The Polish town of Oświęcim, once the home of a thriving Jewish community, honored their memory on Thursday in a special inauguration ceremony during which the site which once hosted the Great Synagogue was officially declared as the Great Synagogue Memorial Park.
The house of prayer was destroyed during the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War by the invading German army.
While the Auschwitz death camp, a stone throw away from the town, is one of the best known historical sites associated with the Holocaust and receives many Israeli visitors, including official IDF and state delegations, few are aware of pre-war Jewish life in Oświęcim.
More than one half the town’s population were Jewish. This fact led to a unique political arrangement which was that before the war, the position of vice-mayor was held by a Jewish-Polish person and that of the mayor by a Catholic Pole.
LINKING THE MEMORY OF THE WORLD
ŚWIATA
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