Restoration Of A Heritage

I doubt if it would surprise you to know that I have visited Zamosc in Poland. It was in March 2004 with my son with his high school although he had by then finished his army service.

We were in the very impressive square with a bit of Italian architecture

and then we went to the synagogue which was then a public library.  More pictures:

Now, it's to change.  From the AP story

Restored Renaissance synagogue to reopen in Poland

ZAMOSC, Poland (AP) — Seventy-two years after the Nazis arrived, the Polish town of Zamosc is getting its synagogue back.  One of the most important surviving synagogues in Poland, a Renaissance gem looted by the Nazis and suffering from decades of neglect, is reopening this week after a meticulous restoration, part of an effort to reclaim the country's decimated Jewish heritage.

..."The people, they are gone," said Michael Schudrich, Poland's chief rabbi. "But at least in their memory we can do the best to preserve that which remains."

...The near-absence of Jews today "brings to light what war and genocide and the Holocaust really mean," said Monika Krawczyk, CEO of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, the Warsaw-based group that oversaw the preservation work. "Although the Jews in Poland today are small in number, the heritage is absolutely huge."

The renovation took about a year and cost euro1.7 million ($2.4 million), funded mostly by grants from Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

The restored synagogue will be presented to the public Tuesday in a ceremony attended by Jewish leaders, U.S. and Israeli diplomats and city officials...
...The synagogue was built in the early 1600s by Sephardic Jews — Jews whose families had fled Spain during the Inquisition and sought refuge elsewhere in Europe. Later, Eastern European, or Ashkenazi, Jews fleeing Cossack violence in Ukraine sought refuge there [during] World War II, Nazis looted the synagogue and used it as a carpentry workshop. After the war, it served as a library, but in 2005 it was given back to the Jewish community as part of a broader return of synagogues, yeshivas, cemeteries and other communal property...

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