| 2018 |
Lubawa
School Complex in Lubawa
School Complex in Lubawa
| 2018 |
In fall 2018, School of Dialogue workshops were organized in Władysław Broniewski School Complex in Lubawa. Participants included students from different years in both the high school as well as economics vocational school. Together, they worked on designing a walking tour for other students of their schools. This was no easy task, as there are no Jewish sites left to see in Lubawa. So instead, students would show locations of places that had once existed; like that of the synagogue not far off from pl. Zamkowy or the residential complex built on the site of the “new” Jewish cemetery.
Students also pointed the way to the “old” 18th century Jewish cemetery on Fijewska Mound outside the city limits, where a few badly damaged tombstones still stand. As it turned out, none of the tour participants was aware of the site’s existence.
In the course of their search conducted in the local archive, library and town hall, students collected a wealth of documents and prewar photographs. They also spoke with local residents, including one passionate historian. Through these encounters, students were able to recover fragments of local Jewish history.
Up until 1918 Jews comprised a significant group of Lubawa’s residents, yet when the town became part of newly reinstated independent Poland, almost all Jews decided to leave for Germany. Students mentioned a few Jewish families in the course of the tour, showing the houses that survive in the town’s square (Rynek) and along Kupnera street. One of the buildings is now occupied by a restaurant, which served as reason enough to talk about Jewish cuisine and invite everyone to try hallah bread.
The tour ended in front of the nursing home at ul.Grunwaldzka, which during World War II was repurposed as part of a Nazi forced labor camp for youth.
At this stop, students recounted the fate of Jewish women from nearby concentration camps that built ditches in 1944 to slow down the oncoming Red Army.
Participation in the workshops and walking tour preparations, especially reading through letters and diaries of former female inmates, inspired students to make active efforts to ensure that sites connected to Lubawa’s former Jewish residents will be remembered. In the petition they submitted to the town hall, they asked that information plaques about Lubawa’s Jewish history be erected in Lubawa.
School: School Complex in Lubawa
Students: students representing different classes and year levels
Teachers: Katarzyna Bartkowska, Magdalena Jakubowska, Aleksandra Zimnicka
Educators: Stanisław Niemojewski, Olga Szymańska
Project cofinanced thanks to the generosity of Friends of the Forum, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and individual donors and institutions from Poland and abroad supporting Forum for Dialogue.
In appreciation to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) for supporting the School of Dialogue educational program. Through recovering the assets of the victims of the Holocaust, the Claims Conference enables organizations around the world to provide education about the Shoah and to preserve the memory of those who perished.
