Remembering our Jewish neighbors

For the second time, on the anniversary of the extermination of the Jews from Czarny Dunajec, a ceremony was held to commemorate this event. The celebrations began on Monday, August 28 at 5 pm at the Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec.

August 28 is a symbolic date, August 28, 1942 was the last day of the Jewish community from Czarny Dunajec. Two days later, most of the Jews from Podhale were loaded into freight cars in Nowy Targ and transported in terrible conditions to the death camp in Belzec, where they died. - I would like us to meet here every year and remember about these events and about our Jewish neighbors who once lived here - said Michal Szaflarski, one of the organizers of the celebrations.

As in the previous year, the descendants of the Jews from Czarny Dunajec took part in the celebrations. This time the ceremony was attended by Irena Horowitz Lauridsen, daughter of Chaim Horowitz, born in 1914 in Czarny Dunajec, and Kirena Horowitz Rympel (daughter of Eliasz Horowitz, Chaim's brother) with her son Jakub from Krakow. The celebrations were live streamed via Zoom, and descendants from abroad (including the USA, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel) who could not come to Poland could also take part in them.

The prayer at the cemetery was led by the cantor of the reformed Jewish communities, Ryfka Foremniak, after singing the psalms and reciting the Kaddish for the dead, all the names of the victims of the Holocaust from Czarny Dunajec and the surrounding villages were read aloud.

After the ceremonies at the cemetery, a meeting with the descendants was held in the regional culture center, some of them also took part via Zoom. Michał Szaflarski showed a presentation and talked about the new website jewishczarnydunajec.pl, which is a digital archive of the Jewish community from Czarny Dunajec. The meeting was held in Polish and English.

At the end, a short recital in the building of the former synagogue was given by cantor Ryfka Foremniak.

The organizers of the celebration would like to thank the Center for Culture and Promotion of the Town and Commune of Czarny Dunajec and the Forum for Dialogue foundation, which co-financed the creation of the website jewishczarnydunajec.pl