|
|
July 28, 2000/25 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 52, No.46
Poles saved remnants of Jewish culture
RUTH E. GRUBER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
KRAKOW - Katarzyna Bielawska organized local schoolchildren to clear up and fence the abandoned and overgrown Jewish cemetery in the small Polish town of Narewka.
Ewa Lesniewska created a unique exhibition of Judaica and Jewish history in the renovated former synagogue in the town of Leczna.
Krzysztof Guminski and his family found the lost manuscript of a diary written in the Lodz Ghetto during World War II, traced the author's daughter, preserved the manuscript and arranged for its publication.
Bielawska, Lesniewska and the Guminski family are Roman Catholic Poles who have dedicated parts of their lives to preserving and honoring Jewish heritage.
They, and four other people like them, were honored this summer by the Israeli Embassy and the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation at a ceremony held at the conclusion of Krakow's annual Festival of Jewish Culture.
It was the third year in a row that such awards were presented.
"It was great," Michael Traison, an American Jewish lawyer who spearheaded the effort to honor Poles involved in preserving Jewish heritage, said after the ceremony.
"Next year we will present certificates of recognition to eight more people," he said. "I am sure it makes a difference."
Traison, who lives in Detroit, has spent much time during the past decade in Poland on business. He developed the idea of the awards to honor people he met during his trips around the country.
On such trips, he made it a point to visit the synagogues, abandoned cemeteries and old shtetls that remained as haunting stone witnesses to the rich Jewish heritage that was wiped out in the Holocaust.
During the past three years, awards have been presented to more than three dozen people throughout Poland.
|
