A Day in Krakow

The Train Station

Kraków Główny railway station – Wikipedia

Kraków Główny Osobowy (commonly called Dworzec Główny, Polish for Main station) is the largest and the most centrally located railway station in Kraków. The building, constructed between 1844 and 1847 (architect: P.Rosenbaum), lies parallel to the tracks. The design was chosen to allow for future line expansion. The station was initially a terminus of the Kraków – Upper Silesia Railway (Kolej Krakowsko-Górnośląska, German: Obeschlesische-Krakauer Eisenbahn). Trains entered the trainshed via a brick archway at the northern end of the station which was almost doubled in size in 1871.[1]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków_Główny_railway_station

Kazimierz

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The Remu Synagogue and Cemetery

My relationship to Yisrael Isserles, whose matseva is behind me

At the matsevot of my ancestors

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Kupa Synagogue

First time in this shul – restored since I was last in Krakow.

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The Jewish Cemetery

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The Izaak Synagogue

Maariv with Rabbi Eliezer Gurary

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With Rabbi Eliezer Gurary

Klezmerhois

With Leopold Koslowski, King of Klezmer

Meeting Leopold Koslowski, still going strong!

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JCC Krakow

With Anna Gulinska
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Posters & Books

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Kazimierz – Wikipedia

Kazimierz (Polish pronunciation: [kaˈʑimʲɛʂ]; Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish: קוזמיר‎ Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. Since its inception in the fourteenth century to the early nineteenth century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of Kraków Old Town and separated by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place of coexistence and interpenetration of ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures, its north-eastern part of the district was historic Jewish, whose Jewish inhabitants were forcibly relocated in 1941 by the German occupying forces into the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgórze. Today Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz

The Ghetto

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Kraków Ghetto – Wikipedia

The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews, as well as the staging area for separating the “able workers” from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life.[1] The Ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, with most of its inhabitants sent to their deaths at Bełżec extermination camp as well as Płaszów slave-labor camp,[2] and Auschwitz concentration camp, 60 kilometres (37 mi) rail distance.[3]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków_Ghetto

The River Vistula

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Vistula – Wikipedia

The Vistula (/ˈvɪstjʊlə/; Polish: Wisła [ˈvʲiswa], German: Weichsel [ˈvaɪksl̩], Low German: Wießel, Yiddish: ווייסל‎ Yiddish pronunciation: [vajsl̩]) is the longest and largest river in Poland, at 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) in length. The drainage basin area of the Vistula is 194,424 km2 (75,068 sq mi), of which 168,699 km2 (65,135 sq mi) lies within Poland (splitting the country in half). The remainder is in Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula

The Old Town

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Kraków Old Town – Wikipedia

Kraków Old Town is the historic central district of Kraków, Poland.[2] It is one of the most famous old districts in Poland today and was the center of Poland’s political life from 1038 until King Sigismund III Vasa relocated his court to Warsaw in 1596.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków_Old_Town

Kazimierz by night

With Magda Brudzinska, klezmer singer

I bumped Magda in the square in the Kazimierz. I remembered her from her concert I attended at the Klezmerhois in 2011.  See video below

Magda also features in Judy Menczel’s movie – Pockets of Hope with Fay Sussman

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From Keidan to Ra’anana to Orlando

 Kedainiai June 2017

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Original article in Lithuanian

http://www.rinkosaikste.lt/naujienos/aktualijos/gimnazistams-kdainietik-akn-turinio-ydo-paskaita

Google Translated

with a little help from me!

Gimnazistai – kėdainietiškų Jewish Roots Lecture

Akvilė KUPČINSKAITĖ – 19:00 June 13th. 2017

“Atžalyno Gymnasium was visited by a Jewish guest from Australia, who has  kėdainietiškų roots. Eli Rabinowitz met with the academic staff at the high school, attended project activities and visited the Kėdainiai Regional Museum. 

Report

The guest to Kėdainiai was invited by Atžalyno High School English teacher Laima Ardavičienė. Since 2012, Laima has been working on a project in which high school students learn in more detail about the history of the Jewish community in our country. Every year, the high school is visited by Eli Rabinowitz and they share their experiences and insights. The project is carried out in English, so that students not only broaden their minds, but also enhance their English language skills.

This year the theme was Jewish holidays. When we celebrate Christmas, Jews celebrate the Chanukah festival. Eli Rabinowitz arranged a virtual conference and introduced the festival. Guests who come to Lithuania continue the story of the other traditional Jewish holidays.

The Modern generation does not have time to read long stories. Eli Rabinowitz

Not for the first time

Eli Rabinowitz has visited Kėdainiai each year since 2012. The first time was to to search for his ancestors. In his opinion, Jews should actively search their roots. According to Eli, 95 percent of South African Jews came from Lithuania. Eli has travelled extensively throughout Central and Eastern Europe and has recorded traces of Jewish culture here, taking many pictures and videos. Since 2011, he has taken 18000 photos, using these images in slideshows, which is a good format to convey his experience to the younger generation.

“Young people do not have time to read or hear long stories.  Students all over the world prefer stories in short video clips, and other multimedia material “, – said Eli Rabinowitz.

Partisan Song – Vilna ghetto

Earlier this year Eli Rabinowitz was invited to present his project to a large South African high school. There, the students sang the Partisan Song in Yiddish, but did not understand the meaning of this song and the inspiration behind it.

“The song was written in 1943 in the Vilna ghetto by a 20-year-old Jew, Hirsh Glik, who was later killed. It has since then become the anthem of the Holocaust Survivors and is sung regularly. I want this song to spread to young people, so that they recite, sing and understand the meaning”- says Eli Rabinowitz.

The song has also been translated into Lithuanian. A student at Atzalyno  recites it as a poem, with a viola playing in the background and images of old Kedainiai.

“To know one’s history is important for us all, because if you do not know where you come from, you do not know where you are headed”, – says Eli  Rabinowitz wisely.

 

 

12 June 2017

Litvak Roots Lecture in Ra’anana

On June 12th, Eli Rabinowitz spoke in Ra’anana on “In the Footsteps of Zalman Tzoref: Tracing 200 Years of Litvak Family History and Legacy”. The presentation followed Zalman Tzoref’s life. He left Keidan, Lithuania and traveled to Jerusalem where his mission was to rebuild the Ashkenazi community in the Old City. In 2012, Eli returned to the town and re-established his family connections with Tzoref’s birthplace.

Eli Rabinowitz is involved in a wide range of Jewish community activities, including filming events, research, education, arranging exhibitions and lecturing on Jewish cultural heritage and family history.

Orlando Florida 26 July 2017  5pm – 6:15pm

In the Footsteps of Zalman Tzoref: Tracing 200 Years of Litvak Family History and Legacy
Venue: Walt Disney World Swan Resort
Room: Swan 2
At the last two IAJGS conferences a movie about Tzoref was shown. This presentation follows in the movie’s and Tzoref’s footsteps and goes beyond! In 1811, Avraham Shlomo Zalman Tzoref, inspired by the Vilna Gaon, left Keidan, Lithuania for Jerusalem where his mission was to rebuild the Ashkenazi community in the Old City. Tzoref was murdered in 1851, but the story certainly does not end there. We reflect on Tzoref’s life and achievements through his 20,000 strong Salomon descendants, who for 200 years have made their mark as part of his enduring legacy. In 2011, exactly 200 years after Tzoref left Keidan, I return to the town, now called Kedainiai, and re-establish my family connections with his birthplace. Within a few years, I have become active in building bridges in this town in a most unusual way!

 

Back to Warsaw

Zamenhof in the streets

Zamenhof in the cemetery

Partisans with Michael Leiserowitz

Warsaw Cemetery

Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw – Wikipedia

The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and in the world. Located on Warsaw’s Okopowa Street and abutting the Powązki Cemetery at 52°14′51″N 20°58′29″E / 52.24750°N 20.97472°E / 52.24750; 20.97472, the Jewish necropolis was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectares (83 acres) of land. The cemetery contains over 250,000 marked graves[1], as well as mass graves of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Many of these graves and crypts are overgrown, having been abandoned after the German invasion of Poland and subsequent Holocaust. Although the cemetery was closed down during World War II, after the war it was reopened and a small portion of it remains active, serving Warsaw’s small existing Jewish population.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Cemetery,_Warsaw

At the JCC with Romi Rutovitz

JCC Warsaw

Jewish Community Center

Source: www.jccwarszawa.pl/?LangId=2

A quick return visit to Polin

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Friends

Wojciech Konończuk with his new book. In 2011 Wojciech influenced me to visit Poland for the first time!

Michael & Ruth Leiserowitz at the German Historical Institute.

Ruth is a professor of history at Humboldt University in Berlin and Deputy Director at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. Michael is the German and Hebrew speaking guide at Polin Museum in Warsaw.

Their Jews in East Prussia Facebook site.

​https://www.facebook.com/Jewsineastprussia/

With Jakub Petelewicz, Director of Education at Forum For Dialogue

Forum for Dialogue | Forum Dialogu

Inspiring New Connections

Source: dialog.org.pl/en/forum-for-dialogue/

Bialystok 2017

The Bus – Vilnius to Bialystok

Jewish Heritage Trail in Białystok – Wikipedia

Jewish Heritage Trail in Białystok is a marked foot trail created in June 2008 in Białystok, Poland, by a group of students and doctorate candidates, who participate as volunteers at The University of Białystok Foundation.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Heritage_Trail_in_Białystok

Ludwik Zamenhof

L. L. Zamenhof – Wikipedia

Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (Polish: Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof, 15 December [O.S. 3 December] 1859–14 April [O.S. 1 April] 1917),[2] usually credited as L. L. Zamenhof, was a Polish-Jewish[3]medical doctor, inventor, and writer. He is most widely known for creating Esperanto, the most successful constructed language in the world.[4] He grew up fascinated by the idea of a world without war and believed that this could happen with the help of a new international auxiliary language, which he first developed in 1873 while still in school.[2]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof

The Ludwik Zamenhof Centre – Wikipedia

The Ludwik Zamenhof Centre – a city cultural institution established in Bialystok at 19 Warszawska St. upon the motion of the President of the City. It was founded to celebrate the organization of the 94th World Congress of Esperanto that was held from 25 July to 1 August 2009 in Bialystok. The Centre was officially opened for the visitors on 21 July 2009. At the beginning The Zamenhof Centre was a branch of The Centre of Culture in Bialystok, but it has been an autonomous cultural unit since January 2011.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ludwik_Zamenhof_Centre

Synagogues of Bialystok

Great Synagogue, Białystok – Wikipedia

The Great Synagogue (Polish: Wielka Synagoga w Białymstoku) was a synagogue located in Białystok, Poland, which was built between 1909-1913 and designed by Szlojme Rabinowicz. The synagogue was burnt down by Germans on June 27, 1941, with an estimated number of 2,000 Jews inside.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Synagogue,_Białystok

Icchok Malmed

Icchok Malmed – Wikipedia

Icchok Malmed (יצחק מאַלמעד) (born 1903 in Brześć nad Bugiem – 8 February 1943 in Białystok, Poland) was a Polish Jew and fighter of the Białystok Ghetto during the German occupation of Poland in World War II.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icchok_Malmed

Tomek Wisniewski and Lucy Gold

 

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Other Jewish Buildings

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The Branicki Palace

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Branicki Palace, Białystok – Wikipedia

Branicki Palace (Polish: Pałac Branickich) is a historical edifice in Białystok, Poland. It was developed on the site of an earlier building in the first half of the 18th century by Jan Klemens Branicki, a wealthy Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth hetman, into a residence suitable for a man whose ambition was to become king of Poland.[1] The palace complex with gardens, pavilions, sculptures, outbuildings and other structures and the city with churches, city hall and monastery, all built almost at the same time according to French models was the reason why the city was known in the 18th century as Versailles de la Pologne (Versailles of Poland)[2] and subsequently Versailles de la Podlachie (Versailles of Podlasie).[3]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branicki_Palace,_Białystok

Bialystok Railway Station

Białystok railway station – Wikipedia

Białystok railway station is the most important railway station in the city of Białystok, Poland. It is sometimes referred to as Białystok Central (Białystok Centralny), to distinguish it from six other, much smaller, stations located in the city.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Białystok_railway_station

 

Back To Vilnius

The restoration of the Geliu synagogue

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Renovation of Synagogue on Geliu Gatve starts in Vilnius

The Lithuanian Department of Cultural Heritage confirmed on July 21, 2015, the renovation of the synagogue on Geliu Street in Vilnius has starte…

Source: www.baltictimes.com/renovation_of_synagogue_starts_in_vilnius/

People I met

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Ingrida Vilkienė

Fania Brancovskaja at the Yiddish Institute

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Lara Lempert is the head of the Judaica Center at the National Library of Lithuania. Her field is the cultural history of the European Jewry, more specifically – Jewish classical texts and their integration in Jewish education in various settings; Jewish book and press; and day-to-day life of Lithuanian Jewry.

Part of the exhibit

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22–23 May 2017: Opening of the Judaica Research Centre – Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

A national cultural institution that collects, organizes and preserves the written cultural heritage of Lithuania, forming a fund for Lithuanian and foreign documents relevant for Lithuanian science, education, culture and economy, and provides library information provision services to the public.

Source: www.lnb.lt/en/news/2187-22-23-may-opening-of-the-judaica-research-centre

More from the Library

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The Old Cemetery

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Jewish cemeteries of Vilnius – Wikipedia

The Jewish cemeteries of Vinius are the three Jewish cemeteries of the Lithuanian Jews living in what is today Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which was known to them for centuries as Vilna, the principal city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Two of the cemeteries were destroyed by the Soviet regime and the third is still active.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_cemeteries_of_Vilnius

The Vilnius Jewish Library

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Vilniaus žydų viešoji biblioteka

Vilniaus žydų viešoji biblioteka – vienintelė Žydų kultūros sklaidoje besispecializuojanti biblioteka visoje Lietuvoje.Our library is the only one in Lithuania which specifies in spreading Jewish culture in various forms

Source: vilnius-jewish-public-library.com/en/

Jewish Scenes in Vilnius

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The Museum of Genocide Victims – Jewish themed exhibits

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The Museum of Genocide Victims

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Museum of Genocide Victims – Wikipedia

The Museum of Genocide Victims (Lithuanian: Genocido aukų muziejus) in Vilnius, Lithuania was established in 1992 by order of the Minister of Culture and Education and the President of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees. In 1997 it was transferred to the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. The museum is located in the former KGB headquarters across from the Lukiškės Square, therefore it is informally referred to as the KGB Museum.[1]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Genocide_Victims

Other scenes from Vilnius

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Seduva 17

My two previous visits were in 2015 and 2016

2015

Seduva Jewish Ceremonies

I was privileged to attend the Seduva Jewish Cemetery Restoration and the two Holocaust Memorial ceremonies. This is what Sergey Kanovich, who led the project, said at the first Holocaust Memorial …

Source: elirab.me/seduva-jewish-ceremonies/

2016

Seduva

My second visit to Seduva. The first was in May 2015 when the cemetery and two Holocaust memorials were dedicated and opened Click on the image to see the post:   The new Lost Shtetl memorial …

Source: elirab.me/seduva

 2017

The third Holocaust memorial site outside Seduva. I hadn’t previously visited this site.

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The cemetery

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Šeduva – Wikipedia

Šeduva ( pronunciation (help·info)) is a city in the Radviliškis district municipality, Lithuania. It is located 18 km (11 mi) east of Radviliškis.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Šeduva

Krekenava

Krekenava Cemetery

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The town and synagogue

Laima and I meet history teacher Ruta Adamkeviciene, who kindly shows us the few Jewish sites remaining

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New book by David Sandler

KRAKENOWO ~ A TOWN IN LITHUANIA ~ the story of a world that has passed

The reprint of the booklet printed by the South African Krakenowo Sick Benefit and Benevolent Society in 1961 to celebrate its diamond Jubilee. All articles in Yiddish have now been translated into English.

Contact: David Sandler

sedsand@iinet.net.au

The first two articles – click Krakenowo link below to read.

Krekenava – Wikipedia

Krekenava is a town (population 2,003) in Panevėžys district municipality in northern Lithuania, on the bank of Nevėžis.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krekenava

Can we squeeze under?

On way back to Kedainiai, we visit the other Holocaust site on the outskirts of Kedainiai.

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Kedainiai Railway Station

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