Legacy of Oświęcim Jews honored, a mere stone throw from Auschwitz

A memorial park was inaugurated on Thursday in the town that once had a thriving Polish-Jewish community.

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Oświęcim residents honor the memory of the Jewish community that once lived in the town placed so close tot the Auschwitz death camp, the words in Hebrew and Polish mean 'We remember', picture is from 2008 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Oświęcim residents honor the memory of the Jewish community that once lived in the town placed so close tot the Auschwitz death camp, the words in Hebrew and Polish mean 'We remember', picture is from 2008
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Polish town of Oświęcim, once the home of a thriving Jewish community, honored their memory on Thursday in a special inauguration ceremony during which the site which once hosted the Great Synagogue was officially declared as the Great Synagogue Memorial Park.
The house of prayer was destroyed during the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War by the invading German army. 
While the Auschwitz death camp, a stone throw away from the town, is one of the best known historical sites associated with the Holocaust and receives many Israeli visitors, including official IDF and state delegations, few are aware of pre-war Jewish life in Oświęcim.
More than one half the town’s population were Jewish. This fact led to a unique political arrangement which was that before the war, the position of vice-mayor was held by a Jewish-Polish person and that of the mayor by a Catholic Pole.   
As Poland changed from a socialist country to a democratic one following the 1980’s, the Auschwitz Jewish Center was established in 2000.
It is not located at the death camp but in the town itself and includes the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, which is the only Jewish house of prayer to have survived near the death camp, and Café Bergson, which offers lectures and workshops on Jewish history as well as  WW2.
As of 2010 Oświęcim hosts the Life Festival of music in an attempt to present some of its full history to the world. The Jewish-American singer Matisyahu, who was at a point the best known Haredi singer in the world, performed there in 2011.
The 2015 Polish film The Touch of an Angel depicts the life of Henryk Schoenker, a Holocaust survivor from Oświęcim and was filmed on location.