| 2019 |
Pniewy
Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus High School
Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus High School
| 2019 |
Pniewy is a beautiful town with a picturesque historical quarter located near a lake. Its Długa street just off the main square, where most of the local Jewish residents had lived before World War II, has survived intact, although its current name is Mickiewicza. The town’s Jewish community was not very large and very little testifies to their presence. The synagogue building, first badly damaged by the Germans during the war, has been redeveloped after the war to serve as a movie theater and later a used-clothing shop.
Pniewy is famous for a school which to this day is run by Ursuline nuns. Some of its female students participated in School of Dialogue workshops and explored the town’s Jewish history as well as Judaism and Jewish culture. They organized their tour for other students from their school, many of whom come from other towns and live in the school dormitory.
They also advertised their tour with posters, attracting residents curious to explore local history, as well as Ursuline sisters, local teachers and lifelong learning (University of the Third Age) students. The tour began in front of one of the town’s schools, which had served as a prison for Jewish residents during World War II; it then continued to Mickiewicza street to show participants the formerly Jewish homes and shops, as well as the synagogue and… a parking lot. The latter had just 4 years earlier still been the site of a building that had once housed a Jewish school, established in Pniewy in 1836. As the badly damaged Jewish cemetery is located far outside the town, project participants showed archival photographs of the site and talked about it in the municipal library. At the end of the tour, participants were treated to refreshments prepared by the students.
School: Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus High School
Students: 1st year
Teacher: Helena Staśkiewicz
Educators: Małgorzata Kruszewska, Zofia Waślicka-Żmijewska
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.
