+ Greetings from Warsaw

March 23, 2014

Jhane Dobre, Greetings from Warsaw,

We came to Poland to uncover the history of the town from where our Ark emerged. You may remember that last May, we had the honor of rescuing an Ark and Torah scroll from the Meseritz Shul on East 6th St. and 1st Ave. just before the building was condemned. Meseritz was a town in Eastern Poland about 200 miles southeast of Warsaw and not far from the Ukraine border. It was once a thriving Jewish place, home of the famous Rabbi Dov Bear of Meseritz, but now the only Jewish site to remain is a small cemetery outside of town.

We’ll be posting photos and comments on our Facebook Page. We encourage you and your children to follow us and to share this unique story.

Over the next six days, we’ll be in Warsaw, Lublin, and Meseritz. We’ve arranged meetings with museum directors, town mayors, Jewish leaders, academics, city hall officials, and librarians. Few public historical records exist from Meseritz as much was destroyed during WWII. There are some fragments that remain, mostly on file at the YIVO institute here in New York that were brought in the early 1900s from the immigrant families that came from Meseritz and who founded the Mesertiz Shul and the Meseritzer Society. If you have other sources of information, please share them with me.

I’m here with Jamie Propp and Bruce and Ellen Salkin. Last April, the Salkins read about our rescue effort in the local papers and it sparked an intergenerational memory for Ellen: “my family was from Mezeritch,” she said. After calls and meetings with relatives, it turns out, her father had his bar mitzvah at the old Shul on E 6th St. and her grandparents and aunts/uncles were deeply involved in the Mezeritcher Society here in New York, now long past. This will be Ellen’s first homecoming to the town where her grandfather was born.

We’ll stay in touch via our Facebook page and one more email post later this week. Our itinerary is posted here if you’d like to follow the trip.

Pozegnanie, see you soon,

Darren

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ITINERARY, MAR 23-29

SOFITEL – SUNDAY, MONDAY NIGHTS, WARSAW
MONDAY 10:00 BREAKFAST WITH WITOLD, AT THE CAFE POZYTYWKA (CAFE MUSIC BOX) RIGHT BEHIND THE JHI
          MONDAY 11:00 MEETING AT THE JEWISH HISTORICAL INSTITUTE WITH ANNA PRZYBYSZEWSKA DROZD
MONDAY 1:00 MEETING AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM OF POLAND WITH KRZYSTOF BIALEWSKI
MONDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING — TOUR WARSAW
TUESDAY MORNING — TOUR WARSAW
TUESDAY 1:00 MEET WITOLD FOR JOURNEY EAST
TUESDAY ~3:00 TREBLINKA (TOUR ARRANGED)
HOTEL HESPERUS – TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, MIEDZYRZEC
          WEDNESDAY – 12:00 MEET WITH DEPUTY MAYOR TADEUSZ LUGOWSKI
TUESDAY – THURSDAY MORNING – MIEDZYRZEC TOUR, FLOWER SHOP, TOWN HALL, BOOK/STATIONERY STORE, CEMETERY, FIND MODEL OF GREAT SYNAGOGUE, HOPEFULLY RECORDS SEARCH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeCa5t_pvC8&authuser=0 (THIS IS A VIDEO OF THE CEMETERY IN MIEDZYRZEC)
DARREN, YOU MENTIONED A “TWINNING” OPPORTUNITY—LOOK AT LINK BELOW, MAYBE A GREAT “B’NAI MITZVAH PROJECT???”
THURSDAY MORNING EARLY START TO LUBLIN
CHEVRA NOSIM SYNAGOGUE TOUR ARRANGED (HOPEFULLY HERE WE MEET UP WITH AN ELDERLY YIDDISH SPEAKER)
BRAMA GRODZKA MUSEUM TOUR ARRANGED
   THURSDAY DINNER – LUBLIN – 9:00 PM (IZA, ISABELA KAMIL)
HOTEL WAKSMAN – THURSDAY NIGHT, LUBLIN
 
FRIDAY MORNING – MAJDANEK TOUR ARRANGED
FRIDAY AFTERNOON – RETURN TO WARSAW
FRIDAY EVENING – SHABBAT AND DINNER W/ BEIT WARSAWA
SATURDAY – DEPARTURE
HOTEL COPERNICUS – SATURDAY – MONDAY NIGHTS, KRAKOW 
SATURDAY – MONDAY – (ELLEN, FOR YOU AND ME)…CHECK OUT THE KRAKOW LINKS FOR RESTAURANTS, CLUBS, BARS…LOTS IN THE “OLD TOWN”.