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#WeRemember #pamiętamy

To: Minister of Culture and National Heritage
ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 15,  
00-071 Warsaw, POLAND

Appeal to save Kraków’s historic synagogue
– a place of remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, a unique UNESCO monument

We, the undersigned, who are united by the common idea of protecting memory and heritage as the basis for building community, peace, and a better future – residents of Kraków and other cities, citizens of Poland and other countries of the World, residents of Europe and other continents, representatives of various cultures and faiths, worldviews, and beliefs – appeal for the preservation of the historic synagogue located in Kraków’s Kazimierz, in the UNESCO heritage zone, in the courtyard at the junction of Mostowa and Trynitarska streets – the house of prayer for families gathered around the pre-war Kraków’s Lednitzer Prayer House Association.

We demand the preservation and revitalization of this one-of-a-kind, unique on a European scale courtyard synagogue, and the provision of adequate legal and organizational protection, which it currently lacks, for this gem of Kraków and international UNESCO heritage, a place of remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust.

We support the long-standing efforts of the substantive team of the Social Synagogue Revitalization Project under the leadership of the Kraków rabbi – Rabbi Tanya Segal and members and friends of the Jewish community Beit Kraków, whose actions, effort, and dedicated resources led to the execution of conservation research and the creation of an architectural project for the revitalization of the synagogue, as well as the emergency measures taken by them against the destruction of this valuable monument, which, being in the hands of the City of Kraków, has been gradually falling into ruin due to decades of neglected maintenance.

We hope that the renovated synagogue, returned to the Kraków’s citizens as a center of Jewish life, culture, and dialogue, will open a new chapter in the history of Kraków and – on par with other renovated monuments of Kazimierz, Kraków – will be a vivid example that the once deliberate erasure of memory, destruction, and discrimination of Jewish heritage is no longer accepted and will never be accepted in Poland again.

We believe that the renovated synagogue will be a unique, living place of remembrance for the community that once prayed there, and also a memory of many other among the almost 120 pre-war Kraków’s houses of prayer that irrevocably disappeared from the map of Kraków after the war, along with the memory of the residents of the city for whom they once constituted the center of their whole world.

We urge the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to take decisive steps to protect the synagogue – our common heritage and preserve the memory of those who are no longer with us here, and whose memory we have committed ourselves to sustain and pass on to future generations.