Once Upon a Time, There was a Magical Town Called Kuzmir
85 years since the destruction of Kuzmir (Kazimierz Dolny), 1940-2025
The synagogue in Kuzmir
A memorial by Yaakov Rosenfeld. Source: M. Tzanin z”l, Tel Olam
The month of Tevet 5700 (January 1940) brought destruction and annihilation to the ancient community of the picturesque town of Kuzmir, which lies, as if cushioned, in a valley between green forests and the calm Vistula River.
Atop the hill, stands the palace of the king, the lover of Jews, Kazimierz, after whom the town is named (Kuzmir is the Jewish – i.e. Yiddish – name of the town. There are other cities and towns in Poland whose Jewish name was also different from its Gentile name).
King Casimir (Kazimierz) the Great, painting by Leopold Loeffler
The Kuzmir Jewish community thrived in the shadow of an old legend about the Jewish “Esterka.” Esterka found favour in the eyes of the king, and there, in his palace, she managed to tip the scales in favour of her Jewish brethren; from there she sent to the beautiful and magficient synagogue, a parochet (curtain for the Torah ark) that she embroidered with her own hands, and two silver crowns for the Torahs, which adorned the ark until that gloomy, frozen, and bitter month of Tevet, when terror descended on the Kuzmir community and wreaked havoc upon it.
85 years have passed since that gloomy winter. The synagogue’s gabbai (beadle), Shia Kaplan, who guarded the synagogue’s treasures like the apple of his eye, was expelled from the town and met his tragic death, like most of his congregation.
In the bone-chilling cold of January 1940, the Jews were expelled from their homes and driven out of their community together with the Jews of Pulawy and Opole. On the way, the Nazi and Ukrainian murderers shot thousands of Jews who were left lying on the road, and the rest were sent to the Belzic camp where they perished in 1941.
On the same day that the Jews were expelled from Kuzmir, the synagogue was looted and nothing was left of it. Everything was looted: the menorahs, the candlesticks, the Torah crowns, the furniture, the Torahs.
The winter of 5700 was very cold, and the residents, the neighbours of the Jews who had given life to the town from generation to generation, attacked the synagogue and the study hall, uprooting everything made of wood from them: the stylized roof, the Torah ark, the furniture, the ceiling, and the floor. According to the Pole who accompanied the “British” (impersonating) author M. Tzanin after the war, “he himself explained to the villagers that the building was ancient, but it was impossible to explain to the peasants, since it was very cold and the synagogue and the study hall were closer than the forest… and when they finished uprooting the wood from the synagogue, they did the same with all the Jewish houses.”
Kuzmir was a happy and cheerful town. During the hot summer days it served as a resort town for thousands of Jews from the great ravages of the sweltering heat. In this town, sweet and interesting Jewish life was conducted, a pure life of Torah and labour, that flowed like the rhythm of the Vistula River, which gave it a majestic appearance and a sense of tranquility.
Famous Jewish painters from all over the world sat in Kuzmir and painted what they saw with their eyes. Landscape paintings, mysterious works, colour and silhouette paintings, brass engravings, and art that sold for a fortune.
In Kuzmir, the famous painters Nathan Kozen, Wiczak Brunner, Jascha Szliwnak, Nathan Spiegel, Friedman and Tikochinsky sat and painted, names that today reveal nothing, but in those days their works adorned museums, halls, and the homes of the wealthy.
During the summer, summer camps for thousands of Jewish children were held in the green mountains surrounding Kuzmir. On the banks of the Vistula, the Jewish children breathed in the fresh air and warmed themselves in the sunlight. Jewish poetry emanated from the picturesque mountain paths and bathed the town below in a luscious Jewish sweetness. Elderly Jews rowed boats filled to the brim with Jewish children and told them stories of the righteous and folk tales…
“On Shabbat eves, the market in Kuzmir would break out into its own song. It seemed as if the sun itself, as it departed from the town, would light the Sabbath candles with its last flame. The holy Shabbat spread its Shechina (G-dly presence) over Kuzmir, over the market, over the well in its center, and over the roofs of the Jewish houses. Shabbat candles peeped out from all the windows, and the Jews of Kuzmir, the toilers, would then enjoy the beauty of the town. At that hour, the songs on the ‘Venzvanim’ (mountain paths) and in the mountains would fall silent. As if the Holy Shabbat did not tolerate too high notes… It seemed as if the Vistula was now flowing slowly, gently, looking at the hidden charm of Shabbat in Kuzmir and flowing on to the sea, modestly, in a Shabbat manner…” (Tzanin, ibid.).
The market in Kuzmir, Poland
This holy community was blessed with the glory of the synagogue, whose name was known throughout Poland. It was founded in 1099, almost a thousand years ago!
Eighty years ago, in 5705 (1945), when the Yiddish Jewish writer M. Tzanin walked the streets of Kuzmir, he was shocked by the devastation of the Jewish town that had once teemed with life and was now ruined and desolate. He wandered among the houses of Kuzmir and recognized here and there parochets, Judaica, and Jewish paintings. He also found such things in the hands of the Polish painter, Michailak. The painter showed him the synagogue, or rather what was left of it. He told him about the destruction and the carnage.
“On that winter day, in January 1940, when all the Jews were expelled from here, I was not in town, and the next day there was nothing left in the magnificent and artistic synagogue… Everything was stolen.”
“I also had a Torah scroll. I bought it from one of the synagogue robbers. I paid sugar for it, and as an extra, I painted his wife. But I have already sold the Torah scroll. I received ten thousand gold coins.”
In the end, Tzanin met the town’s pharmacist in the only pharmacy there, a sad old woman whom he immediately discovered was Jewish.
And how was she, this woman named Nissenson, allowed to enter the town again? She herself told Tzanin about it. “Jews are not allowed to set foot here! So that I could enter the city I donated twenty thousand gold coins for a clock for the church, and the priest demanded from the pulpit on Sunday, Saturday, that they let me live in Kuzmir because they had given me back the pharmacy and I would sell medicines cheaply… Peasant women in the village, they flatter me, kiss my hand so that I will give them good medicines like before the war, but my husband is afraid to come here. They will slaughter him… That’s why he is sitting in Lodz and I am here.”
Children playing in the streets of Kuzmir
During the conversation, it became clear to Tzanin that it was Nissenson, the one he was conversing with, who had bought the Torah scroll for ten thousand gold coins. At the end of a sad and somber conversation, Tzanin said goodbye to the only Jewish woman in Kuzmir, the cheerful town where 3,000 Jews had lived, and many thousands more filled its streets every summer.
In the next article in the series – Tzanin’s visit to the town of Janowiec, Kuzmir’s neighbour across the Vistula, and a gallery of rare photographs from the town from then and now.
