The Jews in Lublin - Biblioteka Multimedialna Teatrnn.pl - Brama ...

Tadeusz Przystojecki (Lublin)*
The Role of Cyrulicza Street as a Bridge
between Today's and Yesterday's Lublin
The Jewish district surrounding the castle hill and stretching north as far as the
Old Town was a vital part of pre-war Lublin, and the specific character of local Jews,
their homes, outlets, temples and schools had shaped the identity of this place for ages.
The city owes it specific flavour to this and despite unquestionable disparities, the two
regions had long created a mutually beneficial symbiosis.
Having slowly established itself in the local landscape, this world suddenly disappeared
as a result of the murderous plan of the German Army in the Second World War.
It planned to be erase this world from the map and from history, first, by exterminating
the local community and then by demolishing whole streets. Shortly after the Second
World War a new urban spatial design took over the area of this annihilated district.
Todays Castle Square, half-embraced with a row of tenement houses, has made
Lubliners forget that half a century ago this place was the location of the busy Szeroka
Street - the oldest and most important of streets, and that vehicles which today pass
by the Castle, dashing along the present-day Millennium Avenue towards Chełm and
Zamość, unconsciously cross the place where the oldest and largest Lublin synagogue
was located. True, there are a few plaques commemorating these places but they are
not that conspicuous or easy to find.
The vast part of the former Jewish district has been turned into rubble and its
memory has faded. However, some parts of it, merely a few streets, has survived. One
of these streets is Cyrulicza Street running parallel to Kowalska Street. Before the
Second World War, crossing with Furmańska Street in the middle, Cyrulicza Street
stretched from Lubartowska Street as fas as Nadstawna Street. Nadstawna Street does
not exist today and Cyrulicza Street ends with Furmańska Street and is very short, with
just a handful of decrepit tenement houses.
This inconspicuous place is of great significance for a historian. As a street which
in part survived the War it is a symbolic bridge between the old and new Lublin. It
aspires to become a crucial connectivity channel with the past; it deserves particular
interest due to its rich history, corroborated by various sources, which have not yet
* Historian and archivist, co-operating with the Grodzka Gate - NN Theatre Centre in Lublin.
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