Religijność Żydów krakowskich w czasie okupacji niemieckiej

Abstrakt

THE RELIGIOUSNESS OF KRAKOW JEWS DURING THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

According to witnesses who survived World War II, the religious life of Kraków Jews before and during the ghetto period “remained unchanged.” Despite persecution and harassment at the hands of Nazi invaders, efforts were made to observe the Law, the Commandments, and the Sabbath and other feasts. It was already in early September 1939 when the German directive came out that ordered closing down the synagogues and handing over all liturgical instruments. As a consequence, collective prayers were arranged for in secret at private homes whenever there would have congregated a minyan. Some copies of the Torah and sacred objects were hidden away in dwellings. Clandestine classes in religious instruction were held as well. Special credit goes here to Dawid Kurzman, a housefather at the Centre for Jewish Orphans, for his unparalleled attention to educating the children in his care in the spirit of the Law and the Jewish tradition. Every approaching holiday was reminded of by the Gazeta Żydowska [Jewish Newspaper], issued with approval from occupation authorities. The paper regularly published the Weekly Jewish Calendar with information about the exact times of the beginning and the end of the Sabbath and a weekly feature on biblical topics. The situation changed with the establishment of the ghetto in March 1941, where the German policy was rather lenient for some time. Synagogues were allowed, and the Saturday was recognized as a holiday. Kosher matzoth for the Passover were brought over to the ghetto from the nearby town of Proszowice, while kosher meat was smuggled in from the village of Piaski Wielkie near Kraków. Three synagogues are known to have existed in the ghetto: the Bikur Cholim, Zucker’s, and Skawina Rabbi Symche Frankel’s. Apart from them, smaller houses of prayer and shtiebels were also set up, where people would gather on Saturdays and holidays. Particularly ceremonious and well attended were the events on the occasion of the Yom Kippur and the Rosh Hashanah in 1941, when Jewish people, allowed so by German authorities, gathered for prayers at a number of sites across the ghetto, such as the hall at the Trade Boarding School for Orphans or the floor at the Optima Factory. After the synagogues had been closed down in December 1941, collective praying was practised only in secret at private dwellings and hideouts. Ritual wedding ceremonies were also organized in secret. In the ghetto there were a few groups of extremely pious orthodox youth who would devote themselves to studying the Torah. Among them were the Matisowiczes and the Chasidim centred around the Gerer Chasidim school. The hideout of the latter society was exposed in the ghetto already after the ghetto itself had been liquidated. According to witnesses’ accounts, the members went to their death wearing Chasidic attires, all euphoric and ecstatic, convinced that their sacrifice would not be futile. After the ghetto had been liquidated in March 1943 and the handful of survivors from the Jewish community had been concentrated at the camp in Płaszów, all forms of religious life were strictly prohibited. People caught out practising religion risked death by a firing squad. Notwithstanding the circumstances, certain of the pious Jews would not refrain from praying and observe the Sabbath; some were even able to specify the dates on which there fell particular Jewish feasts and whispered the respective prayers in the holiday evenings. Rabbi Szem Klingberg from Działoszyce who said his prayers out loud and entrusted himself to God’s care right before he perished became for many an example to follow. According to various accounts, a number of pious Jews acted alike on their way to the execution site. In the evenings barracked inmates would jointly say Kaddish for their murdered fellows. The themes pertaining to religiousness prove misjudged the stereotype about the passivity and submission of the Jewish nation. It turns out that many Jews were ready to risk their own lives for the sake of obeying the Law and tradition. In the end, though, it was not observance of the Commandments that mattered most but the faith and prayer with which many managed to live through the Holocaust.