wide crack, windows are old, and plaster is falling off walls. Residents looked out at us from behind curtains and doorways.

Żychlin synagogue

The synagogue was used by the Nazis as a warehouse. They bricked up all but the tops of the long arched windows. For many years after the war, a state cooperative continued to use the building as a warehouse, but now it stands abandoned. The roof fell in five or six years ago. Pan Henryk said one day there was a loud crash as it just collapsed. Until recently, the wooden babiniec (2^nd floor where women sat) was still held up by metal beams, and the wall paintings were still intact in places. But only a few fragments of paint survive today, barely visible through the gaps where the windows used to be.

Little is left of the interior paintings

The salvageable metal and wood were carted away. “You know how it is,” pan Henryk explained. The fate of the remaining walls is uncertain. Pan Henryk says the Jewish Community gave it to the local government after the roof fell in, but they have no money to renovate it, nor can they tear it down because it’s protected as a historic site. For now, it seems fated to continue to deteriorate along with the homes and roads around it.

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Poland

Archives and Ancestors

Memory and forgetting in Poznan, part 2

Memory and forgetting in Poznan

How do you remember Jewish lives when nothing remains?

Rosh Hashanah, Poznan, September 26, 2014

More about Lesko

Only a few survived in Lesko

Żychlin, part 3

Żychlin, part 2

Żychlin, part 1