We have recently learned of the death of Dr. Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak, for decades a key figure in research on the Holocaust and Jewish heritage in Poland. She died February 27 at the age of 82.
Pawlicka-Nowak was the director of the District Museum in Konin, in central Poland, from 1975 to 2006 and was founder of the Museum of the Former German Kulmhof Death Camp in Chełmno-nad-Nerem, which was established in 1990. She carried out extensive research and commemoration work regarding Jewish cemeteries and heritage in the Konin region and was an early recipient of the Preserving Memory award, a recognition established in 1998 to honor non-Jewish Poles preserving Jewish heritage.
Under her direction, the Konin Museum organized research, recovery, and commemorative efforts at around 20 Jewish cemeteries, marking them with signage, commemorative plaques, and/or memorials. She and her team also rescued several hundred matzevot or fragments which had been removed from Jewish cemeteries.
An obituary on the Konin Culture Foundation web site wrote:
Dr. Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak was particularly involved in documenting the lives of Jews in Konin and the Konin region. She did it with tireless energy, saving matzevot and numerous Jewish cemeteries. In order to be able to work more effectively, she learned Yiddish, established contacts with the Institute of Martyrs and Holocaust Remembrance. with Yad Vashem in Israel, with American Jewish communities.
In a letter read out at her funeral. the Jewish Community in Poznań recalled her as “an extraordinary figure, deserving of great respect and gratitude.”
Her life was devoted to a noble and sacred mission, namely to commemorate Jewish cities, towns and villages murdered by the German occupier. Jewish martyrs were not buried, prayers over their bodies were not said, they were not escorted in a funeral procession to a place where they would wait for the coming of the Messiah. Mrs. Łucja, through her many works, mourned for those who did not have to mourn.
Pawlicka-Nowak carried out extensive research on the Kulmhof camp and murder of Jews at Chelmno and published widely.
Among the memorials she helped facilitate was that at Chelmno commemorating the Jewish community of Gombin (today’s Gąbin). In a memorial note May 5 honoring Pawlicka-Nowak, Leon Zamosc wrote:
As descendants of the Jews of Gombin and Gostynin, we owe Łucja a special debt of gratitude. She wholeheartedly supported our project to erect the Gombin memorial monument at Chelmno, introducing us to the architects Jan Rassumowski and Stanislaw Mystek, obtaining all the necessary approvals and permits from the Polish authorities, and organizing for us the monument’s dedication ceremony on August 15, 1999.
He added that last year, as part of the program of the Spring 2019 Gombin-Gostynin Memorial Trip, descendants had honored Pawlicka-Nowak with a plaque expressing their gratitude for her commitment to the memory of the victims of the Konin-Czarkow camp.
Because of her fragile health, she was not able to receive it in person during our visit to the mass grave, but we were able to make sure that the plaque was delivered to her through the representative of the Konin Museum.