Fragments of Jewish tombstones were discovered as the level of the Vistula river in Warsaw dropped during a drought. The tombstones are thought to be from the city’s Bródno Jewish cemetery. Only 300 of the cemetery’s original 3,000 graves remain, as the rest were used for construction and reinforcing the riverbanks during the Holocaust. “The…
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal will consider legislation that sets a six-month deadline for the rightful pre-World War II owners of Warsaw properties or their heirs to participate in administrative proceedings. President Bronislaw Komorowski referred the legislation to the tribunal on Monday. The World Jewish Restitution Organization, which objects to the legislation passed in June by the…
A dispute over designs is the latest roadblock to hit a controversial Holocaust memorial planned for the site of the Warsaw Ghetto that would honor so so-called Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews. In the latest twist on the hotly disputed project, the New York philanthropist who launched it has rejected the choice of plans made…
By any measure, the Warsaw Ghetto was hell on earth. An urban prison zone in the middle of German-occupied Warsaw, after November 1940 the ghetto was enclosed by a ten-foot high wall that was topped with barbed wire and tightly guarded. German authorities packed over 400,000 Jews of all ages into an area of just…
On the shore of the Vistula River, about a two-hour drive south from Warsaw, sits the picturesque town of Kazimierz Dolny. It’s a colorful, small community of some 3,500, popular with artists and gleaming with astonishingly well-preserved architecture of its past glory as a vibrant Renaissance-era trading hub. Jews throughout the centuries helped create the…
Unknown vandals defaced the fence of a Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, considered to be one of the largest in Europe. The attack on the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw was discovered on Saturday. Burials still occur in part of the cemetery. The vandals wrote on the fence with red spray paint: “Jews for…
This article first appeared in the Yiddish Forverts Plans to erect a monument to Righteous Gentiles next to the newly dedicated Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews is evoking a growing anger in Poland and abroad. The museum stands on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of all the Jewish…
Simcha Rotem, who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is protesting against the placement of a monument to Righteous Gentiles in the former ghetto. An open letter signed by Rotem and Pnina Grynszpan Frymer, another ghetto fighter, was published on Wednesday. It also was sent to Poland’s president and the mayor of Warsaw. Rotem and…
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