BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Virtual Shtetl’s Searchable Bibliography
Note — individual towns in the database include bibliographies for the town.
Polish State Archives — Searchable Database for Archives in Lublin, Poznan and Warsaw
SELECTED BOOKS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
There is a very large — and ever growing — literature about Jewish built heritage in Poland, in many languages, ranging from scholarly works to memoirs to travel guides and surveys. We present here just a selection, mainly in English.
In addition to the publications listed below, there is a wide range of books, brochures, pamphlets and other material available locally in Warsaw, Krakow and other towns and cities.
Bergman, Eleonora ed. Jewish Historical institute: The First Fifty Years 1947-1997. Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute, 1996
Bergman, Eleonora, and Jan Jagielski. Zachowane Synagogi i domy modltwy w Polsce: Katalog. Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute, 1996
Bielawska, A. and A. Maksimowska, A. Sidarovich (eds). Good Practices in the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Heritage: A Guide Based on the Polish and Belarusian Experiences. Warsaw: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2012
Bits of the History of Jewish in Silesia
Downloadable book (published in 2014) that includes the history, and historic images, maps, etc, regarding synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and other Jewish sites in several towns and cities: Jelenia Góra; Kamienna Góra; Jawor; Strzegom; Kowary;Kłodzko; Legnica; Świdnica
Borzyszkowska-Szewczyk, Miłosława and Christian Pletzing (eds.) Sladami żydowskimi po Kaszubach: Przewodnik – Jüdische Spuren in der Kaschubei: Ein Reisehandbuch (Jewish Footprints in Kashubia. A Guide book). Gdańsk/Lübeck/Munich: 2010
Bilingual Polish and German Jewish guidebook to the area around Gdansk, Poland.
Dlugosz, Elzbieta. Jews in Nowy Sacz/Zydzi w Nowym Saczu. Nowy Sacz: Muzeum Okregowe, 2003
Duda, Eugeniusz. Jewish Cracow — A Guide to the Jewish Historical Buildings and Monuments of Cracow. Krakow: vis-à-vis/Etiuda, 2003
Dylewski, Adam. Polish Jews and Their Culture: An Illustrated Guide. Pascal, 2010
Detailed, downloadable PDF guidebook to Jewish history and heritage in Łódź from the Taube Foundation. A go-to resource.
Field guide to Jewish Warsaw and Krakow
Detailed, downloadable PDF guide from the Taube Foundation. An essential resource.
Fishman, Chuck (photos) and Vinecour, Earl (text). Polish Jews: The Final Chapter. New York: NYU Press, 1977. Photos and captions online at: http://www.chuckfishman.com/
Goldman-Ida, Batsheva, ed. Alois Breyer / El Lissitzky / Frank Stella: Wooden Synagogues.(Exhibition Catalogue). Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2014. Click here to view Introduction online.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today. New York: Wiley, 1994
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002
Gusky, Jeff. Silent Places. Overlook, 2003
Photographic book on abandoned Jewish heritage sites in Poland.
Herito: Heritage, Culture & the Present. Quarterly journal of the International Cultural Center in Krakow.
Hubka, Thomas C. Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-Century Polish Community (Waltham: Brandeis, 2003)
Hubka provides a provocative interpretation of the art and architecture of a pre-modern wooden synagogue to illuminate the social, historical, and religious context of an Eastern-European Jewish community.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara and Antony Polansky, eds. POLIN: 1000 Year History of Polish Jews (museum catalogue). Warsaw: 2014
Kugelmass, Jack and Jonathan Boyarin. From a Ruined Garden, Second Expanded Edition: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry. Indiana University Press, 1998
Kugelmass, Jack, and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska. “’If You Build it They Will Come’: Recreating an Historic Jewish District in Post-Communist Kraków.” City & Society annual review, 1998: 315-353.
Kuwalek, Robert. Heritage Trail of the Lublin Jews. Lublin: Lubelski Osrodek Informacji Turystycznej, 2002.
Lagiewski, Maciej. An Old Jewish Cemetery in Wroclaw. Wroclaw: Via Nova.
Lehrer, Erica T. Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013
Lehrer, Erica and Hannah Smetrich. “Jewish? Heritage” In Poland? A Brief Manifesto & an Ethnographic-Design Intervention into Jewish Tourism to Poland.” Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Telling Stories, Listening, for a Change.) Autumn, 2007. 36-41
Maciagowski, Marek. A Guide to Jewish Kielce. Krakow: Austeria, 2008
Malenczyk, Jerzy. A Guide to Jewish Lodz. Warsaw: Jewish Information and Travel Bureau, 1994.
Meng, Michael. Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011
Migalska, Kinga. “The Question of Appropriateness. Museums Established in Synagogues in Communist Poland: The Cases of Łańcut and Włodawa” in Arts 2019, 8(4), 167. (viewable online)
Murzyn, Monika A. Kazimierz: The Central European Experience of Urban Regeneration. (Krakow: 2006)
Murzyn-Kupisz, Monika and Jacek Puchla (eds.) Reclaiming Memory: Urban regeneration in the historic Jewish quarters of Central European cities. Krakow: International Cultural Center, 2009
Piechotka, Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka. Heaven’s Gates: Wooden Synagogues in the Territories of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krupski I S-ka, 2004.
New edition of landmark book published in the 1950s.
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. An annual volume of scholarly papers under the general editorship of Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University. Published by the Institute for Polish-Jewish studies, via the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization.
Powers, Charles T. In the Memory of the Forest. New York: Penguin, 1997
Thoughtful novel about the impact of a Jewish cemetery on a village around the time of the fall of communism.
Reiß, Eckard and Abraham-Diefenbach, Magdalena. Makom tov — der gute Ort/Makom tow–dobre miejsce. Berlin: Vergangenheitsverlag, 2012. History of Jewish cemetery in Slubice/Frankfurt (Oder)
Reisz, Matthew. Europe’s Jewish Quarters. London/New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991
Richmond, Theo. Konin: One Man’s Quest for a Vanished Jewish Community. Vintage (Random House), NY, 1995 (1996)
Rodov, Ilia. The Torah Ark in Renaissance Poland. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013
Rosman, Moshe. “Categorically Jewish; Distinctly Polish: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the New Polish-Jewish Metahistory.” Jewish Studies, and Internet Journal, vol 10, 2012. Online at http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/10-2012/Rosman.pdf
Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia. Journal of the Jewish Studies Department, Jagiellonian University. (Table of contents available online.)
Trzcinski, Andrzej. Landmarks and Traces of Jewish Culture in Lublin. Lublin: AD REM, 2005.
Valley, Eli. The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1999
Webber, Jonathan and Chris Schwarz. Rediscovering Traces of Memory: The Jewish Heritage of Polish Galicia. Indiana University Press, 2009
Weiner, Miriam. Jewish Roots in Poland: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories. New York: YIVO Inst./Routes to Roots Foundation, 1997
Wisniewski, Tomasz. Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Europe: a Guide for Yesterday and Today. Ipswitch, Mass.: Ipswitch Press, 1998
Young, James. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993