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Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Tag Archives: Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica

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

04 Thursday Aug 2016

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

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Facebook Fan Page, Memory for the Future, Miejsce Pamięci Zagłady Blisko Nas, Pamięć dla Przyszłości, Places of Holocaust Memory Near Us, Włocławek’s Forgotten Street, Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WloclawekUlPiwna1853

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

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

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QR code linking to a brief history of Piwna Street.

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

DSC08098

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

Council for European Studies Conference

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Brześć Kujawski, Commemoration, Family, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kolski, Memory, Piwko, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Research Methodology, Włocławek

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Tags

Absence of Memory, Council for European Studies Conference, Postmemory, Reassembling Jewish Life in Poland, Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica

Yesterday, I presented a paper titled, “Reassembling Jewish Life in Poland.” It starts like this:

It is easy to get the impression that we have entered an era of retrenchment of exclusionary national, ethnic, and religious categories, making minorities of any kind suspect. Specific objects of fear, such as terrorists, raise suspicions about broader categories, such as Muslims; the economic threat attributed to immigrants extends to all Mexicans, Syrians, North Africans, or Eastern Europeans. And Jews have once again become the object of attacks in Western Europe, leading Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg (2015) to title his recent cover article, “Is it Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” In the current climate of exclusionary politics, the quiet emergence in Poland of efforts to embrace the long history of Jewish residence is all the more striking. Recent studies have “revisited” Jewish Poland (Lehrer 2013) and documented the “return of the Jew” (Reszke 2013), challenging the common assumption that antisemitism rests at the heart of what it means to be Polish. I have been studying contemporary memory projects, including commemorative sites, museums, and cultural festivals that endeavor to reassemble the remaining fragments that provide a window into what Jewish life (and its destruction) was like in Poland. These fragments can reveal something about the past, even if it is just in an incomplete and shattered form. Perhaps of greater significance, they can point toward the future—the possibilities for reengaging with ethnic and religious categories in ways that acknowledge difference without encouraging exclusion. 

Placing a lantern at the opening of the Lapidarium in Wronki
Placing a lantern at the opening of the Lapidarium in Wronki
The Atlantic, April 2015
The Atlantic, April 2015

The figure of the Jew remains a multivalent symbol in Poland, even after the destruction of Jewish culture during the Holocaust and further erasure of its traces during state socialism. My research on Jewish heritage asks what can be done with the fragments of Jewish culture that remain, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. And what value does such memory work have? It might appear that too little is left, or that any attempt to piece together fragments will just expose more horror, trauma, and death. Nevertheless, the steady growth of interest in Jewish culture in Poland can be seen in major projects like Warsaw’s Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and in much quieter ways in smaller communities throughout the country. Even President Duda, whose Law and Justice Party tends to support nationalism and exclusionary practices, recently spoke against antisemitism at the opening of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews. To set the stage for my reflections about reassembled fragments of Jewish culture, I first situate Jews within the disrupted history of Poland, and discuss the consequences of postwar trauma under state socialism. This is also a first attempt at integrating an ethnographic approach to the topic, through exploration of commemorative sites and practices, and a more personal one, in the form of interwoven stories about my own Jewish-Polish heritage. Building on concepts of postmemory (Hirsch) and absence of memory (Irwin-Zarecka), I consider what reassembly projects promise for the reconciliation of Polish-Jewish relations on both social and personal levels.

I focused on Włocławek for my case material: Places embodying the “absence of memory” such as the swimming pool in the Jewish cemetery in Brześć Kujawski, the crumbling buildings formerly owned by Jews in the center of Włocławek, and the monument to the Jewish ghetto in the schoolyard that used to be the Jewish cemetery. I discussed what such places communicate about the history of Jewish life (and death) in Poland, as well as the personal, emotional resonances of such places.

DSC03544

Pre-World War II facade on Tumska Street, Włocławek

Then, I contrasted the impression left by the the Facebook page, “Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica (Forgotten Street of Włocławek),” in which students and teachers at the Automotive High School in Włocławek document “Places of the Holocaust close to us.” The site features historic photographs, brief histories, and excerpts from interviews with local historians and residents who remember the Nazi occupation of the city. This is heavy stuff, and yet the project reflects a different orientation toward the past than do the crumbling buildings on abandoned streets and the swimming pool in a burial ground. It is a public display of intangible heritage, a space for documenting the murder and destruction that occurred during the Holocaust in very personal, localized terms. The Facebook page announces, “These events happened here, on our streets.” It is all the more notable because the primary organizers and audience in this project are young people, probably in most cases the post-postmemory generation that was supposed to be too distant from events to feel any personal connection to them.

And the story doesn’t stop here. I am looking forward to visiting the high school students and their teachers in June. And now my cousins are also interested in the project and maybe even getting involved with it somehow. The ethnographic and personal strands of my work continue to become more strongly intertwined.

 

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