Chamber of Memory of the Jews of Lublin - Chewra Nosim Synagogue

What to expect

The Chamber of Memory of the Jews of Lublin is one room on the first floor of an ordinary tenement at ul. Lubartowska 10. Read that as a warning and as the reason to come. This is not a museum built around a display: it is the prayer hall of the Chewra Nosim burial brotherhood, still in use as a synagogue. Before the war Lublin had more than a hundred synagogues and prayer houses, and this is the only one left standing.

The room is laid out the way it worked. In the niche on the east wall stands the aron ha-kodesh - a wooden chest for the Torah, screened by a cloth called a parochet. The cantor’s cloth-covered lectern with its candlestick and prayer books stands beside it, and the bimah sits in the middle. Cases hold tefillin and a tallit, a mezuzah, a chanukiah, a megillah, an embroidered red tallit bag and a siddur.

Bookcases along the walls hold 273 Hebrew and Yiddish volumes from the second half of the 19th century and the 20th, what is left of libraries Lublin no longer has. The north wall carries photographs of Lublin Jews between the wars and during the war, and a plaque in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish honouring Poles who helped Jews under the occupation. Since 2008 the room has also held the standing exhibition “Jesteśmy” (“We Are Here”) about Jewish Lublin after the Shoah.

Come here after Majdanek or after the Grodzka Gate, not instead of them. There is no exhibition design, no audio guide on site and no ticket desk, so a visitor expecting a conventional museum will leave unimpressed. A visitor who wants to stand in a room where Jewish Lublin actually prayed, and to hear it from the people who keep it, will stay longer than planned. Allow 20-30 minutes for the room, an hour if the caretakers have time to talk.

Tips

• Phone before you go. The city’s own page recommends it, because days and hours can change. The number, +48 602 473 118, reaches Luba and Paweł Matraszek, who look after the synagogue and lead visits (regional daily “Kurier Lubelski”, 7 September 2017).
• One window a week. Sunday 13:00-15:00 is the entire regular opening. Lublin’s Tourist Inspiration Centre says a visit on other days is possible by prior arrangement, and “Kurier Lubelski” notes that Sundays falling on Jewish holidays are not part of the rhythm.
• Do not plan the Grodzka Gate for the same day. The Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre, the fullest account of Jewish Lublin, is closed on Sundays. Pair the Chamber of Memory with Majdanek instead: it is open on Sundays and free.
• Bring an audio guide in English. There is no audio guide at the venue, but Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN publishes a Jewish-heritage walk of Lublin in which Lubartowska 10 is a separate stop, narrated in English and in French. Load it before you step through the gate.
• It is a working synagogue. Rosh Hashanah, Purim, Pesach and Chanukah are marked here, as are the anniversaries of the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. Men cover their heads; ask before photographing, because the photograph wall is curtained during services.
• No price is published. The city page lists no admission fee. Ask when you call, and carry some cash in case a donation is expected - PLN only, and no card terminal is advertised.
• Stairs to the first floor. The prayer hall is one floor up. The museum publishes no accessibility information - call before visiting.

Getting there

On foot: 5-6 minutes from the Kraków Gate, uphill along Lubartowska. The address is no. 10, but the way in is through the gate of the neighbouring building, no. 8, on the right. Coming from the centre, watch the first-floor windows: “Kurier Lubelski” describes the landmark as a Star of David and a lit candlestick visible from the street.

Bus and trolleybus: the Szewska stop on Lubartowska is a few dozen metres from the gate, Probostwo roughly 150 m further north. From the Brama Krakowska stop it is about a 6-minute walk.

By car: Lubartowska lies inside Lublin’s paid parking zone, but the zone operates on working days only, Monday to Friday 8:00-18:00. On a Sunday afternoon, which is exactly when the Chamber of Memory is open, kerbside parking costs nothing. On a busy day, use the car park by Lublin Castle and walk 8-10 minutes.

Nearby

• Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre - 400 m away; its “Lublin. Memory of the Place” exhibition explains the city of which this room is the last working fragment. Remember the Sunday closure.
• House of Words - Chamber of Printing - a branch of the same centre on ul. Żmigród, about the printed word and how Lublin recovered its memory.
• State Museum at Majdanek - about 5 km south-east, free entry, three hours; where the history that began on Lubartowska ends.

Background

The prayer hall belonged to the Chewra Nosim burial brotherhood, an organisation that Russian law kept illegal until 1906. It went up in 1899 as a private house of prayer; the evening Talmudic lectures of Mosze Ajzenberg and Dawid Muszkatblit were known well beyond Lublin. The tenement stood on the western, “Aryan” side of the street, outside the ghetto, which is why it survived the war. The Germans stripped the interior and used it as a textile store and a shoemaker’s workshop.

After 1945 the room returned to prayer and for decades was the only site of Jewish religious life in the city. Regular services stopped in 1984 for want of a minyan. In 1987, on the 45th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto, the interior was renovated on Symcha Wajs’s initiative. Thieves took valuable Judaica in 1995; the jad, the Torah pointer, turned up on a rubbish heap the next day, and the book collection was left untouched.