accused of burning houses of prayer, purportedly to spread Greuelpropaganda.⁸⁷⁶
This pretext was also used to impose exorbitant levies (e.g. on the Jews in
Włocławek, Rypin, and Zgierz). In Łódź, as explained in Lodscher Zeitung, the
burning of the synagogues was a Polish act of retaliation for the Jews’ purported
removal of the Kościuszko monument from Wolności Square ([while
in fact] the Germans destroyed it “on the occasion” of Independence Day on
11 November 1939). In Zgierz the-then [Jewish] community was obliged to pay
the bill for the petrol used to set the synagogue ablaze. In Płock one of the
synagogues was converted into a garage for cars. Aside from paying “compensation”
in many towns the Jewish population was also forced to dismantle
the walls of the destroyed synagogues. In addition, all devotional objects,
particularly Torah scrolls, were looted and destroyed. The Jewish population
had to dance on those occasions, doing the local German luminaries’ bidding.
Priceless from the point of view of past architectural art, the houses
of prayer in Wyszogród, Pińczów, Przedborze, Gombin,⁸⁷⁷ [16] Szydłów, and
Mława⁸⁷⁸ were destroyed with particular vandalism. The Germans did not
treat Jewish cemeteries any better. Most of them were ploughed over to remove
all Jewish traces. For instance, in Rypin the Jews had to plough the cemetery
themselves. The one in Kalisz, which was one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries
in Europe, was used to cover up a channel. All the soil from the cemetery
including the tombstones and even the skeletons of the dead were used
for that purpose. In Ciechanów the grave of a famous tzaddik was converted
into a public toilet.
The museum collections and libraries of scientific works (e.g. the
Library of the Institute for Judaic Studies in Warsaw)⁸⁷⁹ were either taken
to Germany, usually to the antisemitic institute in Nuremberg, or destroyed
876 (Ger.) vile, atrocious propaganda.
877 Official spelling: Gąbin.
878 Wyszogród (Miechów County), Pińczów (Busko County), Przedbórz (Końskie County),
Gąbin (Gostynin County), Szydłów (Piotrków County).
879 The Institute for Judaic Studies in Warsaw – academic institution established in 1928 for
the education of Reform rabbis and teachers. The document probably alludes to the collection
of the Library of the Great Synagogue, with which the Institute shared the building.
At the beginning of the German occupation both the Library and the Institute’s collections
(approximately 40,000 and 3,000 books, respectively) were taken to Berlin and most
of them were lost
