Chełm

And – for a short time – even an amateur theater. Furthermore, a number of associations, social organizations, sports and chess clubs and even a Jewish Scouts Federation all existed in the town.

Jews participated in elections and were among the members of the Town Council. Five Jewish newspapers were published in Chełm. Between 1937 and 1938, 230 local Jews left for the United States, claiming there is little work and quite a lot of antisemitism. In December 1939, Germans deported over 2,000 Jews to Sokal in present-day Ukraine. The deportees had to walk from dr Łuczkowskiego Square, with majority of them dying along the way. At least some of those who died where buried in a mass grave in Mojsławice. In 1941, Germans created a ghetto, with ca.11 thousand people locked between Lwowska, Uściługska, Wojsławicka, Partyzantów and Pocztowa streets. Ghetto residents would be murdered in the town and in the nearby forest of Borek, where a temporary crematorium was built. On May 21 and 23, 1942, around 4 thousand Jews were deported to Sobibór death camp. A few hundred more were murdered by Germans even before the deportations. All others were taken away sometime between July and November 1942. In July alone, 300 people and then on November 6, a further 3,300 were sent to Brzeska Ramp and transported from there to Sobibór. Germans left around one thousand Jewish craftsmen in the town, placing them in a labor camp.

These people, too, were taken away – in March and April of 1943. One of the last murdered Jews was rabbi Gemaliel Hochman and his family, who perished on March 31, 1943. Those who survived left Chełm after the war.

School of Dialogue workshops held in Jadwiga Młodowska High School no. 4 were attended predominantly by female students from different grades.
The girls uncovered the history of their town by walking, observing, talking and reading. They learned where and which of the Chełm walls was used for executing Jews during World War II. People say that until recently gardening work would render pieces of bones.

Students contacted one of the persons that remembers the war and saw what happened to the Jews: how they were deported and murdered. They met with Ms. Regina Zaborowska, who hid two Jews during World War II; first she kept them in her farmstead, then she would deliver them food to the woods where they were hiding.

In the course of the workshops girls shared stories they knew or heard at home. One of them told the group about a shop run by a Jewish shopkeeper, right next to her grandfather’s house. Later, On June 6, 2011, after a few days of workshops, over a dozen hours of discussions and reflections, students organized a walking tour of Jewish Chełm for other students from their school.
Representatives of different grades received a crossword puzzle to solve along with a map that led them to places that would provide answers to the particular questions. In the designated sites, students awaited groups to tell them about the history of each stop. After the event, participants received prizes and were treated to doughnuts and a concert of Jewish music.

Sites where the girls stood included the cheder at 14 Gabriela Narutowicza Street, whose doorframe still has an indentation left by a mezuzah; a commemorative plaque for Szmul Zygielbojm, Bundist and activist who tried to bring the world’s attention to the fate of European Jews during World War II.

After the death of his wife and son, knowing that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was nearing its end, Zygielbojm committed suicide on the eve of May 12, 1943. In his parting note he wrote that his death is a protest against the passiveness of the world looking at the genocide of the Jews.

Students anxiously awaited their visitors next to the Small Synagogue at the corner of Krzywa and Kopernika streets. The building, erected between 1912 and 1914, is now home to a local restaurant.

The cemetery at the corner of Kolejowa and Starościńska streets, another stop on the tour, has a matzevah dating back to 1442. After the war, the cemetery fell into disrepair. The tombstones were stolen, the ground became overgrown with weeds. In the 1990s, the situation was somehow regulated; with the help of Nissenbaum Family Foundation, Commercial Bank in Chełm, Abram Beker, Chaim, Lendera and Wiesław Betiuka as well as Szlomo and Yaakov Oren, Zeev Brones, Aron Sobol and many others involved in the Israeli Association for Reconstructing the Jewish Cemetery in Chełm, the cemetery area was cleaned, fenced in, the matzevot returned and renovated. Those that were too fragmented to stand on their own were affixed to vertical plates. A monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust in English, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish was erected on the cemetery grounds.

The girls also waited for tour participants at Jatkowa Street, the area of slaughterhouses and meatpacking; in the former ghetto area at Uściługska Street; at 30 Lubelska Street, which was the address of Victoria Hotel before the war; and by an old vending stall that once belonged to Majer Dobkowski. And right next to it, at the Rotunda, where depots, stores and shops once existed.

School of Dialogue program in Chełm was made possible by the support from STACY and RON SCHEINBERG.

In appreciation to Friends of the Forum for supporting the School of Dialogue educational program.