Monuments and Memorials

The site of the Warsaw Ghetto, with Ghetto monument in background. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The site in front of the Ghetto Monument of the about-to-be-built Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Memorials to the Holocaust and to the Jewish communities destroyed in the Shoah are among the sites of Jewish heritage and memory in Europe that receive the most visitors.

I want to draw attention to two particularly thoughtful essays by Sam Gruber about their design, purpose and impact.

One is about what's missing from the Holocaust memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia. (Answer? Any information to inform the visitor what it is about.)

The other is about the complexity and changing style and emphasis of Holocaust monuments and memory in Warsaw, focuses on the Ghetto Monument, erected in 1948, the monument at Umschlagplatz, erected in 1991, and the planned new Museum of the History of Polish Jewry.

Ukraine -- Restoration Works on the Synagogue in Zhovkva

On Tuesday, before flying back to Italy from Ukraine, I spent part of the day in Zhovkva, about a 40 minute drive northwest of L'viv, where a massive fortress style synagogue, built in the 17th century, is under (slow) restoration as part of longterm efforts to develop the entire center of the town -- declared by authorites in 1994 as a historic preservation district. Mihajlo Kubai, who is in charge of the restoration and development plan, took me and two colleagues, including Sofia Dyak of the L'viv Center for Urban History, on a tour of the synagogue and other historical sites in Zhovkva and described the ambitious, 15-year restoration project.

Founded in 1594 by the Polish nobleman Stanislaw Zholkiewski, the town -- known as Zholkva in Yiddish and Zolkiew in Polish -- was laid out as an "ideal city" by the Italian-born architect Paulus Szczesliwy (AKA Pavlo Schastliviy). Jews settled here from the start, and Zhovkva became an important Jewish center -- before WW2, about half the population was Jewish, more than 5,000 people. (See a web site on the town and its monuments.)

The synagogue, one of the key buildings in town, dates from 1687. Its flat roofline has the crenellations and blind arcaded tracery typical of the style and period. The Germans tried to dynamite the building in 1941 but only partially succeeded in destroying it. The interior was gutted, but the outer walls survived. Inside there are also some traces of wall paintings and the decorative carving surrounding the Ark. Some restoration work was carried out in the 1950s and 1990s, but for the most part the grand building has remained empty and derelict. (Read a description by Boris Khaimovich, writing in the Jewish Heritage Report.)

Thanks in part to the efforts of Sam Gruber, the synagogue received a Jewish Heritage grant from the World Monuments Fund and was also placed on the WMF's Watch List of 100 most endangered sites. Work has been going on sporadically, and state funding has also arrived.

Currently, workers are rebuilding the crenelations and also restoring the facade on two sides of the building. Not much is going on inside, but Mr. Kubai said that once restoration is completed, there were still plans to use the synagogue as a museum of Galician Jewish history and culture.



Other sites we visited included the castle (where work was proceeding on restoration of the huge central courtyard), the main market square, which retains some of the arcaded buildings that once surrounded it, and the huge, early 17th century Roman Catholic church of St. Lawrence, used in Soviet times as a warehouse but restored beautifully by international experts after Ukraine gained independence in the early 1990s. It includes the tombs of Stanislaw Zholkiewski and other members of his family.

I was pleased to find that there is a tourist office for the town (near the castle) with material in English and an English-speaking staffer.

WMF Jewish Heritage Program Grants

(Zamosc synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

The World Monuments Fund has announced four Jewish Heritage Program grants totaling $235,000. The funds go toward renovation, repair and preservation of three synagogues in east-central Europe as well as to preliminary planning for preservation of a former Yeshiva in Belarus.


(Choral Synagogue, Vilnius, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

$70,000 was awarded to the Choral Synagogue, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Built in 1903, it is the only surviving intact synagogue in Vilnius and still serves the needs of the small Jewish community there.


(Subotica Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

The Art Nouveau synagogue in Subotica, Serbia, which has been undergoing fitful renovation for many years, was awarded $75,000. (Restoration of the synagogue has had its ups and downs....which I experienced when I was a board member of the SOS Synagogue foundation formed in 2001 to oversee and encourage the process. Putting in briefly, politics played a role.) Some of the history of the synagogue and restoration attempts can be seen on the SOS Synagogue web site, which I designed, but which has not been updated for some time.

The 17th-century synagogue in Zamosc, Poland, received $75,000. The Renaissance synagogue, part of the "ideal" planned city, was recently restituted to Jewish ownership after long being used as a library. It is managed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, which has devised a revitaliation plan for the synagogue that is a centerpiece of its activities. Plans include creation there of a regional Jewish museum.

The Foundation's web site states: "The synagogue in Zamość was erected at the beginning of the 17th century in the late renaissance style. Originally it consisted of only one building. In the 17th century two low porches for women were added to the north and south elevations. The main building of the synagogue is surmounted by an attic, behind which a depressed roof is hidden. The vaults of the synagogue (both in the main hall and in the porches) are richly decorated with stucco work, very similar to the decorations in the main nave of the Zamość church. Both buildings were decorated in approximately same time and in both of them the same type of vault-decoration (the so-called Kalish-Lublin) was applied. In the eastern wall of the synagogue there is a 17th century stone Aron Ha-Kodesz (a niche were the Torah scroll is kept); it’s richly decorated frame is dated for the first half of the 17th century. The synagogue was last renovated during the period 1967-1972. Since that time no major works took place in the synagogue. "

In addition, the WMF granted $15,000 for conditions assessment and conservation planning for the former Volozin Yeshiva in Belarus. Founded in 1803, the Yeshiva was considered the progenitor of the Yeshiva system in eastern Europe. The grants were presented through the WMF's annual Jewish Heritage Program awards.