The derelict tenement in Łódź that for decades after World War II housed the offices of the local Jewish community, the apartment of the postwar rabbi, and a synagogue has been demolished.
The premises, at Zachodnia 78, were abandoned and all but forgotten after the Łódź Jewish community moved to a new compound and synagogue in 1997. They were rediscovered in February by an ‘Urbex” explorer, Radosław “Redman” Stępień, and a young Jewish activist, Dawid Gurfinkiel, who entered the abandoned building through a broken window.
There they found a trove of abandoned material — including letters, piles of newspapers, furniture, Jewish books, a tattered tallis and yarmulke, and other items. The one-time prayer room was decorated with stars of David and Hebrew inscriptions painted on the walls and ceiling.
“It was as if the doors had been locked just five minutes previously,” Gurfinkiel, a leader of the Jewish cultural and educational NGO Hakoach, told the news site The First News. “I thought that the community would have taken everything when they moved, but that turned out to be far from the case.”
The demolition, in April, was long-planned as part of urban redevelopment.
See The First News article, in English, about the rediscovery of the synagogue in February
See a gallery of photos in local media Dziennik Lodzki
Watch a Polish TV video report about the rediscovery
See the article and photos of the demolition in Dziennik Lodzki