SEE YOU NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM ZBĄSZYŃ-JERUSALEM 2008
 
 
THE RAILWAY STATION 70 YEARS AGO The railway station in Zbąszyń is a place where the past left clear trails. Its representative part was built in the 1920s for the Common Railway Exhibition. Until 1939 it had been a flagship building of the whole country, welcoming anyone who came here from the West. It was where Poland started. Crowned heads and foreign dignitaries were greeted here with luxurious saloon carriages, flowers and orchestras. But then something happened. During October nights in 1938, the look, the purpose and the life of the railway station changed. As a result of the expulsion operation (Polenaktion), a group of 8,000 Polish Jews expelled from Frankfurt, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and Düsseldorf was brought there. For many of them the Zbąszyń railway station was the beginning of a long exile around the world. For others it meant taking the path that led to nowhere. For ten months when the Polish Jews stayed in Zbąszyń, every day groups of people departed from railway platforms in their quest for a better fortune, safe haven, new home and hope. They were bidden farewell by those who were still waiting for any news from their families living in other parts of Poland, for financial support, or for a promised visa to a new homeland. In the town then inhabited by 6,000 people, attempts were made to create a substitute of a normal life for the exiles. The locals rose to the unexpected challenge. Despite increasingly radical views of the rightists and anti-Semitism in Poland in 1938-1939, “Honour of the Polish Society was saved by the Zbąszyń inhabitants (…)” wrote Jan Tomaszewski in his monograph “Preludium zagłady”. We have not found any historical records of incidents which would prove that the inhabitants showed any hostility towards the exiles. Thanks to support from the Zbąszyń people and Polish Jews from other parts of Poland and the world, a school was opened in the town for the resettled children, and religious life was resumed; what is more, vocational education, sports and cultural activities were being developed. For many of the newcomers the railway station and a ticket enabling a further journey seemed to be the beginning of a brand new life - hope for realizing a dream of wandering no more. Only this hope could mollify their pain and longing for lost homes.
photo by Wojciech Olejniczak
 
archive photo
 
archive photo
THE RAILWAY STATION NOW... The "Nasz Dom" [Our Home] Foundation from Lutol Mokry is the current user of the train station building in Zbąszyń. In those spacious and rather awkward rooms we set up a shop. We sell second-hand Swedish furniture, clothes, textiles, kitchenware, glass, porcelain, pictures and other ornamental items - everything that helps in making our homes nicer and cosier. The role of the shop is releasing joy and satisfaction through being able to purchase cheap, necessary, attractive, and unique things that have been "tested" by their previous owners and later contributed to be used by other people. We are go-betweens in taking things from a person to person, from one house to another - we introduce a sort of order and harmony in distributing goods. Much as I would like to avoid pomposity, I would like to say that the shop of our foundation sells goods honoured by work, devotion and kindness of many people from Poland and Sweden, How different is the modern thinking from the times when the Jews were despised and their rights were challenged - the right to live, have a home, cherish the time spent with their families, to live a normal life among other people. The 1938 events suddenly evoke the spirits of many thousand people in this building. They were disinherited wanderers, expelled from the Nazi Germany, young, old, children and their parents. Inside those walls they found a shelter for many long weeks as well as the sympathy of the local people. Back then there were no comfortable sofas, chairs and tables that we can see there now. It was a typical railway station and nothing more. The good thing was that it had been built too big in comparison to the actual needs - maybe it was a symbol of the inferiority complex suffered by Poland recovering from years of captivity. It is a good thing that we are bringing back the memory of those times. How many times have the local inhabitants passed through the station having no idea what had happened in it. For them, it was a place from which they could travel to work o school; it was the beginning and the end of their journey. It still somehow serves a greater good - it served passengers, it served the Jewish refugees as a shelter, and today it serves a charity organisation and the people it helps. Those walls contain a friendly space, which is close to all of us. Today we are sharing this space with others - we invite you to experience with us the pictures and memories of what happened 70 years ago. Paweł Urbanowicz President of the „Nasz Dom” Fundation Lutol Mokry – Zbąszyń, October 2008. The „Nasz Dom” Fundation Lutol Mokry 48, 66-320 Trzciel e-mail: lutol@fundacjanaszdom.pl www.fundacjanaszdom.pl phone/fax: +48 (068) 3847674mailto:lutol@fundacjanaszdom.plhttp://www.fundacjanaszdom.pl/shapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1
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