JEWISH HERITAGE IN POLAND TODAY (IN THE FORMER PRUSSIAN LANDS). BETWEEN JEWS, GERMANS AND POLES
JEWISH HERITAGE IN POLAND TODAY (IN THE FORMER PRUSSIAN LANDS). BETWEEN JEWS, GERMANS AND POLES

Summary/Abstract: Jewish heritage in north-eastern Poland can, for the most part, be hardly identified or recognized. During the Nazi period, it was deliberately destroyed, while the Jewish community emigrated to western Europe or the USA. After the Second World War, the surviving cemeteries and the few synagogues remained disused, because the Jewish families who returned to this region of Poland would subsequently emigrate to Israel by 1949. The attitude of Poles towards the heritage of their Jewish neighbours was also hostile, and it was only since the 1990s that the situation began to improve significantly. As a result of the source queries and several years of field research, we have succeeded in determining traces of Jewish heritage in 50 towns across the present Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (in the southern part of the former East Prussia). These places may be known to researchers, but the contemporary inhabitants are largely unaware. Moreover, Jews from Israel or the USA come mainly to Warsaw, Krakow, Lublin, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, but they seldom look for their roots in the north-eastern part of the country. It would be worthwhile to change that state of affairs.

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