Student and Alumni Poland Trips

This afternoon we visited the Jewish Community Center. It is located in a former yeshiva and overlooks a beautiful cobblestone courtyard.

During the war, this courtyard served as Wroclaw’s Umschlagsplatz. This is where the Jews of Breslau were assembled for deportation.

The Community Center shares the courtyard with the “White Stork” Synagogue. It is the only synagogue left in Wroclaw. All other Breslau synagogues were destroyed in 1938 on the night of anti-Jewish rioting known as Kristallnacht, including the large Reform temple.

This monument marks the place where it once stood.

The White Stork would have shared the same fate except that its proximity to other buildings guaranteed that a fire there would have done too much damage to the neighborhood. It survived the Nazis only to be vandalized by the Russians and left in a state of disrepair — until recently. The work of renovation is scheduled for completion this year, in time for the synagogue’s 180th anniversary.

Rabbi Rapoport showed us all the renovations. He then led us to the yeshiva synagogue, where the Wroclaw congregation prays.

This synagogue is much, much smaller than the one under repair. R. Rapoport told us that there are approximately 1,000 Jews in Wroclaw. Of these, 300 have joined the synagogue. They bury their dead in “our” cemetery — the New Jewish Cemetery.

This is another reason why our work here is so important. As R. Rapoport said two years ago, “How can you be proud of your cemetery when it looks like a wilderness?” The Soviets destroyed the house of mourning just inside the synagogue gates. Here it was before the war:

Here is is today:

Most of the cemetery looks like this:

Two years ago, we cleared this section. It looked like this when we finished:

Already the weeds and saplings are trying to reclaim it.

Jayne and I were over there today with clippers, cutting out some of the new growth. Synagogue renovation; cemetery resoration — it is all part of the same work.