Memorial in Skoki

INSCRIPTIONS 

In this place there is a Jewish cemetery destroyed by the German Nazis during World War II. 

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion”.
Isa 35:10 

“We Christians recognize that the Jewish religious heritage is intrinsic to our faith: you are our elder brothers”.
John Paul II 

The monument was funded by the City and Municipality of Skoki to serve the memory of the Skoki Jews. 

2017 

For the followers of Judaism, a cemetery is a sacred and inviolable place, where the dead await the coming of the Messiah. This and other cemeteries create a universe of memory. They make us reflect on the fleeting nature and the beauty of life. They remind us about the continuity of generations, the fulfillment of people's destiny and our shared history. There is a relation between the culture of memory and the culture of life. We remember so that we may prevent the repetition of evil and preserve what is good. Memory should be the manifestation of conscience, of the love of life and wisdom. Caring for every grave is the foundation of the bond between the living and the dead. It strengthens the timeless community and dignity of mankind.

LETTER 

I am deeply moved, morally strengthened and at the same time full of appreciation for the inhabitants of Skoki, the city authorities, the artist, and all the creators of the monument – for their symbolically meaningful act of remembrance, magnificent in its ethical awareness and message.

Please accept my words of admiration and gratitude, and a heartfelt embrace of your hand for the memorial, so tactful in its focused and silent form, so human in its sensitively balanced scale, and at the same time so powerful in the moral intent of its creation.

I am convinced that my mother, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and witness, if she were alive today and could see the memorial, would have tears of deep emotion and gratitude in her eyes. She would think of her parents, murdered somewhere outside the death camps, and of her whole family, wiped out by the Holocaust from the surface of the earth. She would think, touched, of all those noble inhabitants of towns and villages who, risking their lives, hid and saved her and me. She would no doubt think about the noble citizens of Skoki, who have today contributed, with this monument and this commemorative act, to the preservation of the right of the Jews to be part of Poland's tragic collective memory. She would also think that this monument is not only a painful reminder, but also a necessary warning of and opposition to the danger we witness today of repeating past tragedies, injustices and violence.

Once again, please accept the words of appreciation for this beautiful memorial in its human scale and its modesty. It is strong in its symbolism, its message and its necessity. It will now be a great ethical marker and signpost on the way to a better tomorrow for Polish Jews, for all those who represent or come from social and religious minorities, for all the people in Skoki, for all of us in Poland and for the whole world.

Professor Krzysztof Wodiczko
Director of the Art, Design and the Public Domain Program, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

WE ARE UNITED BY REMEMBRANCE

The memorial is beautiful and seems to have already taken root in this place. Established thanks to the inhabitants of the Skoki Municipality, it was designed by Janusz Marciniak, whose work I have been following with admiration for many years.

The monument speaks to all of us with its presence in the Jewish cemetery, with its symbolism of the star and stones, and with the moving words engraved on it. Let us listen to what it tells us about the chain of generations, about the human community and about human dignity. Let us listen as it reminds us that caring for graves establishes a bond between the living and the dead. It invites us to reflect on the culture of remembrance. Without memory, there can be no civilisation, no society and no future, wrote Elie Wiesel. Let us remember!

Lena Stanley-Clamp
Director of the European Association for Jewish Culture

MEMORY – THE KEY TO THE FUTURE

We associate memory with looking back into the past, with looking for reasons, sometimes with carrying a heavy burden. What a confusing feeling this is! Yes, memory flows somewhere out there, but then it is no longer there. It is here, now.

Memory is like a river. We enter it and we know very well that the water flows down from somewhere, from the mountains, from the hills, from beyond the forests. But the water we enter is here. And only here. Before it flows any further down the stream.

Memory is not necessary for the people who are no longer. They have completed the prematurely-ended story of their lives. It is we who need this memory. Today.

Memory is the key that does not open the door to the past, which never comes back again. The lock that fits this key is the shape of our future.

Or, like a tiny child does every month and every year, in every generation, we will learn by our sometimes painful errors to crawl, walk, run – more or less immaturely choosing the paths of our lives. Or like a person taught by the past, we shall, with the help of memory, evaluate the needs and challenges of today, and choose the shape of the future wisely.

Memory is the key to the future.

What, then, is this memorial? There are very different monuments and memorials. Some of them are to praise or to illustrate something in grandiose style. Others serve as a counter-argument to the claim that events fall into oblivion. After all, if a monument stands, even in complete isolation, its very existence has the power to quieten the conscience. Others are like a constant memento, hanging over people's heads, like a menacing prophecy. Most monuments are recollections of the past.

I would like to wish all of us that this star, made of stones and set in the place of the Jewish cemetery in Skoki, could be a memorial not of the past, but a signpost to remembering for the future.

This star does not refer only to what is not there; it helps us to understand our present and is binding for the future. I wish for it to connect that world of the past with the one we are to build. I wish for it to be a bridge emerging out of the cemetery ground that is entangled at its other end in everything that lives. Its presence established in the hearts, in the minds, in local patriotism, in the perception of humanity and neighbourliness, in communion and coexistence, and in all the necessary reciprocity and responsibility for each other so necessary for all of us. May this star live in schools, in local government work, in the community of believers, in the life of associations, on a weekday and on a holiday, in thinking about ourselves and our children and grandchildren.

The star in the sky shows the way to many people. Let this star on earth also be a signpost for us.

Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński
Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

MEMORY IS A LESSON

The monument commemorating the Jewish cemetery in Skoki will serve the memory of the people buried in this place and will encourage reflection on our past, present and future. The 650-year history of Skoki, which was a place of coexistence of different cultures and religions, obliges us to be mindful of our memory and to respect one another. However, one cannot idealize the past and censor historical truth, because truth, as we know, sets us free and purifies. Remembrance is a lesson that needs to be constantly learned. “Remembering the past means being committed to the future” (John Paul II). Remembrance must not be limited to symbolic compensation for past oblivion and should be linked to education and bearing witness to good will and empathy. The commemoration of this necropolis is also an expression of respect for the descendants of the Jews who lived in Skoki and for the brotherhood evoked by Antoni Słonimski in his poem Elegy for Small Jewish Towns (1947):

These towns are no more, their shadows have passed,
And will lie down now between our words,
Before they are reunited like brothers again –
Two nations fed with centuries of suffering.

I would like to thank the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Mr. Michael Schudrich, for granting his consent to build a memorial of the Jewish cemetery in Skoki. I would also like to thank the Vice President of the Council of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland and the President of the Poznań branch of the Union, Ms. Alicja Bromberger-Kobus, for her help in the implementation of the idea of commemorating this cemetery.

I want to express my gratitude to the Councillors of the Municipality of Skoki for their approval and their kindness, indispensable for bringing this idea to life.

My thanks go also to Professor Janusz Marciniak, the author of this eloquent memorial commemorating the former Jewish residents of our town, which has become a permanent feature of this almost completely forgotten Jewish cemetery.

I would like to thank the Director of “Kruszgeo” Wielkopolskie Kopalnie Sp. z o.o., Mr. Bogdan Strachanowski, and the Management Board of this company for offering the stones for the construction of the monument.

My thanks are due to Mr. and Mrs. Tadeusz and Ewa Piaskowski for their stonemasonry work. I would like to thank Mr. Paweł Śledziński for making the reinforced concrete elements of the monument and Mr. Leszek Podraza for his construction work at the memorial.

I would also like to thank the members of the Society of Friends of the Town and Vicinity of Skoki for their search and popularization of information about the history of our town.

Tadeusz Kłos
Mayor of the City and Municipality of Skoki

ABOUT THE SKOKI JEWS

Skoki is a small town in Wielkopolska Region, in Wągrowiec County. In 1367, under a privilege granted by King Casimir the Great to Janusz of Podlesie, it became a town. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thanks to the then town's owners, mainly descendants of the poet Mikołaj Rej of Nagłowice, Skoki was a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution in Europe during the era of the Reformation. The multicultural community was made up of inhabitants of different nationalities: Poles, Czechs, Germans, Scots, and Jews. Among them were representatives of various confessions: Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, Czech Brethren, and followers of Judaism.

Unfortunately, we do not know when the Jews settled in Skoki, because most of the documents have not survived to our times. The earliest known references to Jewish settlement come from the books of the town court from the turn of the 18th century, in which it was noted that Skoki had Jewish inhabitants and that they owned houses there. There were certainly good living conditions, because already at the end of the 18th century the Jews of Skoki made up over 45% of the total population. The wooden synagogue in the town burned down at the end of the 18th century, but was rebuilt after a fund-raising campaign. There was also a mikveh and a ritual slaughterhouse. The funeral and charity fraternity (Chevra Kadisha) operated in the local community.

We know the names of some of the Skoki rabbis. The first written record of 1747 concerns Rabbi Itzig. The rabbis that followed were: Hirsch (1769), Aron Hakohen (1773), Jechiel Michel (1778), Jehuda Loeb Halevi (1791-1819), Schene Nathan (1813), Fisch Ohlenburg (1845), Chaim Brohn (ca. 1860), Itzig Kochmann (1861-1870), and Benjamin Segall (1878). Skoki was the birthplace of e.g. the Jewish chronicler Moses Wasserzug (1760-1819) and theologian and Talmud expert Aron Salomon Natanson (1813-1880), who later became a cantor in the synagogue in Magdeburg. As of the 18th century, the following Jewish physicians worked here: David Rofe (ca. 1768), Salman (1772), Mordechaj (1798-1802), Itzig (1804-1805), and Jona Rofe (1822).

The Rashi Society (Raschi Verein), which was set up in Skoki in the mid-18th century, was dedicated to the study of the Torah and the preservation of religious tradition. Its activity was continued by the Society for Jewish History and Literature (Verein für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur), established in 1913. There was no Jewish school in Skoki. Initially, the Jewish children attended an Evangelical Reformed school, but did not participate in religious education classes. Later, the public school employed a Jewish teacher.

We do not know much about the lives of the Jewish inhabitants of Skoki. The extant documents indicate that in the 18th century the attitudes of the town owners were far from favourable. The Jews were made to pay many unlawful fees and levies. They suffered false accusations and unjust punishments. The Jews who lived in Skoki at the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century were conscripted, like Poles, into the German army. Approximately a dozen of them died during Germany's unification wars as well as on the fronts of the First World War.

The Jews started to leave Skoki at the close of the 19th century. Emigration intensified after Poland regained independence. It was then that the Jews who felt more related to German culture headed mainly to Berlin, where they set up an association of Jewish residents of Skoki. An increase in anti-Semitic sentiment was one of the reasons, too. Soon, there were only 66 Jews left, and in 1924 the town was inhabited by one Polonised family, the Loszyńskis. The Jews from Skoki shared the fate of all the Jews in the Nazi-occupied territories. In the first days of September 1939, the Nazis killed 9 residents of Skoki, among whom was the last Jewish resident of Skoki known by name, Maks Loszyński. However, the death toll was far more extensive. The Yad Vashem Institute keeps a record of 83 persons from Skoki who died in the Holocaust.

The Germans forced English POWs detained in an officers' camp in nearby Antoniewo to destroy the Jewish cemetery in Skoki, removing the most valuable matzevot (headstones). In the 1960s, the Polish authorities tried to set up a municipal park in the grounds of the desecrated Jewish cemetery. This, however, did not happen as the local residents would not forget that these were cemetery grounds. The gravestones remaining after the war were used for the construction of the streets and pavements in Skoki. Some were converted into grinding stones. A few of the extant headstones were transferred to a park surrounding the Skoki Palace and were ultimately moved from there to the lapidarium in the Miłostowo Cemetery in Poznań.

We do not know when the Jewish cemetery in Skoki was set up and how many people were buried there. The only documents available at this time are the death certificates from the years 1874 and 1940, which indicate that 138 people were buried there in this period. The first written record concerns a six-year-old girl Sara Wilczyńska. The oldest persons were: Dorchen Ruschi nee Berel (96 yrs.), Moses Lagro (92 yrs.), Bertha Hirsch nee Oppenheim (94 yrs.), Fanny Dunkel nee Rothmann (99 yrs.), Hannchen Kochmann nee Oppenheim (91 yrs.), Rosa Salomon nee Schachtel (92 yrs.), and Abraham Loszyński (94 yrs.). Five of them were born in Skoki between 1781 and 1812.

The monument designed by Prof. Janusz Marciniak and dedicated to those laid to rest here has been created in the grounds of the Jewish cemetery in Skoki on the initiative of the town's self-governing body. I believe that the memorial can be viewed not only as a commemoration of death but also of life, the life that took place in our town, its residents contributing to long years of shared history. The idea of mapping out the area of the cemetery within the boundaries of the town of Skoki and the establishment of this memorial is without doubt a touching and necessary restoration of dignity and memory of the Jewish residents of Skoki; it is also a kind of compensation for the years of silence. This place is highly educational, of prime significance for future generations.

Iwona Migasiewicz
President of the Society of the Friends of the Town and Vicinity of Skoki

Bibliography

• Heppner A., Herzberg I., Aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Juden und der juedischen Gemeinden in den Posener Laender, Koschmin – Bromberg 1909, p. 949.

• Skoki, [in:] Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, ed. S. Spector, G. Wigoder, New York 2001, p. 1193.

Source of historical information

• https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/s/1812-skoki/99-historia-spolecznosci/138025-historia-spolecznosci

• Register of deaths, Registrar Office in Skoki (1874-1940).

• Memories of the residents of Skoki.

Polish text

Betonowa gwiazda Dawida wypełniona kamieniami to symbol pamięci o ludziach pochowanych na tym cmentarzu. Pomnik ma prostą formę. Treść napisów wskazuje na jego funkcję religijną i edukacyjną. Chciałbym, aby miał dobry wpływ na myśli ludzi odwiedzających cmentarz oraz uzmysławiał im, że dla wyznawców judaizmu cmentarz jest miejscem świętym. Pomnik podkreśla memoratywny charakter tego miejsca i znaczenie pamięci dla zachowania więzi między żywymi i zmarłymi.

Pamięć w połączeniu z etyką nadaje sens przeszłości i przyszłości. Czasami sprawia, że to, co nie zostało dokonane przez zaniechanie lub zapomnienie, przypomina się i dokonuje. Po kilku dziesięcioleciach, za sprawą ludzi dobrej woli i ich pamięci etycznej, cmentarz żydowski w Skokach stał się znowu przedmiotem szacunku.

Pamięć (pamiętanie) jest podstawą świadomości istnienia. Tej świadomości, której narzucają się trudne i „stare” pytania. Na przykład pytanie o to, dlaczego ten i tak wiele innych cmentarzy zostało zniszczonych? Lub ogólniejsze pytania; choćby to, które postawił Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), niemiecki filozof: „Spytajmy najpierw, skąd zło pochodzi? Jeśli jest Bóg, to skąd się wzięło zło? Jeśli go nie ma, to skąd dobro?” Emmanuel Lévinas (1906–1995), francuski filozof żydowskiego pochodzenia, komentator Talmudu odpowiedział na te pytania w swoich książkach. Z perspektywy „dziury w dziejach”, za którą uważał doświadczenie Auschwitz, napisał to piękne zdanie: „Miłość do Boga jest miłością do Tory. To znaczy uznanie dobroci jest ważniejsze niż miłość Boga. Lub rzeczywista miłość Boga jest miłością dobroci”.

Stawianie trudnych pytań człowiekowi przez Boga i Bogu przez człowieka, dążenie, aby dawać wyczerpujące odpowiedzi, oraz miłość Litery i Słowa na gruncie troski o dobroć i prawdę – to wszystko stanowi cechę Narodu Księgi. Rozwinięciem tego stwierdzenia może być jedna z opowieści chasydów, które zebrał Martin Buber. Pewnego razu rabbi Elimelech tak powiedział:

Nie wątpię, że będę miał udział w przyszłym świecie. Kiedy stanę przed Najwyższym Sądem i zapytają mnie: „Czy uczyłeś się jak należy?”, odpowiem: „Nie”. Wtedy mnie zapytają: „Czy modliłeś się jak należy?”, a ja znów odpowiem: „Nie”. I zapytają mnie po raz trzeci: „Czy, jak należy, czyniłeś dobro?”, a ja po raz trzeci będę musiał zaprzeczyć. A wtedy wydadzą wyrok: „Mówisz prawdę. Ze względu na prawdę należy ci się udział w przyszłym świecie”.

Tą opowieścią rabin Elimelech (1717-1787) wskazał na jeden z paradoksów człowieczeństwa. Jeśli będziemy świadomi prawdy o sobie, to będziemy równocześnie świadomi różnicy między dobrem i złem. Na tym polega ów „udział w przyszłym świecie”. Na tym polega świadomość, że jesteśmy tu na chwilę zwaną życiem. Z tego wynika wiedza o tym, co należy robić w sprawie pamięci o zmarłych i żywych. Rabin Elimelech z Leżajska, autor dzieła Łagodność Elimelecha uchodził za znawcę ludzkiej natury i lekarza ludzkich dusz.

Projekt pomnika, w zaproponowanej przeze mnie formie, został zaakceptowany przez Naczelnego Rabina Polski – Michaela Schudricha i Burmistrza Miasta i Gminy Skoki – Tadeusza Kłosa, który był inicjatorem upamiętnienia. Inicjatywa Burmistrza spotkała się ze zrozumieniem i poparciem Rady Miasta i Gminy. Dziękuję Radzie, Burmistrzowi, mieszkańcom Gminy oraz Przewodniczącej filii ZGWŻ w Poznaniu – Alicji Bromberger-Kobus za powierzenie mi wykonania projektu upamiętnienia i redakcji napisów na pomniku.

Dziękuję Piotrowi M. A. Cywińskiemu, Ewie Harabasz i Krzysztofowi Wodiczce, Krzysztofowi Kwiatkowskiemu, Leszkowi Kwiatkowskiemu, Elżbiecie i Rafałowi Labijakom, Jarosławowi Liberkowi, Hannie i Jarosławowi Przyborowskim, Eugeniuszowi Skrzypczakowi, Lenie i Timowi Stanley-Clamp, Waldemarowi Wylegalskiemu, Marze Zylberberg i mojej żonie Marii za wymianę myśli o pamięci i pomnikach.

Dziękuję mgr inż. arch. Małgorzacie Kasprzyk za współpracę przy technicznej części projektu pomnika. Dziękuję Arturowi Nowakowskiemu (UMiG Skoki) za pomoc techniczną. Dziękuję Ewie i Tadeuszowi Piaskowskim za podzielenie się wiedzą o kamieniach, wykonanie napisów i zaangażowanie w pracę nad pomnikiem. Dziękuję kierownikom kopalni należących do „Kruszgeo”: Wacławowi Mosznińskiemu i Waldemarowi Stachowiakowi za ich życzliwość i pomoc, której mi udzielili w poszukiwaniach kamieni.

Z wdzięcznością myślę także o Iwonie Migasiewicz, Dorocie i Adamie Mrozińskich, Jerzym Kołpowskim i Michale Kołpowskim. To prawdziwi pasjonaci i badacze lokalnej historii. Zawdzięczamy im odnalezienie listy osób pochowanych na cmentarzu żydowskim w Skokach i wiele działań na rzecz podtrzymywania pamięci i upowszechniania historii.

Samotny kamień u podnóża stoku to pierwszy, poprzedzający budowę pomnika, spontaniczny gest upamiętnienia cmentarza przez Burmistrza. Dlatego należało ten kamień pozostawić i pozwolić mu współtworzyć przestrzeń pamięci. Może jeszcze się uda odnaleźć i sprowadzić na cmentarz macewy, które na nim stały. Może się uda nie zapomnieć o pamięci.