Wąchock
Mayor Jan Piwnik “Ponury” Junior High School
Mayor Jan Piwnik “Ponury” Junior High School
“Against a background of a dark grey sky and silent graves, a 15-year old boy revives the microhistory of Jews from Wąchock” – this is an excerpt of an article entitled “W szczelinie” (“In the Crevice”) published in the biggest Polish daily “Gazeta Wyborcza”. Magdalena Grochowska described in it how a student from Wąchock, a graduate of the School of Dialogue program, took her on a walking tour following footsteps of the town’s Jewish residents. “He knows where the mikvah, synagogue, butcher stall and slaughterhouse were; who was rich and who was poor. And that the entire Wielkowiejska Street was Jewish”, she wrote.
Jews had lived in Wąchock from the 18th century. In 1921, they constituted 19% of the town’s population. The Jewish cemetery is in Krzemienica Street.
It was renovated in 2006 with the funds of Rafael Faferman who was born in Wąchock. The synagogue stands in Kolejowa Street. It was a place of prayer before but now the building is abandoned. The Jewish school was located in the building of an elementary school, just next to the junior high school where the School of Dialogue workshops were held. The Forum for Dialogue educators wanted to pass this knowledge to students from Major Jan Piwnik “Ponury” Junior High School. “I did not know anything about Jews before. My grandparents never recalled them”, said Piotr, a program participant featured in the aforementioned article. Students became interested in the subject and wanted to know more. First-hand information if possible. They invited Ms Anna Perchel to the workshop.
Ms Perchel runs a shop in the market square. She is willing to talk about the life in Wąchock before the war. When she was a little girl, she lived at Wielkowiejska 10. The Jewish families Faferman, Lejbus Pracownik, Jankiel were her neighbors. She went to school with several Jewish children, like Rafael Faferman who funded the new cemetery, with rabbi’s son and three Jewish girls. She knew them well as they attended school together from 1933 until the war. As Ms Perchel tells her story, students listen to her being aware of the fact that soon this important information will be lost, and so they should preserve it. They therefore decide to share it with their younger colleagues from school.
On November 16, the School of Dialogue participants invite their schoolmates to a walk around the Jewish Wąchock.
They visit the Jewish cemetery and explain the symbols on matzevot to their fellow students, they go to the former synagogue building and to the market square where at No 14 Mr. Faferman lived, and Ms Perchel next to him. They pass by Wielkowiejska Street, the center of Jewish life prior to the war, they indicate a former butcher stall and a slaughterhouse at the Square of Major „Ponury”. In her article Ms Grochowska will later write, “This story has a human dimension; the face of Binsztok, Hecht and Marmurek; the smell of a fabric store and a bakery.” As their final project, the students created a brochure about the Jewish heritage of Wąchock that they placed online. It is thank to the brochure that they were featured in the article in Gazeta Wyborcza two years later.
School:
Mayor Jan Piwnik “Ponury” Junior High School
Students:
2nd year students
Teacher:
Katarzyna Szlęzak
Educators:
Michał Majewski, Monika Oszmaniec
Program was co-financed from the funds granted by The Rothschild Foundation Europe.
In appreciation to Friends of the Forum for supporting the School of Dialogue educational program.
