A Muslim at Yad Vashem - Selahattin Ülkümen

Yad Vashem

We sometimes forget how diverse much of the world was before the 20th Century – How in many parts of Europe, Middle East, India and Africa Christians, Muslims, Copts, Jews, Farsi, Armenians and others lived together, often intermarried, and traded. So in Prague we had a unique Judaeo / Christian culture and a Germanic / Czech literature exemplified by Frank Kafka, in Morocco we had the Jewish areas, the “Mellah” under the protection of the King and a city like Essaourira which was half Jewish and Muslim and which to this day is painted in the Jewish colours of blue and white. And on the Island of Rhodes we had a Jewish Community which had been there since Roman times and made up a third of the population of the town and spoke “Ladino”, the language of the Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal who had been welcomed by the Ottomans as “People of the Book” after their expulsion from Iberia.



Then in the 20th Century much changed. There have been genocides in history, the 8 million South American indigenous people’s estimated to have perished in silver mines in Bolivia and in the 20th Century and before WWII writers such as Winston Churchill used the terms to describe the destruction by the dying Ottoman Empire of the Armenian population of Turkey, as well as the attempted destruction of the Greek and Assyrian populations, a process observed by a joint Germano-Austrian military mission. Smaller events occurred, often unnoticed by an indifferent world. By 1923 the Muslim population of Crete which had a similar ethnic makeup to Cyprus was extinguished along with its unique Greek speaking Cretan Turk culture by the last of compulsory population exchanges. In German South-West Africa under the Kaiser the native African people who fought against colonisation experienced the first German Death Camps. The father of one Hermann Göring was the colonial Governor at the time. But what makes the Nazi Holocaust of Jews and others in Germany and 21 occupied and allied countries unique is the scale, the premeditation and the sheer cold ruthlessness and cruelty in implementing the policy for a “Final Solution” agreed at the Wanesee Conference in 1942.


Bimah from a synagogue on Rhodes

The “Final Solution” failed, but not by too much – historians and others can speculate what could have happened if, with the vagaries of war, Germany had not been cast back at El Alamein and had conquered Palestine or if the war had continued for a year longer allowing the 6 Death Camps to continue their deadly work. As it was of the Jews in Europe at 1939 two thirds of them had been murdered by the racist Nazi state and its fellow travellers by 1945.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html

The Final Solution failed and at Yad Vashem both the Martyrs and the Heroes of the Shoah are commemorated. On a hill at Har Hazikaron, the Mount of Remembrance, just outside Jerusalem, Yad Vashem is a vast, sprawling complex of tree-studded walkways leading to museums, exhibits, archives, monuments, sculptures, and memorials. Yad means “hand” but also “memorial”, while shem means “name”. The name of the museum derives from a Biblical verse:

“And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off“.


Plaque commemorating the holocaust victims from Rhodes


Jewish schoolgirls Rhodes 1930's

Since its inception, Yad Vashem has been entrusted with documenting the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust period, preserving the memory and story of each of the six million victims, and imparting the legacy of the Holocaust for generations to come through its archives, library, school, museums and recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations.

The last monument (in fact 2,000 trees planted to commemorate those who helped Jews) also demonstrates the power of diversity. What used to be known as the Righteous Christians has been changed to the Righteous Gentiles because a Muslim, Selahattin Ülkümen, was the first non-Christian to receive the award. In June 1990, Ülkümen was installed on the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel. The Avenue also contains a further nod to diversity for installed here is the only member of the Nazi Party commemorated at Yad Vashem along with his wife Emilie, Oskar Schindler.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/jewish-krakow.html


Identification portrait of Selahatin Ülkümen, Turkish Consul-General in Rhodes.

On Rhodes, Jewish descendants of refugees from the Spanish Inquisition had prospered during 390 years of Ottoman rule, and then under Italian occupation. But following Mussolini's removal from power in 1943, the Nazis took over the island, which, at that time, had a Jewish population of some 1,700. On July 19 1944, the Gestapo ordered all of the island's Jews to report for "temporary transportation to a small island nearby", but in fact to take them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Alexander Angel a young Jewish boy on Rhodes wearing the star of David in 1943. Jews on Rhodes were not required to wear the yellow star and he is wearing it as an innocent gesture of pride. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944

Ülkümen, the 30-year-old Turkish Consul General, approached the German commander, General von Kleeman, telling him that Turkey was neutral in the war and demanding that all Jewish Turks on Rhodes, including their spouses, whether Jewish or not, should be released at once. But, as Ülkümen later remembered: "The German commander said that, according to Nazi laws, all Jews are Jews and had to go to concentration camps. I objected. I said that, under Turkish law, there is no difference between whether a citizen was Jewish, Christian or Muslim. . . I said that I would advise my government if he didn't release the Jewish Turks and that it would cause an international incident. Then he agreed." Ülkümen was playing a dangerous game. He bluffed the Germans — there was no such law. Ülkümen's action saved the lives of 42 Jewish families. The rest of the Jews on the island were deported to Greece and from there to Auschwitz.


German Army occupying Kos Town in September 1943

The Jewish community of Rhodes goes back to the 1st century CE. In 1480, the Jews actively defended the walled city against the Turks. At its peak in the 1920s, the Jewish community was one-third of the total population. The community was mostly wiped out in the Holocaust. Kahal Shalom, established in 1557, is the oldest synagogue in Greece. It is still standing in the Jewish quarter of the Old Town of Rhodes. It has been renovated with the help of foreign donors but very few Jews live year-round in Rhodes today, and services are not held on a regular basis. This synagogue is maintained basically as a memorial to the 1800 Jews from Rhodes and Kos deported to the concentration camps from here, with plaques in French (the language of educated Ottoman period Jews in the Aegean). There's a museum in the back with photos of the Jewish community and its life on Rhodes and also in its widespread Diaspora in both the United States and in Africa. The museum was set up by a Los Angeles attorney of Jewish Rhodian descent.




Rhodes Town

The Platia ton Evreon Martyron /Square of the Jewish Martyrs was named to honour the large Jewish community of Rhodes almost completely wiped out by the Nazis during the summer of 1944. A 1929 Italian tourist guide so described the Jewish quarter of Rhodes: “Beyond the Admiralty we enter the Jewish quarter where the atmosphere is so different from that of the Muslim quarter: the latter is very silent with family life going on behind closed doors, the Jewish quarter is happily noisy with children screaming and the open doors allow to see women doing their chores in rooms and courtyards.”

That is now all gone; On July 19, 1944 the island’s 1700 Jewish inhabitants were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to extermination camps, of whom only some 151 survived.


President of the Jewish Community laying a wreath to the victims of the Holocaust at La Juderia




The “Square of the Martyred Jews” (known in Greek as “Martyron Evreon”), is located in the heart of the former Jewish Quarter of Rhodes Town. The present park area of the square was originally an area of Jewish homes and small shops. However, the area was bombed during World War II, and in its place was established a small park and square. The present fountain ornamented with three seahorses replaced a previous fountain that was destroyed during World War II.




Selahattin Ülkümen 1914 - 2003

Ülkümen’s bold personal action is credited with saving 42 families. But his bluff didn't go unanswered. In September 1943, the German army occupied the island of Rhodes and moved to close the Turkish consulate, the last remaining Turkish consulate in Axis-controlled territory. When Turkey protested, German planes bombed the building, seriously injuring Ülkümen’s wife, Mihrinisa, who later died. His wife, nine months' pregnant, was seriously injured and died of her wounds while giving birth to the couple's son, Mehmet.

In the end, all those on Ülkümen’s list were released, while the rest of the Island's population of 1,700 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Among those he saved was Albert Franko, who already had been placed on a transport to Auschwitz from Piraeus. When it was determined that Franko's wife was a Turkish citizen, Ülkümen had him taken off the train and returned to Rhodes. In August 1944, when Turkey broke diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, Ülkümen was interned on the Greek mainland. He was released only on May 8, 1945.


Six Jewish women from Rhodes photographed in Bologna, Italy in June 1945 who survived

It will come as no surprise to those who study such things that those responsible for the War Crimes in the Dodecanese, for the deportation and extermination of the Jewish population, for the summary execution of Italian Officers and the hanging of Greek Partisans were never punished. General Ulrich Kleeman went on to lead hundreds of his troops to their deaths when his Panzergrupppen was destroyed by the Red Army at the disastrous Battle of Budapest in 1945. He died of natural causes in Germany in 1963 and his honour from Hitler of The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was displayed on his coffin. Selahattin Ülkümen continued in the Turkish Diplomatic service until his retirement and never sought recognition for his bravery. His actions were recognised and lauded by the Rhodian Jewish Diaspora and are a testament to our common humanity and bond.


The president of the Central Jewish Council of Greece, Moisis Constantinis (R) presents on July 24, 2008 in Rhodes an award to Mehmet Ülkümen (L), son of Selahattin Ülkümen, The Turkish Consul General on the island who in 1944 saved 42 Jewish families from being deported to Nazi concentration camps.

Selahattin Ülkümen 1914 – 2003

Remember the Shoah and respect the memory of the victims.

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”

See also;

Jewish Kos

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/jewish-kos.html

Rhodes Town

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/rhodes-town.html

Jewish Kos

“The Holy Synagogue of the Jewish Community of Kos, 16th Century – 1944)”


Holocaust Memorial, Rhodes

Kos is one of the most popular tourist islands of the Dodecanese. Geographically speaking it is very close the Asia Minor and therefore a significant commercial and cultural center. At a comparatively early period Jews are mentioned among the population of Kos; and under Alexander the Great and the Egyptian Ptolemies (from 336 B.C.) the town developed into one of the great Jewish centres in the Ægean. Josephus ("Ant." xiv. 7, § 2) quotes Strabo to the effect that Mithridates sent to Kos to fetch the gold deposited there by Queen Cleopatra and "800 talents belonging to the Jews." Jews of Kos are mentioned at the time of Antiochus VII., Sidetes, Kos being one of the islands to which the rescript of the Roman consul Lucius was sent (139 B.C.; I Macc. xv. 23). It appears probable that in course of time the Jews became the chief bankers in the island, and that they took charge, at a certain rate of interest, of the large sums of money owned by the temples.

In the sacrificial tablet of the Temple of Adrasteia and Nemesis, they are mentioned (lines 17, 18) as πάντες ὑπὸ τ[ων τρα]πεζειτῶν ή ἄλλως (Herzog, "Critische Forschungen," p. 35). This inscription is of the first century B.C. Rayet ("Mémoire sur l'Ile de Kos," p. 80) thinks that the 800 talents ($960,000) deposited by Cleopatra were held by these Jewish τραπεζήται; but of this there is no evidence (Paton and Hicks, "Inscriptions of Cos," p. xxxviii.). In 49 B.C. the Koans are reminded by the consul Caius Fannius to obey the decree of the Roman Senate and to allow safe passage to Jewish pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem (Josephus, l.c. xiv. 10, § 15). Herod is said to have provided an annual stipend for the benefit of prize-winners in the athletic games (Josephus, "B. J." i. 21, § 11); and a statue was erected there to his son Herod the Tetrarch ("C. I. G." 2502). The epigrammatist Meleager, who was living at Kos about 95 B.C., complains of having been abandoned by his mistress for a Jew (Epigram No. 83, in "Anthologia Græca," v. 160).


1945, Jewish women from Rhodes who survived the Holocaust

According to Josephus, Kos had a Jewish community as early as the Second Temple. According to ch. Maccabees I (15.23), Jews had been living on the island since 142 B.C. In 49 B.C., under the Roman rule, the residents of the island were ordered by Governor Fanios to respect the decree of the Government and permit the safe passage of Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The first Greek Jew known by name was "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew", a slave identified in an inscription dated approximately 300 - 250 B.C. found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia. It could be assumed that as a result of frequent Jewish movement through Greece a Jewish Community was eventually established. This community is believed to have grown further after the Hasmonean uprising (142 B.C.) when many Jews were sold into slavery in Greece.

In the early Christian era, the fact that Paul the Apostle, upon his arrival in Greece, preached in the Jewish Synagogues in Athens, Corinth, Veria, Kavala (Philipus) gives proof of the existence of many Jewish Communities in this Country. So it will be readily understood that Jewry and the Greek lands have a very close and long standing connection and their histories are intertwined.


Kos town today, Crusader Castle of Neratzia

The visitors to Kos should not miss the view of the port from the Citadel which dominates the area and was built by the Knights of St. John in 1314. It is not known whether Jews continued to live at Kos from Roman times down to the conquest of the island by the Knights of Rhodes in 1315. Under the rule of the knights, however, Jews were banished (1502) from the island (Coronelli, "Isola di Rhodi," p. 180) and transported to Nice, in accordance with the decree promulgated by Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Hospitallers of St. John. It is not definitely known whether the Jews returned from Nice to Kos a year after their banishment, i.e., during or after the conquest of the island by the Turks but Jews returned in 1523, protected by the Caliph as “People of the Book”.

But, according to a document, now at Rhodes, containing some notes on the administration of the community of Rhodes, the community of Kos was in 1685 dependent on that of Rhodes, paying to the latter a tax collected from eighteen persons whose names are mentioned in the document. The amount of the tax, which was paid up to 1870, indicates probably that the community was not very large and had no chief rabbi, but was under the direct control of the chief rabbi of Rhodes.




The Synagogue of Kos at 4, Alexandrou Diakou Street

In 1747 Eliezer Tarsia covered financially for the construction of a small but impressive synagogue that even after his death was preserved with the income from a neighbouring house and two shops he bequeathed. In 1850, 40 families lived in Kos, but were reduced to 25 in 1872. The Jews of Kos exported grapes and raisins and were also involved in metal and clothing trade. In 1901 Kos only had 10 Jewish families who were involved mainly in commerce. The members of the Community lived in harmony and spoke Greek, Turkish and Judeo-Spanish. The Community grew significantly during the Greek-Turkish War between 1918-1922, as refugees came from Asia Minor and particularly from Smyrna.

In 1933 Kos was shook by a very strong earthquake. As a result many human lives were lost. Important monuments, including the synagogue, were ruined. Immediately after the destruction of the old synagogue a new one was built very close to the port. It exists up to this day and is located on 4, Alexandrou Diakou Street. The synagogue served the religious needs of the 140 members of the Jewish Community. When Italy surrendered in 1943, the islands of the Dodecanese were occupied by the Germans. The members of the Jewish Community of Kos were arrested and their properties were seized.


Plaque commemorating the holocaust victims from Rhodes


Jewish schoolgirls Rhodes 1930's

On July 22, 1944, the Jews from Kos and Rhodes were crowded on three cargo ships which went to the port of Piraeus. Once there, they were forced onto cattle trains and were deported to Auschwitz. During the Holocaust, all members of the Jewish Community of Kos perished. Only one person survived the Holocaust and returned to the island.

This was not the first episode of persecution. As Kos changed hands like a shuttlecock between opposing armies, so, too, did the fate of the community. Between 1306-1522 all Jews were expelled twice under the rule of the Knights of St. John, to return again after the invasion by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1523. The Knights' imposing Castle still commands the Harbour.

There was a Blood Libel in 1850, under Ottoman occupation, but the Colonel in charge, Ramiz Bey, established Jewish innocence. As we shall see, this is not the only example of a Turkish individual defending Jewish persecution. War again, this time between Greece and Turkey, 1918-1923, led to an increase in population as Jews fled from Izmir. Their number reached 160 by 1939.





Italian troops invaded Kos in 1912, and the outbreak of World War 11 reinforced their presence. Such had been their tight control of administration and the policy of 'Latinisation', that even in 1944 all Birth, Death and Marriage certificates were in Italian. Looking at the ominous red stripe on the documents for every Jew made one realize how far back the community had been in peril. The region suffered great hardship, hunger, and bombardment by the allies between 1940 and 1943. War brings out the very worst in Man but perversely, occasionally, the best of spirit. Food supplies to the community were at starvation levels. Observing their plight, the new commandant of the region in July 1942, Admiral I. Campione, enforced fair distribution of food regardless of fascist dictates.


Alexander Angel a young Jewish boy on Rhodes wearing the star of David in 1943. Jews on Rhodes were not required to wear the yellow star and he is wearing it as an innocent gesture of pride. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944


On 3 September 1943, the Italians surrendered. There was much rejoicing but fate played a cruel hand. The rescuing British forces were out numbered by the Nazis who occupied the Island on the 3 October 1943 (an interesting account of the campaign by the British Caithness regiment is at:

www.internet-promotions.caithness.

There were brave acts of Greek resistance throughout the occupation, and after writing a courageous condemnation of persecution, the Archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos, was threatened with the firing squad by the Nazi General Strop. Another example of indomitable spirit can be seen across the harbour in Pothia where a number of citizens bravely painted their houses blue and white, the colours of the banned Greek Flag.


Memorial to the Jews of Rhodes and Kos, Jewish Cemetery, Rhodes

The Nazi response to such things was demonstrated shortly after their arrival. They impressed their might by hanging non- Jewish patriots, Elias Kapiris and George Zoumpoulikos, and the same fate befell Theokritos Kostoglou, Anezoula Patakou and Stamatia Peri in April 1945.

For the Jewish community, all that had been feared throughout the war came to be on July 23, 1944. A few days earlier two senior Nazi officers met with the elders of the community with instructions that listed Jews were to congregate in the harbour. Despite the issue for Rhodes and Kos of some 42 exit visas by the Turkish Consul, Salahattin Ulkemen, an act recorded in his honour at Yad Vashem, three small cargo boats transported some 2000 souls from the islands to Piraeus.

The 30-year-old Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen approached the German general in charge and demanded that all Turkish subjects be released. He went further, demanding the spouses of Turkish citizens be released, invoking Turkish law that anyone married to a Turk is a Turk. The Germans assented. Ülkümen was playing a dangerous game. He bluffed the Germans — there was no such law.






Selahattin Ülkümen 1914 - 2003

Ülkümen’s bold personal action is credited with saving 42 families. But his bluff didn't go unanswered. The Germans bombed his home in retaliation. His wife, nine months' pregnant, was seriously injured and died of her wounds while giving birth to the couple's son, Mehmet. 643 of Rhodes' Jews were deported to Auschwitz; all but 151 were exterminated or died in the labour camps.

In June 1990, Ülkümen was installed on the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel. What used to be known as the Righteous Christians has been changed to the Righteous Gentiles because as a Muslim Mr. Ülkümen was the first non-Christian to receive the award.


The president of the Central Jewish Council of Greece, Moisis Constantinis (R) presents on July 24, 2008 in Rhodes an award to Mehmet Ülkümen (L), son of Selahattin Ülkümen, The Turkish Consul General on the island who in 1944 saved 42 Jewish families from being deported to Nazi concentration camps.

First hand accounts of the bestiality of the eight day boat journey and the subsequent 13 day train journey, where those who died were unceremoniously thrown off, can be found in 'The Juderia: A Holocaust Survivor's Tribute to the Jewish Community of Rhodes' (Laura Vardon, Prager, 1999) and 'The Jewish Martyrs of Rhodes and Kos' (Hiskia M. Franco, Harper Collins, Zimbabwe 1997).



In the nine months before the War in Europe had ended, nine in every ten of those deported from Rhodes and Kos had died. Of the 140 deportees from Kos, 137 perished. The Jewish population of this once small but proud community now stands at three, the children of the late Moshe Menasce. Survivors do return but it is not easy - 'I fear so much I would hear the whispers of my people in the streets' (Laura Vardon, p.166)


Auschwitz-Birkenau - The "Judenrampe" where the "selections" for the gas chambers took place. 80% were killed when they arrived

Today only the Synagogue remains on the island. It is easily recognized due to the Star of David on the gates. It is now used as a Municipal Cultural Center. There is a monument inside the door listing the names of the 140 Jews from Kos whose lives were destroyed in this pointless act of evil by the racist Nazi State in the dying days of WW11. There are two Jewish cemeteries at Kos. One very old one, situated on the seashore at Cape Sable, is no longer used. The other, more in the interior of the island, contains over one hundred tombs, the earliest dating from 1715. Following are the names of the chief families in 1901: Romano, Capelluto, Angel, Tarica, Gabaï, Couriel, Benveniste, Coenca, Alhadef, Mir, Pisante, Habib, Abzaradel, Franco, Finz, Ergas; the most prominent among these families being those of Tarica, Alhadef, and Franco. The last-named was engaged especially in exporting raisins, the chief product of the island, and had connections at the principal centres of commerce of Europe. Later on Jews from Salonica came every year to the markets of Kos to buy the products of the island.


La Juderia, Rhodes


1946 photo of the President of the Jewish Community laying a wreath at the fountain in La Juderia

The evil of the Shoah always shocks but the memorial plaque on the outside of the Synagogue is stark;

The only redeeming feature of this tragedy, other than the Jews from Rhodes who escaped to Turkey, is that for the first two decades of Italian rule more than 2,000 Rodian Jews emigrated on Italian passports and their descendants keep the memory of this cultured and unique community alive. In 1941 2,000 Jews lived in Rhodes. They had four synagogues. "Shalom" Synagogue, on the junction between Dosiadou and Simiou Streets, as well as the ancient Jewish cemetery, survived World War II. "Shalom" synagogue was originally built in the 12th century, was destroyed during the war between the Turks and the Knights Templar and was rebuilt in the 15th century. Only 150 of them survived. Today the Community is comprised of about 40 people.




Bimah of the Synagogue of Rhodes

On June 2002, a Holocaust Monument was unveiled in the Jewish Martyrs Square, in the old town of Rhodes, in memory of the Jews of the island who perished during the Holocaust.


The “Square of the Martyred Jews” (known in Greek as “Martyron Evreon”), is located in the heart of the former Jewish Quarter of Rhodes Town. The present park area of the square was originally an area of Jewish homes and small shops. However, the area was bombed during World War II, and in its place was established a small park and square. The present fountain ornamented with three seahorses replaced a previous fountain that was destroyed during World War II.

As well as Greek this unique community spoke Ladino and French. Ladino is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily by Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Arabic, Turkish and to a lesser extent Greek and other languages where Sephardic expellees settled around the world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire. Like most other Jewish languages besides Hebrew, Judaeo-Spanish is in serious danger of language extinction because most native speakers today are elderly, many of whom had immigrated to Israel where the language has not been transmitted to their children or grandchildren.



It is worthwhile visiting the website of The Jewish Museum of Rhodes to learn more about this unique community and culture;

www.RhodesJewishMuseum.org

And the wonderful resource of the Jewish Museum of Greece which I have relied on in compiling this piece;

www.jewishmuseum.gr

During World War II, when Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany, 86% of the Greek Jews perished owing to enemy actions, extermination and execution, and in many cities where prosperous Jewish Communities existed, only a few individuals remained. Out of 77.377 Greek Jews, only 10.000 survived the Holocaust. Those who survived the War owe their lives to the help of their Christian compatriots. Several joined the Resistance or the Greek Army in the Middle East. On Rhodes and Kos the evil was emphasised and made more poignant by the drama of the deportations to the Auschwitz happening so late in the war, the Jews being protected under Italian Occupation and no doubt the false relief felt when the islands were taken by the British before the Germans invaded.

Standing in front of the stark reminder of these racist murders on the front of the Synagogue in Kos you can only recall the words of the Holocaust survivor Abel Hertzberg:

"There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times."

Remember the Shoah and respect the memory of the victims.

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”


See also;

Auschwitz - Birkenau

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html

Muslim Kos

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/muslim-kos.html


Jewish Cemetery, Kos

Jewish Kraków

The pages and the black and white photos of the pre-war National Geographic magazine in my collection are both mute and eloquent. Mute because they speak of a world which is gone, the great pre-war Yiddish culture of Poland. Before the war 10% or 3 million of Poland’s population was Jewish and Yiddish was the language not just of speech but of a unique culture, literature, cinema and music. At the very centre of this Yiddish culture was the centre of Poland’s Kings and culture, Kraków, the city of the Jagiellonian University, one of Europe’s oldest and most distinguished, the city of Copernicus, the city where Lenin lived in exile from the Tsarist Police and the city where Casimir the Great, King of Poland, granted privileges to Jews and where the area named after him, the Kazimierz created a unique and successful Jewish and Christian culture. For before the War and the terrible events which were to follow over 70 thousand Jews lived in Kraków, a quarter of the city’s population. And this city was at the heart of Mittel Europa owing its existence to its meeting point on the European trade routes from North to South and East to West. King Kazimierz was favorably disposed toward Jews and on 9 October 1334, he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Bolesław V the Chaste. Under penalty of death, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Although Jews had lived in Poland since before the reign of King Kazimierz, he allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king.


Casimir the Great and Jews National Gallery, Warsaw.

And these black and white photos are eloquent as well as mute for eloquently they scream at us that within a few short years this great culture nurtured over 700 years would be virtually destroyed and those in the photos slaughtered mercilessly in a holocaust which consumed all before it. And so within living memory this great culture, literature, theatre, poetry and music was destroyed in the name of racial hatred on a scale and in a premeditated manner which chills any right thinking person to the bone. And the new state of Israel turned its back on the Germanic Yiddish language and adopted the inanimate Hebrew of the Bible as its official language.


Former ritual bathhouse



Before WWII, a third of Warsaw's population spoke Yiddish, the language of Central Europe's Jews. Yiddish culture disappeared along with its speakers, who were wiped out during the Holocaust. But now, young Poles are beginning to learn the language. Yiddish, the language spoken by Central and Eastern Europe’s Jews before the Second World War, now mainly survives in small enclaves in Lithuania, Russia and Belarus, as well as in the US. Those Jews who left countries like Poland for Israel after the end of the war now speak Hebrew, the language of the bible. Very few traces of Yiddish remain in Poland, once home to most of Eastern Europe’s Jews. But with the current interest among young Poles in Jewish culture comes an interest in the language they spoke.




Remu Synagogue Interior

Kazimierz, the heart of Jewish Kraków, is now a thriving district, a mixture of cultural festivals, café culture, antique shops, art galleries, restaurants and bars, a place to watch the world go by over a coffee or to catch up with friends. However, it would be wrong to talk about Kazimierz merely in those terms, for any visitor, regardless of nationality or religious persuasion, it's worth pointing out that Kazimierz's history spans centuries. It was originally established in 1335 and named after its founder, King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great), who intended it to rival the established city of Krakow.


Jewish Cemetery

It remains one of the most culturally significant Jewish areas in the world. In 1495, the Jews who were expelled from Kraków settled here, and Kazimierz became a mixture of Christian and Jewish culture. During the war the Nazis did all they could to destroy and ruin Kazimierz. After the war, decades of communist neglect left Kazimierz a crumbling ruin. It became a dark and dangerous place, a district to be avoided after nightfall. As recently as the year 2000 much of Kazimierz was still in ruins, a crumbling shell of its former self. Numerous houses, which initially gave the appearance of a squatters' paradise were, on closer inspection, unfit even for mice, since whole floors had collapsed, rendering many areas highly dangerous. Kazimierz was known as a dirty, not altogether safe place, inhabited by stray dogs and morose alcoholics. And to add to this there was the highly emotive issue of land repatriation.

Today, out of the blue, Kazimierz is undergoing a major renaissance. Both its Jewish and Christian heritage is being restored, and colour has returned to its alleys and squares. Just wandering about is an experience in itself, but not to be missed are the Corpus Christi Church, the Tempel Synagogue and ulica Szeroka - the heart of the old Jewish district. Either of the two cemeteries, the Remuh or the New, are also well worth a look. And of the more recent arrivals the Galicia Museum deserves a special mention.



With communism's fall, Kazimierz changed beyond all recognition. As well as the aforementioned art galleries and cafés, buildings have been renovated and museums opened. There has also been a reawakening in the importance of Jewish history and culture in Poland, for instance, the Jewish Culture Festival which takes place every year attracts thousands of visitors, both Jews and non-Jews alike. Perhaps one of the most important factors in Kazimierz's renewal was Steven Spielberg's film, Schindler's List, which was filmed here and which generated intense interest in the area. With its beguiling streets, unforgettable and unique atmosphere, synagogues and museums, as well as its cafés, bars and art galleries, Kazimierz is a place that anyone who comes to Kraków must visit.


Kazimierz Town Hall

The 15th-century Town Hall amid Kazimierz's Plac Wolnica central square was turned in the 16th century into a Renaissance edifice which now houses the Museum of Ethnography. Whatever was its king-founder's intention; the town of Kazimierz remained dwarfed by the nearby capital city and became part of the city of Kraków in 1800.

Oskar Schindler was a Sudeten German, a Nazi Party member, an unscrupulous opportunist and a war profiteer who paradoxically became one of the greatest humanitarian’s of the 20th Century. The man and his story were made famous by Spielberg's film, Schindler's List. In many ways he was a man of contradiction. At the beginning of the war Schindler seemed to be intent on making a fortune from the misery that was unfolding around him. In common with other Germans, Schindler took over companies that were previously in the hands of Jewish owners, in this case two enamel kitchenware companies. In October 1939 the "Emalia" factory was established in the Zablocie district of Kraków. It produced enamel kitchenware and was one of the factories that Schindler had taken over. Using his business contacts and the cheap labour that was available to him Schindler made a fortune. He lived the life of a very successful businessman and took every opportunity to enjoy his success being a regular fixture on the social scene.




Schindler Factory

The brutality of the Nazi regime brought about a change in Schindler from a man whose sole concern was profit into a man who made it his mission to save as many lives as he could. Whenever Schindler's workers were threatened with deportation to the death camps he could claim exemptions for them based on the fact that his business was deemed to be essential to the war effort. Without this status it is unlikely that Schindler would have been able to save as many people as he did. Where necessary, and at great risk to himself, Schindler falsified his company's records. For example, workers listed as experts in mechanics were in fact children. This courageous course of action saved many from certain death. When the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, Schindler used his close relationship with the camp commander at Plaszow (Amon Goeth) to set up a branch of the camp within his factory compound. In spite of everything that was going on around him Schindler managed to ensure decent treatment for his workers.


Oskar Schindler


Oskar & Emilie Schindler 1946

In October 1944 and with the approach of the Soviet Army, Schindler was granted permission to re-establish his factory in Brünnlitz, in the Sudetenland (now known as Brnenec which is located in the Czech Republic). However, before his workers could join him there they were sent to Gross Rosen (a concentration camp near Wroclaw) and Auschwitz. Remarkably, Schindler secured their release and yet again saved the lives of his workforce. In total, around 1100 people went to Schindler's new factory in Brünnlitz where they were treated as well as conditions allowed and where his equally heroic wife, Emilie, ran a clinic to treat the workers. A truly heroic man, his factory still exists and can be found in Kraków at ul Lipowa 4. (Plac Bohaterow Getta tram stop). To walk there takes about 20-30 minutes from Kazimierz. Both Oskar and Emilie Schindler are honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, or "righteous Gentiles", an honour awarded by Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, at great personal risk. Oskar Schindler is the only Nazi Party member commemorated at Yad Vashem.


Public execution near Płaszow Pokocim train station on June 26 1942

The persecution of the Jewish population began almost immediately after the German occupation of Kraków. From November 1939, all Jews aged 12 or over had to wear armbands showing the Star of David. They were forced to work on the road's edge, the use of the pavement being forbidden, and they were also prevented from taking public transport or entering parks.

The harassment of Kraków 's Jews was constant, their day to day existence made worse by the continuous flow of rules and orders emanating from the occupying German forces. Jews could no longer claim their pensions; those aged between 14-60 were forced to work and were given particularly hard and humiliating jobs. The Germans took over Jewish property and seized possessions: companies, shops, tenement houses, valuables and works of art.


Ultra Orthodox Jews Kraków 1931

In April 1940, the order was given to expel Jews from Kraków, the majority being sent to towns and villages outside the city. Out of a total population numbering some 64,000, only 15,000 Jews were allowed to remain. The Kraków Ghetto was created on 3 March 1941 when Otto Wachter, the Kraków District Governor, decreed that, "for sanitary and public order reasons, a Jewish living quarter" would be established. (The Kraków Ghetto 1941-1943 by Anna Pióro. Published by The Historical Museum of Kraków.)

The ghetto was situated in the Podgórze district of Krakow and eventually housed 20,000 Jews, not just from Kraków, but also from neighbouring communities. Prior to the establishment of the ghetto, this same area had housed approximately 3,000 people.

A Polish witness wrote:

"We travelled over the Vistula River like many other families. On one side of the bridge we came from Podgórze, on the other side the Jews came from Kazimierz. I remember the silence of this removal... The silence changed into mourning and sighs."

Death-Camps.org

Two factories were situated within the ghetto, the Madritsch factory and the Optima factory. Both factories used forced labour to help in the German war effort. There is no real sign of these factories now, however, anyone who goes to ul. Krakusa 7 will see the original Optima sign on the wall of the building. (The Schindler factory was situated outside of the ghetto).


Ghetto Gate 1940


Deportation from the Ghetto

The daily reality of ghetto life was one of hunger, disease and overcrowding. Illnesses decimated the population. Many died trying to get food or medicines from beyond the ghetto walls; the usual punishment for those being caught was to be shot by the Germans. Despite the prevailing conditions in the ghetto, an even greater tragedy was to befall its population. From March 1942 transportation to the death camps commenced. In June and October 1942 the two biggest deportations to the death camps took place, numbering a few thousand people. Overcrowded trains left for the camps from the Plaszow train station, the inhabitants having been earlier rounded up on Plac Zgody, known today as Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto.

During these selections the Germans massacred hundreds people, the ghetto streets were soaked in the blood of their victims. The Germans executed hospital patients, the old, as well as children from the orphanage that was situated in the ghetto. The Optima factory saw the isolation of hundreds of Jews in extreme heat without food or water before their subsequent deportation to the death camps.

The ultimate liquidation of the ghetto took place on 13th and 14th March 1943. Around 4,000 people who were considered fit for works were taken to the Plaszow camp, whereas the elderly, the weak and children were shot on the spot, approximately 2,000 people were killed this way. The remainder, a figure in the region of 2,000, were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Cafe Cyganeria

Even in these circumstances there were stories of resistance and heroism, most notably Tadeusz Pankiewicz with his pharmacy located within the ghetto. There was also a Jewish Fighting Organisation, but the reality of the ghetto meant that their capability to attack was severely limited. For this reason the JFO was active outside the ghetto. Following an attack in the centre of Kraków on the cafe Cyganeria the leaders of this organisation were caught and executed. The cafe was a meeting place for Wehrmacht and Gestapo officers, and was attacked by members of Krakow's Jewish underground on December 22, 1942. Eleven Germans were killed and 13 wounded in this action. Today, very little visible sign of the original ghetto remains. Perhaps the most obvious can be found on ul. Lwowska where a plaque has been placed on part of the former ghetto wall. In total, it is estimated that some 65,000 Polish Jews who lived in Cracow and its immediate vicinity were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War, obliterating Jewish life and culture as it had existed before the War completely.




Ghetto wall

The plaque reads as follows:

"Here they lived, suffered and perished at the hands of Hitler's executioners. From here they began their final journey to the death camps."

So on the night of 15th March 2009, the 66th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto by the Nazis we found ourselves appropriately in the heart of Jewish Kraków on Szeroka Street in Ariel Restaurant enjoying a meal of Yiddish favourites, Gefilte Fish and Sephardic Carp whilst listening to Klezmer music and song by a Yiddish trio Sholem.


Szeroka Street


Ariel

A restaurant, cafe and gallery "Ariel" is located in the very centre of Kazimierz. There are 5 synagogues within 200 m distance, including one fully active (Remuh), a historical cemetery and a house of prayer, where a well - know cabbala master Natan Spira used to live and work. And at the top of Szeroka Street is the so-called "Old Synagogue", the oldest Jewish temple in Poland, where a Jewish museum is located. "Ariel" was established in a tenement house erected between the World Wars, occupying the place where an old 18th century "Rabbi House" used to stand, inhabited by uncompromising adversaries of Chasidism - rabbi Isaak Lewitan (died in 1799) and his son David Levy (Kraków `s rabbi in 1816 - 1832). Further along the street is Rubenstein’s, the family home which the perfume milionairess Helena Rubenstein left to make her fortune, firstly in Australia and then in America. Near also is the home where a survivor of the ghetto, the film Director, Roman Polanski, lived as a child.


Remu Synagogue


Old Synagogue


Rubenstein House

In listening to the superb Klezmer melodies and the haunting Yiddish lyrics we thought of the resilience of the human spirit, how a people who greet each other with “Shalom” – “Peace” and part with the word “L'haim” – “To Life” to have endured the unthinkable cruelty of the Shoah within living memory. In an calculated defiance of the ideology which made such crimes possible Jews and Goyam were on this anniversary gathered together here in the heart of Mittel Europa where the secular, the Orthodox and the Hassidic contended to drink to our common humanity and go into the dark night with a shared toast “L'haim”.




Sholem

http://www.sholem.pl



Not far away at Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto there is a mute memorial to what has passed here designed by Krakow architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak. This memorial features 33 large illuminated chairs in the square and 37 smaller chairs standing on the edge of the square and at the tram stops. The chairs represent the furniture and other remnants that were discarded on that very spot by the ghetto's Jews as they were herded into the trains that would often take them to their deaths in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. At the other end of the square is the Apteka Pod Orlem (the Chemist under the Eagle) which was the only pharmacy allowed in the ghetto and funded by Roman Polanski it is being renovated and turned into a museum.


Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto

There I thought of the words of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited in mourning;

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”

Today in Kraków there are around 200 Jewish inhabitants and in Poland as a whole around 5,000. However and hearthingly there is a great awareness amongst young Poles of the shared heritage and what has been lost which translates into a determination to preserve and revive the Jewish legacy in Poland. I've relied upon and quoted from a number of excellent local resources for this piece including;

Jewish Kraków

www.jewishkrakow.net

Kraków site devoted to Jews from Kraków

www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/

Kraków Info

www.krakow-info.com/JewishQ.html

Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute

www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/

Cracow Life

www.cracow-life.com/poland/krakow-kazimierz