Poland: New Memorial with Old Gravestones Erected at Radom Jewish Cemetery

Radom, Poland. New Memorial at Jewish Cemetery. Photos courtesy of FODZ.

Poland: New Memorial with Old Gravestones Erected at Radom Jewish Cemetery

(ISJM) The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland has announced the upcoming dedication of a new memorial monument at the Jewish cemetery at the central Polish town of Radom. The monument, erected on the cemetery is a raised lapidarium incorporating many of the gravestones scattered on the site and found in other locations. The ceremonial unveiling is planned for November 8, 2010.

The memorial is being built within the framework of the "Tikkun - Repair" project, created by the Polish and Israeli Prison Service with the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland as a partner.

The monument continues a tradition of "gathering of stones" begun with the erection of cemetery memorials by survivors immediately after the Shoah, and then continued in the 1980s and 1990s at places such as Kazimierz Dolny and Wyszków.

Poland: Close-up View of Monument and Matzevot at Kazimierz Dolny

Poland: Close-up View of Monument and Matzevot at Kazimierz Dolny
by Samuel D. Gruber





It has been 18 years since I first visited the New Cemetery at Kazimierz Dolny and marveled at the power and beauty of the giant monument which sits on the hillside in front of what remains of the cemetery proper, with its small number of still in situ matzevot. Returning to the site after many years this fall, I was happy and amazed to find the power and pathos of the site undiminished. Despite my having visited scores of Jewish cemeteries in the meantime, and seen dozens of Holocaust monuments (and even helped design a few), this site still resonates strongly with me.

The enormous monument - which is a kind of giant vertical lapidarium 25 meters long and 3 meters high and holding 600 fragments of Jewish gravestones - was erected in 1983-85 on the design of Polish architect Tadeusz Augustynek. I will not describe the entire project, as I have done so before, and James Young treats the monument at length in his now classic work The Texture of Memory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 199 - 203. It is enough to say that Augustynek created a giant matzevah (gravestone), with terrible crack or rift on one side, indicating the break in Jewish life, Jewish history, and the very broken nature of the Jewish cemetery and its gravestones, too. The stones used in the monument were all excavated from pavements laid during the German occupation40 years earlier. It is said that Polish workmen defied orders and placed the stones face down to protect their inscriptions. Certainly when they were dug up, the inscriptions and carved reliefs of Jewish symbols remained very clear, and some stones even retained traces of color from the original polychrome painting on the limestone.

On this recent visit, I was able to take the time to examine the individual stones. There is a limited range of symbolic compositions. For women it was common to show Sabbath candles and a hand giving charity (tzedakah). For men, there was an open bookcase indicating scholarship and piety. There are also more unusual designs, such as a dove beneath a crown. I assume, after all these years, that these epitaphs have been transcribed and translated. I will try to find out for sure. If not, my photos are clear enough to allow volunteers to do this work now.

Poland: New Look and Life for Former Synagogue of Kazimierz Dolny

Poland: New Look and Life for Former Synagogue of Kazimierz Dolny
by Samuel D. Gruber



(ISJM) The Synagogue of Kazimierz Dolny was built in the second half of the 18th century. The stone building is 14.8 m x 16.9 m and occupies a central position in the town, between the Rynek and the Maly Rynek. The main prayer hall on the south side of the building is about square in plan and is surmounted by an eight-segment wooden vaulted ceiling. A separate women's section occupies the northern third of the site, but because of the sloping terrain, it is reached from a higher spot on the outside, and is only half as high as main hall.

Kazimierz Dolny had a substantial Jewish population from the the Middle Ages on. Before the Second World War about 50% of the town's populations was Jewish. Most were killed by the Germans in March 1942. Before the war the town had been a popular resort for Jews, including Jewish artists who loved to paint there (the local museum recently has an exhibition devoted to these painters and their work). Yiddish Filmmakers worked in Kazimierz Dolny, too. It was the setting for the well known Jidl mitn fidl (Yidl with a fiddle) with Molly Picon. to the writer Sholom Ashe is attributed the saying, "In Kazimierz, the Vistula [River] speaks to me in Yiddish."

The synagogue building was partly destroyed in 1944, and then rebuilt in 1953 and subsequently used as a cinema. That was the situation when I first visited the town in 1990. Now, the building has been restituted to the Jewish community of Warsaw, which has restored the building (as much as possible) and created an exhibition space and meeting hall. These pictures were taken in Oct 2008 during the First Congress of Jewish Art in Poland which used the synagogue as one of two main conference venues.

The synagogue as "restored," looks little like it did in the pre-War years. Surviving descriptions and photos show an interior filled with art - painted ceiling and walls, hanging lamps and, of course, a bimah and Ark. At the time of the recent Congress a photo exhibition of Jewish Kazimeirz Dolny was mounted in the space and one see well the difference between past and present.

Adam Dylewski, in his Where the Tailor was a Poet: Polish Jews and Their Culture (an Illustrated Guide), quotes impressions of the synagogue by Aleksander Janowski from around 1910:

"Horses, deer, castles, flowers, geese, scales, doves and symbolism in all its richness hovers over the crowd deep in prayer...the elevation with a wooden balustrade, brass candelabra with numerous arms, an embroidered silk curtain, enormous books on pulpits and several splendid silver-bearded types. This is the east - hot and fanatical. The east, in their long flowing garments and silver adornments on their foreheads. These nostalgic passionate songs full of simplicity and woe, these signs for the land once lost, for Mount Zion and the Tomb of David, for the waters of Jordan and the cedars of Lebanon..."

There were many local legends associated with this synagogue. According to Dylewski; " It was said to have been founded by King Casimir the Great as a gift for Esther [his Jewish lover]. The stones in the wall were alleged to have come from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem."

The transformation of the Kazimierz synagogue is an interesting case of new life for old Jewish buildings. Some former synagogue are being restored under the auspices of the Foundation for the Protection of Jewish Heritage in Poland. Other properties, however, are under the direct control of any of the nine distinct Jewish communities in modern Poland. How these communities use their historic properties varies greatly. In Kazimierz Dolny, because of the continued popularity of the town as a major Polish vacation spot, it is likely that the synagogue will be able to successfully perform a cultural role in the town while maintaining some aspect of Jewish identity. For now, there is a Jewish book and gift shop at the synagogue, but no permanent exhibition or other purpose.