Thanks to a grant of more than 16 million zlotys (around €3,800,000), the city of Konin in central Poland will be able to go ahead with plans to modernize the early 19th century synagogue building and convert it into a cultural space highlighting the diverse cultural and religious history of the town.
“The funding will allow another monument in the Old Town to be saved and the creation of a Center of Four Cultures here,” Mayor Piotr Korytkowski said on the city web site.
The city, which acquired the nearly 200-year-old building from private owners in December 2020, said it had received funding amounting to 16,133,882.94 zloty from the Fund for Equitable Transition and the state. The city will contribute the remaining approximately 10 percent of the total nearly 18 million zloty budget, it said.
The Center of Four Cultures is envisaged as a public space for residents, “a space for meetings, dialogue and exchange of experiences, focusing on four important traditions that have for centuries co-created the history of Konin: Polish, Jewish, German and East Slavic,” the city said.
It will function as a multifunctional space, including media library, exhibition space, meeting rooms and elements of a modern library, the purpose of which will primarily be to collect and share multimedia materials on the culture and history of the region.
The scope of the project includes construction and conservation works, as well as setting up and equipping the future cultural centre.
The project is one of the elements of the broader revitalization of Konin’s Old Town, coming under the “Communal Revitalization Program of the City of Konin until 2030”.
The synagogue was built in 1830 around a four-pillar central bimah decorated with colorful paintings. It was remodeled in the late 19th century and has moorish arched windows.
Both the synagogue and beit midrash (built around 1870) that stood next to it were devastated during World War II and used as stables and warehouses.
But the synagogue was beautifully restored in the 1980s and served as a library and cultural space, maintaining this function under lease after the buildings were restituted to Jewish ownership after the fall of communism.
The buildings, however, were sold in 2011 to a private owner who demolished the beit midrash in 2016, causing a local uproar.
Read the announcement on the city web site
Read an article in English, with many photos, about the grant and the project
Read our 2021 post after the city acquired the building and aired plans it hoped to carry out
NOTE: To learn more about the Jewish history of Konin, we recommend the 1995 book Konin: A Quest, by Theo Richmond. You can purchase print copies, or view it online on archive.org HERE