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

What to expect

The Chamber of Memory of the Jews of Lublin is a single room on the first floor of an unremarkable tenement on ul. Lubartowska. It is the prayer hall of the Chewra Nosim burial brotherhood, the only pre-war synagogue in Lublin that has been preserved, and it still holds services. That matters more once you know the scale of the loss: before the Second World War the city had more than a hundred synagogues and prayer houses.

Do not come expecting relics. According to Encyklopedia Lublina, none of the original pre-war furnishings survived, so everything you see arrived after 1945. The strongest part is the books: 273 volumes in Hebrew and Yiddish, many of which, Wikipedia notes, once belonged to the libraries of synagogues, prayer houses and private owners. When thieves took valuable Judaica in 1995, they left the books behind.

The north wall is covered with photographs of Lublin’s Jews between the wars and during the occupation. Because they show human figures, a curtain is drawn over them during services, so time your visit outside prayers if the pictures are what you came for. At the centre is a plaque in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish honouring Poles who helped Jews. Since 2008 the “Jesteśmy” (“We Are Here”) exhibition has added post-war family and religious photographs.

If you have never been inside a synagogue, the layout is a useful primer. The bimah, the platform from which the service is led, stands in the middle; the aron ha-kodesh, the chest that holds the Torah, sits in the east-wall niche behind a curtain called a parochet. The display cases hold ritual objects and prayer garments. Look for tefillin, small leather boxes worn at weekday morning prayer, a mezuzah of the kind fixed to Jewish doorposts, and a megillah, the scroll of Esther.

Treat this as a postscript to Majdanek or the Grodzka Gate, not a substitute. There is no exhibition design, no on-site audio guide and no ticket desk; anyone hoping for a conventional museum will find little here. Anyone who wants to stand where Jewish Lublin really prayed, and hear about it from the people who look after it, will stay longer than planned. The room alone takes 20-30 minutes; with conversation, an hour.

Tips

• Call ahead. The opening rhythm shifts, and the city’s own page advises phoning first. The number, +48 602 473 118, belongs to Luba and Paweł Matraszek, the caretakers who show visitors round, according to the regional daily “Kurier Lubelski” (7 September 2017).
• Two hours a week. Sunday 13:00-15:00 is the only regular slot. Lublin’s Tourist Inspiration Centre says other days can be arranged by reservation; “Kurier Lubelski” adds that Sundays falling on Jewish holidays are an exception.
• Skip the Grodzka Gate on the same day. The Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre, which tells the fullest story of Jewish Lublin, is closed on Sundays. A better Sunday pairing is Majdanek, open that day and free.
• Bring your own English commentary. Nothing on site is narrated, but Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN publishes an audio walk through Jewish Lublin with Lubartowska 10 as its own stop, available in English and French. Download it before you go through the gate.
• Behave as in any place of worship. This is a working synagogue that marks Rosh Hashanah, Purim, Pesach and Chanukah, as well as the anniversaries of the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. Jewish custom asks men to cover their heads in a synagogue. Ask the caretakers before taking pictures.
• Bring some cash. No admission price appears on the city’s page and no card terminal is advertised. Ask about entry when you phone, and carry some złoty (PLN) in case a donation is expected.
• Expect stairs. The room is on the first floor and no accessibility information is published, so phone first if steps are a problem.

Getting there

On foot: from the Kraków Gate on the edge of the Old Town, it is a 5-6 minute walk up Lubartowska. Do not look for a door at no. 10: you go in through the gateway of the next building, no. 8, on your right. “Kurier Lubelski” points to a useful landmark on the way - a Star of David and a lit candlestick in the first-floor windows, visible from the street.

Bus and trolleybus: the Szewska stop on Lubartowska is a few dozen metres from the gateway; Probostwo is roughly 150 m further north. Getting off at Brama Krakowska leaves a walk of about 6 minutes.

By car: Lubartowska is inside Lublin’s paid parking zone, which only runs Monday to Friday, 8:00-18:00. The Sunday afternoon opening therefore falls in free time, and you can park at the kerb without a ticket. If the street is full, the car park by Lublin Castle is 8-10 minutes away on foot.

Nearby

• Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre - 400 m away. Its “Lublin. Memory of the Place” exhibition reconstructs the Jewish town this room is a last surviving piece of. Closed on Sundays.
• House of Words - Chamber of Printing - run by the same centre, on ul. Żmigród, about the printed word and how Lublin set about recovering its memory.
• State Museum at Majdanek - about 5 km south-east, free, allow three hours. The history that began on Lubartowska ends there.

Background

Chewra Nosim means the brotherhood of corpse bearers, and under Russian rule it operated illegally until 1906. The house of prayer dates from 1899, and in the evenings it hosted lectures by two renowned Talmudists, Mosze Ajzenberg and Dawid Muszkatblit. During the war its position saved it: the building stood on the western, “Aryan” side of the street, outside the ghetto. The Germans gutted the interior and turned it into a textile store and a cobbler’s workshop.

For decades after 1945 this was the only place in the city where Jews prayed together, until in 1984 there were too few men left to make a minyan and regular services ended. In 1987, the 45th anniversary of the ghetto’s liquidation, the room was renovated at Symcha Wajs’s initiative. In 1995 burglars made off with valuable Judaica; only the jad, the pointer used to read the Torah, came back, found on a rubbish heap the following day.