Łukasz Parus

In 2012, students from Kostanecki Brothers Secondary School Complex in Zagórów joined the nationwide “To Bring Memory Back” educational program implemented by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. I was the project’s local coordinator. Launched in 2005, “To Bring Memory Back” program aims to raise awareness among schoolchildren of Jewish history and culture as well as to encourage them to implement projects commemorating local Jewish communities in their towns. Caring for the local Jewish cemetery was an important component of the program. Initiatives implemented by local students included: maintaining (cleanup works) the local Jewish cemetery, learning about local sites connected to Zagórów’s Jews (Jewish cemetery, former buildings of the Kehilla, yeshiva, cheder and the synagogue),

meeting with people who remember local Jews (interviews with the town’s and municipality’s senior residents, including Leon and Genowefa Sobczak, Ms. Helena Zemełka and Ms. Jadwiga Pęcherska), getting acquainted with cultural works relevant to the Jewish subject matter (films: Polin and Birthplace, Theo Richmond’s book Konin. A Quest), study visit at the KULMHOF Deathcamp in Chełmno on Ner and participation in the March of Memory there, meetings and exchange of experiences with history teacher Teresa Jabłońska and youth from Września’s Henryk Sienkiewicz High School, participation in lectures by regional historian Jarosław Buziak about the Jewish cemetery,Zagórów ghetto and Jewish burial rituals and participation in the conference “Jews of Zagórów”.