20903 Hamoar cover - Federation Of Synagogues

TRAVEL
Return to der Heim
Mark Harris has made several trips to Poland, the homeland of his ancestors
IN June 1999, as my aircraft
landed at Warsaw’s Okecie
Airport, I’d shed more than
a tear or two. This was a
first pilgrimage for me to the
land of my forebears, who’d
possessed the remarkable
prescience, and courage,
to leave the gritty
industrial city of
⁄Lódź for an alien England as long ago as the 1870s. I’d
reflected that my emotional response related as much to
the Nazi Holocaust of millions of European Jews on
Polish soil between 1939 and 1945 as it did to the timely
salvation of at least some of my relatives, moving me to
make a personal statement about Jewish continuity.
In more recent times, since Poland joined the European
Community, I’ve been back to the country often,
concentrating to date on Warsaw, ⁄Lódź, Poznan,
Cracow and Lublin. In September 1939, when
Germany’s jackbooted armies invaded, between three
and four million Jews lived in these cities, and in towns
and villages across the nation. By the end of Hitler’s
war, a ghostly remnant of death camp survivors
attempted to return to the areas from which they’d
been driven. Only to be met with local pogroms,
notoriously in Kielce, and an utterly unsympathetic,
Soviet-sponsored regime that hardly encouraged the
early restoration of Jewish communal life.
Today, an estimated 8,000 (largely elderly) Jews live in
Poland, mainly residing in Warsaw, Cracow and ⁄Lódź,
out of a total population of 38 million. In the museum
of Lublin castle, which from its hilltop location once
commanded the town’s Jewish ghetto, I viewed a
remarkable painting. “The Reception of Jews in Poland”
by Jan Matejko depicts the admission of Jewish
refugees by Prince W⁄ladyslaw Herman in 1096. As I
contemplated the large canvas (and, undeniably, on my
journeys through this new EC member state) I felt a
compelling sense of national affinity, despite the long
history of Polish anti-Semitism. This somewhat
incongruous sentiment could stem from a belief that my
roots lie deeper, and my Jewish heritage extends further
back, in Poland than in Britain. (Indeed, my birth
certificate reveals my Polish surname as “Lezefsky”.)
Even though the Jewish presence in Poland is now
statistically diminutive, there has been a gradual
revival of communal life in some of the major cities,
especially since the demise of communism (20 years
ago last June) inspired primarily by Lech Wa⁄lesa’s
Solidarity movement. In April 2008, I was in
picturesque though touristy Cracow when the Prince of
Wales opened a Jewish Community Centre in Kazimierz,
the town’s old Jewish Quarter. At the dedication
ceremony, the prince, who’d contributed financially to
the project through World Jewish Relief, said: “You have
borne witness to some of the darkest clouds of human
history right up to today, when a new and important
chapter is opening”. Thadeus Jakubowitz, president of
the community since 1997, observed that the new
building was “a dream come true”.
Surprisingly, many enthusiastic Gentiles are responsible
for the renewal, preservation and continuation of
Poland’s Jewish cultural heritage. One example of this is
the organisation of the month-long, summer Jewish
Festival in Cracow, where several ancient shuls, mostly
museums now, are open to visitors. Also, the Jewish
Cultural Centre in Kazimierz has a number of non-Jewish
staff; its April 2008, 65th anniversary screening of
archive film about the ill-fated Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
had a 30-strong audience that included just a couple of
local Jewish people (and me). Another illustration is the
capital’s 390-seat Yiddish Theatre, where a vast majority
of the repertory company as well as any audience are not
Jews. I’ve enjoyed some excellent productions there,
including a musical about the artist Marc Chagall.
Unfortunately, on my last visit to Warsaw this year I
narrowly missed a new staging of “Fiddler on the Roof”.
I’ve davened on Shabbat in several synagogues in
Poland. These have ranged from the first city’s beautiful
19th century No´ zyk Synagogue, which singularly survived
(as a fodder warehouse and stabling facility) the German
wartime occupation and the destruction of the Warsaw
Page 22
Hamaor / September 2009