Wooden Synagogue of Przedbórz

La comunidad judía

Jews are recorded in Przedbórz from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Polish kings granted them tax exemptions in 1550 and 1570, and the congregation was established by 1570. The community grew until, by 1865, about three quarters of the town's inhabitants were Jewish. In 1921 Przedbórz had 3,749 Jews, 63 per cent of the population, and on the eve of the Second World War about 4,500. Its religious life centred on the wooden synagogue by the river. Rabbi Yeshayaleh was remembered as its first Hasidic rabbi. Later rabbis included Rabbi Emanuel and Rabbi Ephraim, who served until he emigrated to the Land of Israel in 1934.

Arquitectura y diseño

The synagogue was a timber building on a stone foundation, built of long boards of resinous pine up to 14 metres long and 30 centimetres wide, which local tradition said were proof against woodworm. Its main hall, about 14.2 metres long, was covered by a wooden barrel vault rising to about 8.8 metres. The vault was hung from the roof trusses by iron chains, a feature Szyszko-Bohusz singled out. It was panelled in an intricate lattice of lunettes and stars and carried by about 114 carved and painted brackets bearing Hebrew inscriptions, one with the date 1760. The walls and vault were painted with garlands of leaves and flowers framing prayer texts, a menorah, an illustration of Psalm 137 and views of towns. In the centre stood an octagonal Baroque bimah in three tiers, topped by an eagle finial. The Torah ark was carved with rampant lions, flowers and animals. Outside, a porch on columns and a steep roof faced the Pilica.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

For almost two centuries the synagogue was the heart of Jewish Przedbórz. It held centuries-old Torah scrolls, silver Torah crowns and shields, and a carved charity box by the entrance. One of its Torah ark curtains was said to have been sewn from a Napoleonic-era flag bearing an embroidered Polish eagle. The town was an important Hasidic centre, and its rabbis, from Rabbi Yeshayaleh onwards, led prayer in the old building on Sabbaths and festivals. The synagogue also attracted scholars. Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz measured and photographed it in 1907–1909, and his work, published by the Commission on the History of Art in Kraków, records the vault, bimah, ark, doors and ritual silver. Stefan Zaborowski also photographed it in 1909. Until 1939 it remained the community's main house of prayer.

Destrucción

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Przedbórz lay on the line of the German advance across the Pilica. On 3 September 1939, during the German attack on the town, the wooden synagogue was hit by an incendiary shell fired by a German armoured vehicle (a tankette) from the direction of Widoma. The larch and pine building, almost two hundred years old, burned completely. Thirty-three people, Poles and Jews, died in the fighting and bombardment. Nothing of the synagogue survived. Its destruction on the third day of the war, at the hands of the invading Nazi German army, made Przedbórz one of the first wooden synagogues lost in the Second World War.

El destino de la comunidad

From December 1939 the Jews of Przedbórz had to wear Star of David armbands. On 27 February 1940 the German district chief (Kreishauptmann) in Końskie, Gustav Albrecht, ordered a ghetto to be set up, and the Jews had to move into it by 15 March 1940. About 1,800 people were in the ghetto in May 1940. With refugees from Włoszczowa and elsewhere the number rose to about 3,200 in 1941. Between 9 and 13 October 1942, during Operation Reinhard, the Jews of Przedbórz were driven to Radomsko and deported from there to the Treblinka death camp, where they were murdered. After the war a few survivors returned. On 27–28 May 1945 eight of them were murdered in the town by local antisemites. The Jewish community was never re-established.

El lugar hoy

Nothing of the synagogue survives. It stood on Bóżnicza Street near the Pilica river, west of the market square. That street no longer exists, and the site is now part of a park along Krakowska Street. The building is preserved in the photographs and measured drawings of Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz (1907–1909), published by the Commission on the History of Art in Kraków, and in the 1909 photographs of Stefan Zaborowski in the Print Room of the PAU and PAN Library in Kraków. The Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences also holds photographs of its interior.

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