The Jewish Museum in the Jewish ghetto

There’s a direct link between Poland and the history of Jewish people. It is the theme of the 18th Day of Judaism that will be celebrated January 15th, that will be inaugurated with  a common prayer of Christians and Jews in front of the Memorial of the victims of the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The theme of the day is “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. (Sal 34,5). “Holocaust is also a Polish tragedy” recalls Professor Jan Hartman from Jagellonica University on Krakow, calling to mind “hundreds of thousands of Poles who were also Jews.” Marek Nowak, Dominican, teacher of philosophy of religions at the University of Warsaw told Anna Kowalewska for SIR Europe that in Poland there are some 20thousand people who are members of various Jewish organizations, who represent 0.01% of Jews who lived in Poland before the war, that broke out in 1939. Their thousand-year-long history is now showcased in a Museum erected in the centre of Warsaw: an initiative that assumes an even greater, significant value at the present moment.Coexistence of peoples. “The Museum of the History of Polish Jews Polin showcases the rich, real history of coexistence of different peoples through quotations, photographs, historical reconstructions, models and multimedia presentations. It is a true museum of the history of Poland”, said Hartman after visiting the permanent exhibition that, with the use of the most modern means of communication in a space of about 4 thousand square meters (a quarter of the total area of the building) presents the thousand-year history of Jews in Poland since the establishment of the State of Prince Mieszko I in 966. “This has been your Country and its history was also yours,” noted with enthusiasm – intended as a message to Jews – the scholar, with the hope that the new Museum may become a center of Jewish culture more important than that of Washington, but mostly “a home of all Jews: believers and non-believers alike.”Shared values. The Museum is designed as “a point of reference for all those interested in the heritage of Polish Jews, and the sign of change in mutual relations between Poles and Jews”, said the promoters of the permanent exhibit, who planned “a series of events that may serve as a springboard for debates on the positive and dark sides in the relations between the two peoples.” “But first of all the Polin Museum is a place for encounter between people yearning to learn more of the past and present of Jewish culture, bravely facing stereotypes, limiting the dangers that threaten the modern world, such as xenophobic and nationalistic behaviours”; there is room for all those who “share the values of welcome, tolerance and truth.”In the heart of the capital. The modern building, built according to the project of Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki, was erected in the area of the Warsaw Ghetto, on the site where the Nazis, in the years 1942-1944, set up a concentration camp where perished 20 thousand to 35 thousand prisoners: Polish, Belarus, Greek, Italian Jews and Roma. Opposite the Museum stands the memorial to the fallen during the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, erected five years after its tragic end. The two monuments are divided by 66 years of history. “Building a museum required a political will that was lacking at the time of the communist regime,” said Marek Nowak; while Archbishop Henryk Muszynski, who was also involved in the project, recalled that at the time, and especially after 1968 in Poland, “the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist paradigm was a must, useful to the authorities of the time to justify the presence of the  Soviet troops on the territory of the country in terms of anti-Western defense.”The support of the bishops. The museum was a proposal put forward by the members of the Institute of Jewish history in 1993. It became a reality in 1995 when the city authorities decided to devote to this purpose the plot of land in the center of Warsaw. It was completed in 2005 with the signing of the agreement between the government, the city and the association “Institute of Jewish history.” The Committee for the creation of the Museum (built with donations from private citizens, government grants and loans from various international organizations and bodies), formed under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski, was joined by the current president of the Bishops’ Conference Polish Monsignor Stanislaw Gadecki, and the then Archbishop of the Primatial See of Gniezno, Monsignor Henryk Muszynski. The Nobel Prize for Peace and former president of the State of Israel Shimon Peres was elected at the head of the International Committee of the Museum.Evil shall not win. The word Polin in Hebrew and in the language of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe – Yiddish – means Poland. The Nobel Prize for Literature, Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970), in one of his novels narrates that the people of Israel for a long time lived in peace the Polish lands. “I know Jews today come from abroad and buy a house to live in Warsaw,” says Marek Nowak. “Some of them bear the tattooed Auschwitz number on their arm,” he added. “It is as if they said that evil will not have the last word.”