Reporter's notebook

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a museum commemorates an ancient Polish Jewish community

Before the Nazis chose Oswiciem as the site of the infamous death camp, Jews thrived in the city for half a millennium. Now, the last Jewish resident keeps their memory alive

Polish students learn the history of Oświęcim's Jewish community at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)
Polish students learn the history of Oświęcim's Jewish community at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

OSWIECIM, Poland — Before their city became infamous worldwide as the home of the deadliest of the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust, the Jews of Oświęcim lived in relative harmony with their Christian neighbors for nearly 500 years.

A tour of the town’s Jewish museum on International Holocaust Remembrance Day revealed a thriving community where, at its peak before World War II, Jews represented 60% of the population and maintained 29 synagogues and religious institutions.

“The 7,500 Jews living here before the war included a diverse and vibrant mix of traditional and non-religious Jews, along with Hasidim from Tzanz, Satmar, and other sects,” said Hila Weisz-Gut, the 34-year-old Israeli woman who guided the tour of the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum.

“Now, the community is nothing. I’m the only Jew here,” said Weisz-Gut, who has lived in Oświęcim for the past year and a half. “Only a handful of Jews came back here after the Holocaust and most of them left in the 1960s. Before me, the last Jew here, who owned one of the museum’s buildings, was a survivor named Szymon Kluger who died in 2000.”

Weisz-Gut moved to Oświęcim to intern at the Auschwitz Jewish Center as part of her master’s program in Holocaust studies from the University of Haifa, and hopes to eventually move back to Israel. She sees the walls of the concentration camp from her home, and sees her stewardship over the museum as a refutation of Hitler’s plan to destroy the Jewish nation, she said.

“The community here today is very tolerant and accepting, and they just want to stop living under the shadow of hatred and move on,” Weisz-Gut added.

Hila Weisz-Gut, 34, an Israeli researcher in Holocaust studies who relocated to Oswiecim to be with her Polish husband, walks on the street in Oswiecim, January 13, 2025. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images, via JTA)

A strategic location

Likely founded by Slavs 800 years ago, Oświęcim was embraced by the Jews who came there as a nice place to live. They even referred to it in Yiddish as Oshpitzin, based on the Aramaic word for guests. (A wave of anti-Jewish attacks between 1918 and 1921 were the exception, not the rule, Weisz-Gut noted.)

The town sits almost exactly in the middle of the European continent at a geographic crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that made it a strategic spot to build a concentration camp.

“This location is a natural transportation hub. Even today, there are 14 railway lines here,” Weisz-Gut said. “It’s a very central place to deport people to from Russia, and most of the Jews at the time were already in eastern Poland. The Germans had already taken over many buildings here, so setting up the camp here was relatively easy.”

In addition, the Nazis may have had plans to use the nearby Haberfeld liquor factory that they had stolen from the Jewish family that founded it, and to produce fuel at an oil facility in the area. However, these plans never materialized, Weisz-Gut noted.

The Auschwitz camp was completed in 1941, and the town’s Jewish residents were rounded up and deported in 1942. Their non-Jewish neighbors were aware of the atrocities and wanted to resist, but they were unable to fight against the Nazi war machine, Weisz-Gut said.

One of several photographs taken during the deportation of Oswiecim’s Jews to death camps and ghettos in the region during the Nazi occupation of Poland. (Auschwitz Jewish Center)

“People here smelled the smoke from the crematoria, but what could a single unarmed person do against an army?” she asked. “There were underground movements and individuals who tried to help, but many paid with their lives.”

After the Holocaust, all of the town’s synagogues were destroyed but one. The Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue building, built in 1913 near the entrance to the city, was commandeered by the Nazis as a warehouse, and after the war, the structure was eventually repurposed as a carpet store. In the 1980s, researchers from Israel discovered a synagogue sign embedded into the walls, and in 1998, the building was returned to the Jewish community and transferred to the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation.

Since then, the interior of the synagogue has been completely rebuilt, Weisz-Gut said. “Nothing you see here is original, except for the sign. Everything else is donated.”

A chandelier and several Torah scrolls were saved from other decimated communities and donated by Holocaust survivors, she added.

The interior of the synagogue at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

A tour of the museum

Today, the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum complex comprises three buildings: the synagogue, a house once occupied by the last Jewish resident, and a residential building previously shared by Jewish and Christian families.

The museum gets visitors from around the world, many of whom make it a stop after touring the Auschwitz camp site. Religious groups frequently take the time to pray in the abandoned synagogue, Weisz-Gut said.

Weisz-Gut noted some of the museum’s highlights showing the city’s vibrant Jewish life before the Holocaust.

Pointing to a painted glass installation at the entrance to the museum with the name written in English, Polish, and Hebrew, Weisz-Gut said, “The choice to call the museum by the ‘welcoming’ Jewish name of Oshpitzin, instead of Oświęcim, was in my opinion a very important decision that affects the tone of the whole museum.”

Hila Weisz-Gut shows the painted glass installation at the entrance to the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, with the name written in English, Polish, and Hebrew. (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

A display of ancient documents shows the acquisition of land for a synagogue and cemetery in 1588, signifying the formal establishment of Jewish life in the region. “This is the proof of the beginnings of a functioning Jewish community here,” Weisz-Gut said.

Ancient documents show the acquisition of land for a synagogue and cemetery in 1588, signifying the establishment of Jewish life in the region, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Nearby, a weathered tombstone – the museum’s oldest artifact – tells a different story. “It’s from the 15th or 16th century,” Weisz-Gut said. “A local found it in an attic and brought it here. That act of preservation speaks volumes about how history finds its way back to us.”

An ancient Jewish tombstone displayed at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

A selection of bottles from the Haberfeld distillery tells the story of Oświęcim’s most famous resident. Jakob Haberfeld opened his vodka and liqueur factory in 1804 near the city and became wealthy, eventually building a 40-room mansion known as the Haberfeld House. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, owner Alfons Haberfeld and his wife were visiting the New York World’s Fair, where they remained until 1967 when Alfons came back and found the distillery under state ownership and the Haberfeld House in disrepair.

A selection of liquor bottles from the Haberfeld distillery displayed at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Other documents illustrate the dramas and tragedies of the community. In one, letters recount a “Romeo and Juliet” romance between Stanislav, a Polish Christian, and Regina, a Jewish woman, in 1931. Forbidden from being together, Stanislav killed her and then took his own life by the river. The display includes a letter written by Stanislav’s father to his daughter describing what happened.

A letter recounting a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ romance in 1931, displayed at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Nearby, a photograph of two young girls, Martha and Olga – the former Christian, the latter Jewish – captures the heartbreak of their childhood friendship cut short by the Holocaust. After Olga was rounded up by the Nazis, Martha risked her life to see her one last time in the concentration camp before Olga was eventually killed.

A photograph of two young girls, one Jewish and one Christian, displayed at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Another display tells the story of Father Jan Skarbek, a Catholic priest who risked his life to help Jews during the Holocaust by fabricating documents, smuggling food into Auschwitz, and assisting escapees. His courageous efforts earned him recognition, and a square outside the museum now bears his name.

A display remembering Father Jan Skarbek, a Catholic priest who risked his life to help Jews during the Holocaust by fabricating documents, at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, January 27, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Finally, the museum tour concluded in the Holocaust Room and the Remembrance Room, where photographs, diplomas, and personal mementos donated by survivors tell stories of lives lived and lives lost. “These are markers ensuring that they are never forgotten,” Weisz-Gut said.

The museum maintains an app where people can learn more about Oświęcim’s history online.

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