JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. UMSCHLAGPLATZ MONUMENT. WARSZAWA/POLAND

Tuesday, Tammuz 20, 5775. July 7, 2015.

Shalom! World.

The germans euphemistically referred to the railway sidings in the Ulica Stawki as the 'transfer site' - Umschlagplatz. The Umschlagplatz Monument, unveiled in 1988, marks the site of a former railway siding on Ulica Dzika and Ulica Stawki. Since July 22, 1942, transports of Jews to the Treblinka death camp departed from this square. It was from here that some 300.000 Jews from the Warszawa Ghetto and elsewhere were loaded onto cattle trucks and dispatched to almost certain death in the extermination camps. Among them was Janusz Koczak and his group of Jewish orphans. Living conditions in the Ghetto were inhuman, and by 1942 over 100.000 of the inhabitants had died. The monument, on which the architect Hanna Szmalenberg and the sculptor Wladyslaw Klamerus collaborated, is made of blocks of black and white marble bearing the names of 448 names, from Abel to Zanna of Warszawas's Jews.

Between the Monument to the Heros of the Ghetto and the Umschlagplatz Monument runs the trail of Jewish Martyrdom and Struggle, unveiled in 1988. It is marked by 16 blocks of granite bearing inscriptions in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish and the  date 1940-43. The site of a bunker, in which the uprising's commanders blew themselves up has been specially marked. Each block is dedicated to the memory of the 450.000 Jews murdered int he Warszawa Ghetto in the years 1940-43, to the heros of the Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and to certain key individuals from that time. 

Shalom! Aleichem.

Cultural Support:  SOUL avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Fr .