Two former synagogues destroyed in Poland and Ukraine
16th-century building in Pidhaitsi collapses due to heavy rains; contractors tear down 100-year-old structure near Krakow after conservationists fail to register it as monument
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Two former synagogues were destroyed in Poland and in Ukraine.
The 16th-century former synagogue of Pidhaitsi, a town in the Ukraine’s west, collapsed on Saturday night as a result of heavy rains and neglect that eroded one of its supporting pillars, the news website te.20mimut reported.
In Poland, building contractors demolished the century-old former synagogue of Nowy Targ south of Krakow, Gazeta Krakowska reported on Friday.
The demolition was conducted legally because local authorities and conservation activists had failed to register the building as an architectural monument, the newspaper reported.
The Nazis destroyed the synagogue’s interior during the Holocaust and the Polish communist authorities turned into a workshop. It was restituted to the Jewish community of Krakow, which sold it. The building was not registered as a monument during the time that it was owned by the Jewish community, according to Gazeta Krakowska.
Declaring a building as a monument significantly reduces its worth on the real-estate market.
Tadeusz Jakubowicz, the head of the Jewish Community of Krakow, did not reply to multiple requests for comment from the newspaper.
The Times of Israel Community.