By any measure, the Warsaw Ghetto was hell on earth. An urban prison zone in the middle of German-occupied Warsaw, after November 1940 the ghetto was enclosed by a ten-foot high wall that was topped with barbed wire and tightly guarded. German authorities packed over 400,000 Jews of all ages into an area of just…
On the shore of the Vistula River, about a two-hour drive south from Warsaw, sits the picturesque town of Kazimierz Dolny. It’s a colorful, small community of some 3,500, popular with artists and gleaming with astonishingly well-preserved architecture of its past glory as a vibrant Renaissance-era trading hub. Jews throughout the centuries helped create the…
Unknown vandals defaced the fence of a Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, considered to be one of the largest in Europe. The attack on the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw was discovered on Saturday. Burials still occur in part of the cemetery. The vandals wrote on the fence with red spray paint: “Jews for…
This article first appeared in the Yiddish Forverts Plans to erect a monument to Righteous Gentiles next to the newly dedicated Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews is evoking a growing anger in Poland and abroad. The museum stands on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of all the Jewish…
Simcha Rotem, who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is protesting against the placement of a monument to Righteous Gentiles in the former ghetto. An open letter signed by Rotem and Pnina Grynszpan Frymer, another ghetto fighter, was published on Wednesday. It also was sent to Poland’s president and the mayor of Warsaw. Rotem and…
Photo copyright Getty Images Nearly 20 years in the making, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw finally opened this fall. With its reported 9-figure budget, its seven main galleries, and more than 40,000 square feet of space, the museum was dubbed “The Louvre of Jewish Museum,” by Forward art critic A.J….
(JTA) — Crowds have been streaming to Warsaw’s POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews since its core exhibition opened Oct. 28 at a high-profile ceremony led by the presidents of Poland and Israel. Thousands of visitors have toured the museum’s eight interactive galleries that tell the 1,000-year story of Jewish life in Poland and…
All Photos: Liam Hoare The histories of the Jews of Europe can often best be gleaned not from monographs, museums, or synagogues, but from cemeteries. The details of the matzevot, or tombstones — the size and shape, location, condition, detailing, symbolism, text and language of the inscriptions — can be decoded to reveal not only…
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