In the six years since it was founded, the Virtual Shtetl web site has become an extraordinary digital portal to news, information and data about Jewish heritage, history and sites in more than 2,500 localities in historic Polish lands. Virtual Shtetl is part of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, but it was launched years before the museum building was constructed, and maintains a life, “brand” and identity on its own. Jewish Heritage Europe cooperates with Virtual Shtetl and frequently reposts articles and information.
In a lengthy interview to mark the portal’s sixth anniversary, which takes place in June, Virtual Shtetl’s founder, Albert Stankowski, discusses establishing the web site — which also acts as a social media platform utilizing content from readers — as well as the issues involved. [NOTE: as of 2019 the interview was no longer online]
I met with Jerzy Halbersztadt, at the time Director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in 2007. He told me about his idea to create a centre devoted to Jewish communities, so a space where museum visitors could gain knowledge concerning facts not included in the exhibition. It was then that we decided to launch a website before the opening of the museum proper. I became aware that this project was far more than two or three comprehensive books on Jewish history. I realized that by way of this website, we can contribute to the preservation of this heritage, alter the memory about the Jewish community in Poland, and reach much wider audience. It was a time of coming out of a closed circle of professional historians, and opening up, spreading the knowledge. Once only a narrow group of experts and researchers was interested in our archives; nowadays, after the digitization, they became available for very many people.
Stankowski told interviewer Jakub Gołębiewski that he has been “thoroughly astonished” by the reach of the portal and by the numbers and make-up of users. He said that 80% of the site’s readers are Poles, mostly people between the ages of 18 and 40. They are “interested in tourism and education, but also teachers, students and scholars even from abroad, who are looking for primary sources for their research.” Some 70 percent of users reach the site through a search engine.
We have become the main source of information on the history of Polish Jews. Since June 2009, 5.5 million readers have visited our portal; we have 100,000 pictures and more than 40,000 pages of textual information. Every year we are being sent around 4,000 questions concerning Jewish heritage in Poland. We refer those people to other institutions and research organizations in Poland. The fact that the Virtual Shtetl is being read can been seen also if we take a look on the number of people who express their doubts or find small mistakes. We verify all information, we also cooperate with renowned historians and researchers of the history of Polish Jews. We look for new authors to join us all the time. We publish articles which have already appeared somewhere else. Also, we signed a contract with Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN on using more than 7,000 headwords from Wielka Encyklopedia PWN concerning Jews in Poland.
The [amount] of information we gain is really immense, we are not able to publish all of it. We launched a project called “Memory in stone” because very often the only thing that is left by Jewish communities are cemeteries and tombstones that are being destroyed. We take pictures of them and translate information about the deceased from Hebrew into Polish. Owning to the cooperation with institutions and private persons, we have a database with over 110,000 names read from the tombstones. Thanks to our portal the information is gathered in one place. When somebody asks how advanced the work on our portal is, I say that although we have already done a lot, we are still at the beginning.
The interview is no longer online — Ed. (2019)