15 YEARS
OF THE “VIRTUAL SHTETL”
PORTAL
POLIN Museum
However, the intellectual climate, in which programme assumptions for the portal could take shape, began to develop much earlier. Since the 1980s, researchers and social activists travelled throughout Poland, gathering information about the still-existing physical remnants of Jews in Poland. These efforts significantly accelerated in the new reality shaped after 1989.
In 1996, Dr. Eleonora Bergman and Jan Jagielski, from the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH), published a catalogue entitled Zachowane synagogi i domy modlitwy w Polsce (Preserved Synagogues and Houses of Prayer in Poland). It was based on the archival resources managed by the ŻIH's Department of Jewish Heritage Documentation, which collected information about Jewish cultural heritage in Poland.
Several years later, this collection was used by the editors, who created the first version of the “Virtual Shtetl”. Initially, it was a "multimedia project" with an educational dimension, expressed through, among other methods, by conducting lessons in schools and by organising competitions.
At the same time, significant documentary work was carried out by the Foundation for the Protection of Jewish Heritage (FODŻ), established in March 2002 in order to protect the material remnants of Jewish cultural heritage in Poland.
Both FODŻ's materials and the concept of their presentation had a substantial impact on the development of the “Virtual Shtetl”. It cannot be denied that the portal's editorial team was also inspired by Wikipedia, which had been rapidly developing since the beginning of the 21st century.
Several periods can be distinguished in the history of the “Virtual Shtetl”.
Following that "multimedia project," there was a shift toward the concept of a social portal, where most of the content was to be provided by registered users, creating a community of enthusiasts centred around the portal. After several years of operating in this formula, it became apparent that participation was also
a challenge, which may not always find
a similar application.
Following this, the portal began a process of transformation, moving from a strong participatory component to a project based upon professionals, data analysis and the use of specialised software. This process occurred alongside the ongoing digitalization of archival collections and historiographical literature, resulting in
a significant increase in the availability of high-quality materials suitable for historical analysis.
In other words, by the end of the second decade of the 21st century, researchers had access to more reliable sources of knowledge than merely human memory and increasingly mediated recollections of the past. Instead of relying on intuition, one could now turn to "hard" data – historical address books, old topographic maps, rare publications, increasingly available through libraries and digital repositories.
Today, the portal has changed its character to an encyclopaedic one, concentrating recognised historians as authors, and providing statistical knowledge, including genealogical records and entries from commercial registers. We are also bringing into the public domain previously unpublished materials, including thousands of pre-war photographs collected as part of the Polish Roots in Israel project.
Each of these elements contributes to an increasingly rich and complex picture of the history of Jews in Poland. The challenge of the present day has become the adaptation of the portal to the dominant group of users who access it via smartphones and other mobile devices, as well as ensuring compliance with digital accessibility standards in accordance with WCAG 2.1.
The Virtual Shtetl portal was launched on 22nd May 2009. Until 2012, its publisher was the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, which later donated it - along with an entire permanent exhibition - to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
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