What happens when Kasia and the interns go to Cieszyn? Mischief, mayhem, graveyards, a cabinet that belonged to Napoleon, and eating lunch in the former stables of a palace!
Cieszyn is a city with a unique history. As we learned on our tour of the Muzeum Śląska Cieszyńskiego, we learned about how the town, once united, was partitioned in 1920 along the border of the river, splitting it in two with Cieszyn lying in Poland and Český Těšín lying in Czechoslovakia. The towns now each have their own town squares, and even though you can walk five minutes through the city to the other town, they are legally and administratively separate entities. There was a long sordid dispute after World War I over who would have power over the town culminating in a referendum in 1920. However, the referendum did not even result in a conclusion, and a short skirmishes would break out between Czech and Polish forces before the town was officially bisected and new borders were established as part of a peace agreement. The town changed borders several times, but settled into the 1920 borders after World War II which is the state in which it remains today.
After arriving in Cieszyn, the interns walked as a group to the Czech side of Cieszyn (“Český Těšín”). Some interns had researched former Jewish cultural buildings in Český Těšín, so they presented their research as the group walked to each site. We saw the Jewish Community’s Synagogue, the Machsike Hatora Synagogue, the House of Prayer, and the Schomre-Schabos Community Synagogue. All the buildings are defunct as Jewish worship spaces, but are still used as restaurants or other community spaces.
Our gracious tour guides, museum director Irena French & Agnieszka Górecka, both gave us a wonderful tour through the museum. The museum, founded in 1802 by Fr. Leopold Jan Szersznik, is the oldest public museum in Poland, perhaps in all of Central Europe. It is located on the former estate of the Larisch-Mönich family built during the 18th and 19th centuries. They have an extensive collection related to all topics of Cieszyn’s history, including the aforementioned Napoleonic cabinet (which one of the interns got to open the drawers of!), gothic & renaissance art, and a section on the history of Jews in Cieszyn. There was a large Jewish minority pre-WWII in Cieszyn, most of them German speaking. The Cieszyn Jewish population was almost entirely wiped out or displaced in the aftermath of WWII. The museum hosts a number of Jewish heritage pieces or information about the Cieszyn Jewish population. After our museum tour, we all took a short break to lunch in the estate’s former stables which now function as the museum’s cafe.
Following the lunch break, we again greeted Director French for a tour of the two Jewish cemeteries. The first cemetery is the Old Jewish Cemetery in Polish Cieszyn. Many of the tombstones date from the 17th to 18th c. The Jewish community still owns the cemetery, however there has not been consistent upkeep for the cemetery, so the entire cemetery including the tombstones are covered in layers of ivy. But many are still readable, including the stone of the rabbi who is buried there. There was a beautiful view of Cieszyn from this cemetery.
The interns, still led by Director French, walked across the street to the New Jewish Cemetery. Interestingly, the German Occupation planned to turn the cemetery into a park. This never happened, but the following communist regime did not choose the same path, which meant the desecration of many graves and the decline of the cemetery as a whole. This cemetery is in the process of being revitalized by a group of volunteers. Many headstones, previously buried under layers of dirt, have been detected, unearthed, and restored with the help of a stonemason. While the project is still ongoing, the results of their efforts are clear as there were many graves for which Director French was able to tell us about, including the research done to identify the person for whom the headstones were made using Cieszyn and Jewish records. The effort to preserve Cieszyn’s Jewish history by volunteers and Director French was wonderful to witness as many cities and towns haven’t done this work; the history would have otherwise been lost.
And then we were done! After a crazy day full of museums and gravestones and two countries in one town, the interns set off back home to Galicia Jewish Museum.
By Leo Hertzler
Galicia Jewish Museum Interns Blog 