Recent Jewish heritage developments in the city of Poznan in western Poland have made headlines: the Jewish community is reported to have sold the former synagogue, apparently to a hotel developer, and the city wants to rescue Jewish gravestones that the Nazi occupiers used to line an artificial lake created during WW2.
In an interview with Radio Poznan, Poznan Jewish community president Alicja Kobus confirmed that the synagogue had been sold for development as a luxury hotel but said the building would also include a small synagogue and a museum on local Jewish history and heritage and a memorial to Righteous Among Nations. Other details have not been released, but architectural plans to transform it into a hotel were drawn up already three years (or more) ago.
The Nazis despoiled the once grand, domed synagogue, built in 1907, and turned it into a swimming pool, which remained in use until the mid-2000s, when ownership was returned to the Jewish community. Since then the building has stood empty and in deteriorating condition, while debates went on about its future. (See JTA story from 1942 about the swimming pool.)
As of November 24, there was still a notice on the Poznan Jewish community web site seeking contributions to restore the synagogue as a center for dialogue.
Meanwhile, the city of Poznan said it wanted to reclaim and rescue the matzevot that the Nazis uprooted from the city’s Jewish cemetery and used to line and reinforce Rusałka Lake, an artificial body of water created in 1941-1943. The Nazis used Jewish forced labor to build the lake.
The lake today is part of a popular park, where people can swim in the summer. Fragments of matzevot from time to time wash up on shore.
Reuters reports that recovery work is expected to begin in December, with the aim of using the recovered matzevot to create a memorial.
They will start by using sonar to ascertain the number of gravestones in the lake. The next step will be to work out how the gravestones can be recovered without disturbing the lake’s ecosystem. The plan is to work with the local Jewish community to create a memorial, possibly at the lake itself.
Watch the Reuters video about the story:
In a Times of Israel blog post three years ago, the Catholic priest Eric Ross, who then lived in Poznan, described the lake and its history:
He quotes the recollections of a local academic, Wojciech Meixner:
Jews imprisoned in forced labor camps in Krzyżowniki, in Strzeszyn, in Golęcin and in Fort Radziwill constructed the Lake. Prisoners were used to break up bricks from a demolished brickyard on Niestachowska Street. Then they dumped out the rubble to form new roads and paths, then rolled it flat. Slave laborers also fortified the banks of the river Bogdanka.
Jews were in the worst situation of any of the prisoners: they were forced to work in Golęciński Wood [the spot that became the Lake itself]. The river flowed through this wood. Clay pits were there, too. In this place, often standing waist-deep in water, Jews had to dig the depression that, after the waters of the river were dammed, became Lake Rusałka.
To strengthen the bottom and banks of the lake, as well as other surrounding structures, they used matzevot.
I remember when I was a child I often went with my parents to walk around Rusałka. I remember a little bridge, in the Woli neighborhood, over the spot where the Bogdanka flows into Rusalka. It was built with stone slabs covered with Hebrew writing. They were gravestones. The bridge still stands there today; the Hebrew letters are no longer visible.
Last year, the Poznan artist Janusz Marciniak used fragments of matzevot recovered from various parts of the city to create a memorial lapidarium at the site of the destroyed Jewish cemetery.
The memorial places on a wall in a corner of the site 30 pieces of matzevot that were used as paving stones in the city’s streets for several decades, along with three commemorative plaques with text in Polish, Hebrew and English.
The plaques read:
“There was a time when matzevot were used for pavement; a time when the memory of the people buried under the matzevot was most literally broken, trampled upon, and maimed. Some remnants have survived and today this memory is connected with the gratitude to those who contributed to its rescue. ‘A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the doings of a man’s hands shall be rendered unto him’ (Prov. 12:14).”
4 comments on “Poland: News from Poznan – synagogue sold (apparently for hotel development); and city wants to rescue Jewish gravestones used to reinforce an artificial lake built by the Nazis”
Such a shame the synagogue could not be returned to a place of worship. I don’t know if there even enough Jewish men in Poznan to form a minyan but I am sure there are not the finances to make the building safe or suitable for worship. I look forward to visiting Poznan soon so we can pay our respects to this building and the community it represented before it is gone forever.
I agree with the comment from above. But I also think about these healthy Jews, who before the II World War prefer to have fun producing movies and/or earn money selling goods for Nazi Army . They didn’t think of Jewish communities, as well they didn’t care of Jewish people and their synagogues in Poland.
And now – it is the same.
Germany should have to contribute funds for this project because Grave Desecration is a crime i Poland.
This seems to clearly illustrate one of the main paradoxes of the restitution of property to the communities after the disintegration of the Soviet block. The tiny remnant Jewish communities of formerly huge congregations were suddenly presented with crumbling edifices that had been reused for other purposes in the interim period since WWII. These poor communities, often numbering no more than a few hundred souls, do not have the resources to repair or maintain these structures. Just when these important monuments are returned to the Jewish ownership, the same communities find themselves in an impossible situation. With no possibility to hold on to or repair the buildings they have no choice but to sell the restituted property back to the general market for reuse for another purpose (a hotel for instance) or even for demolition.
Very sad and clearly a situation where the outside wealthy successor communities need to step in!