Mirosław Skrzypczyk

My first encounter with Jewish matters and the Jews occurred when I was a child and is connected to holiday cards my father would receive from Henryk Szaniawski. At the time, my parents told me that the cards are from a Jewish man from Lelów, Chaim Środa, who was helped by my grandfather Kazimierz Skrzypczyk during World War II. I think that if it weren’t for those cards and my grandpa’s attitude, I would not have become an activist. What is also significant is that this history has been passed down in my family to me with an obligation to remember. There is one more story in our family: apart from those who helped, there were also those who forced their way into my grandfather’s house and tried to murder their Jewish neighbors. This is another testimony I received as family inheritance. I know both of these stories very well – in my mind, they function alongside each other and have accompanied me to this day. I took them with me when I left to attend high school in Częstochowa and then pursued a degree in Polish in Łódź. In the course of my studies I would constantly encounter Jewish tropes in Polish literature and explored the fascinating world of Polish Jews and its tragic end during the Holocaust. When I returned, I realized that both in Lelów – where I live – and in Szczekociny – where I work as a teacher – I can meet Jews who are close; not those from the books I had read but those who had lived here for centuries and  – to a large extent – were murdered in the Shoah. I also noticed that the memory of these Jews has been suppressed, and traces of their existence erased. This to me came as an authentic shock, but also served as a moment of illumination. Perhaps the latter was the light of tzaddik David Lelower? Perhaps it was the pain caused by the devastations of Jewish cemeteries in Szczekociny and Lelów? Or the recalled local residents’ stories about their Jewish neighbors? Perhaps it was meeting the Holocaust survivors? Or all of it? I do not know, but something made me work towards bringing back the memory of Jewish past in my two towns.

I teach and live in the countryside. Being a countryside teacher has its own specific character. Sławomir Mrożek once wrote about countryside life: “The tangibility of relations between people. The proximity. You are in the center, because the countryside is the center. There are no peripheries in the countryside and you cannot be anywhere else but in the center, whether you wish to or not.” In the countryside, the teacher is in the center and so is the school. Both should be the heart of local social and cultural life and foster changes in the local community. It is their obligation to interact with the local residents, but they should also spark important discussions, fight for the truth, change mentalities, counter prejudice and stereotypes. They have a significant role to play and should not pretend that someone else will do it for them. After all, they are the center and sometimes they must admit that “black is black”. This may be costly, but one must not act otherwise. My activism is connected to two towns: Szczekociny, where I work as Polish teacher in a local School Complex, and Lelów, where I live. Since 2005, I have served as deputy president of the Walenty Zwierkowski Lelów Historic and Cultural Society. I became the president of this society in 2015. Szczekociny School Complex has become the center for reclaiming the memory of local Jews. All Jewish-related projects implemented in the town received support from the school, its teachers, students and graduates. Among the numerous initiatives aimed at bringing back the memory of Szczekociny Jews, I am especially fond of those that are educational in their character; I find the artistic initiatives within the townscape equally extraordinary. The latter are also encounters between former and current residents, between local and Israeli youth, between the local community and its own memory, between schoolchildren and stories of their ancestors and neighbors.

What I should acknowledge as having impact on my identity is the fact that my tiny hometown Lelów is visited by Hassidim every year. According to Simcha Krakowski, chairman of Leżajsk-Polska Hassidic Foundation, the name “Lelów” makes Hassidic hearts tremble, amplifies the sense of holiness and symbolizes a place filled with miracles. The Hassidim convert the term to Lolev – “he has heart”, which means that Lelów has heart and this heart is the tzaddik Dawid Biderman, who was born, lived and was buried here, at the local cemetery. In Martin Buber’s “Gog and Magog” you can read the following story about the tsaddik: “The last to speak was the Lelover rebe. As usual during his storytelling, his listeners had the impression that there is no other way to express that what he wanted to express than through this very tale (…). Once, I was walking the long way from Lelov to Lisensk to visit rabbi Elimelech (…) When I was almost there, I reached a forest I knew very well, as I would often walk this route. But imagine – I got lost. I was running this way and that, with no end, no light anywhere. An hour passes and then another, and I am walking in circles. And what do you think David ultimately did? I wept. And as I was weeping, some passerby asked ‘Why are you crying, my dear son?’.

“‘Oh’ I gripe, not ceasing to weep, ‘I’ve been walking the same way to see my teacher each year and I know this forest like the back of my hand, but I suddenly got lost and I cannot manage. Something uncanny is happening here and there must be something wrong with me!’. ‘Not to worry’, said the man, ‘come with me, together we will find a way.’ We barely made a few steps when I noticed that the edge of the forest is near. ‘Do you understand now’, asked the man, ‘what <together> means?’. ‘I do’, I replied. ‘Now then’, he added, ‘I will give you something for the road. If you wish to merge two pieces of wood so they become one, you must first hew off any uneven parts. However, if  the convexity of one piece corresponds to the concaveness of the other and vice versa, the hewing will not be necessary. Lo and behold, this is the true Together!’” This story is especially important to me, because it talks about authentic dialogue and understanding, about being and acting together. This is why the story has been with me throughout my activist life. What is the meaning of my activism? To answer this question I would like to write about one of the art projects that involved local community in Szczekociny.

The event was held in 2011 during Szczekociny’s Yahad-Together Jewish Culture Festival and was a symbolic attempt to restore the former character of Szczekociny’s old Jewish cemetery that was stripped off all the matzevot during and after World War II. The project had participants work in groups to reproduce inscriptions from surviving matzevah fragments through frottage; the fragments had been collected over the years and deposited in one spot. Through this artistic activity, matzevah fragments symbolically returned to their original location. Let the words of Justyna Odzimek, a Szczekociny School Complex graduate, testify to the importance and poignancy of the initiative: “Initially I was curious and at the same time afraid – how can you employ the frottage technique on a large matzevah stone? Will this work at all? Will the Hebrew inscriptions be legible? The task was not easy. The paper would rip if I pressed the pencil too hard, the wind would seize sheets of sketches.

“Yet the outcome exceeded my wildest expectations. After a few moments I saw the carefully copied matzevot, with most of the letters quite legible. We worked as a group of quite a few people, so the sheets of sketches would pile up quickly. And I must admit they made a powerful impression. It felt like these matzevot were being given a second life. Yet all of this paled in comparison to the moment when these giant sheets were hung on ropes in pouring rain during prayer service at the Jewish cemetery. The strings, not unlike those used to hang laundry, were held by Szczekociny residents, while others used clothes pegs to hang the paper matzevot on them. Initially I was very much against the whole concept – why ruin our hard work by hanging the frottage drawings in pouring rain? Yet a moment later an amazing scene unraveled in front of us: the falling rain would melt sheets of paper that would fall and mix with the cemetery soil. Matzevot had returned to their original location. For me this was an incredibly magical moment, one of those that stay with you forever.”

Activism