More and
more often, the old buildings give way to the profitable construction
projects.The building business is booming in Polish Midlands, so
they are demolished and replaced by luxurious new buildings. An
image of Wilkie Drawking.
At
the end of March, the former
Jewish bath house in
Tomashov (Tomaszów Mazowiecki) was demolished. It was located on
Grünberg Street (ul. Tkacka) and was one of the oldest buildings in
the city. Count Antoni Ostrowski - the founder of Tomashov, gave the
Jewish kehilla a development area in 1829,
in which, among other things, this bath house was soon built.
In
the early 19th century, a farm worker found iron ore in the vicinity
of the later town of Tomashov.
The first industrial plants and three smaller towns were soon founded
by Count Tomasz Ostrowski.
The
area of present-day Central Poland was at that time covered by
vast forests
… which
stretched between the Vistula and Pilica rivers, where numerous wild
game lived.
However,
all this was to start to change quite quickly. A group of Polish
aristocracy
and people from the government of the Congress Poland came up with
some ideas to make this small piece of old Poland rich, which made us
consider them visionaries.
The
timing of such a venture was favorable: the customs border between
Congress Poland and Russia
was abolished, with the result that all Polish goods could be
exported
duty-free to
Russia and the Far East. Poland should now be united with Russia not
only by the common ruler.
The
Polish state was defended by high protective tariffs against the huge
superiority of Western Europe in the field of industry
And
the idea of the Polish high nobility was simple and ingenious:
to use the unemployment that was raging at that time in Prussia and
Saxony to
found new industry.
For example, clotheworkers in Lower Silesia and Lausitz were hired
for Count Antoni Ostrowski. The Polish
government
hastened (as it did in Lodz) to
help
by providing the settlers with all the necessaries of life.
The
new landlord, Count
Tomasz Ostrowski, was a very wise and generous man,
aware that charity begins at home. More than a hundred years later,
the descendants of the first settlers remembered it. "In the
city archives there is a certificate of assurances
and foundations,
which the
landlord of Tomashov,
count Anton Ostrowski, has vouched for the settlers of Tomashov."
This histoical document contains 482 positions. Many citizens of
Tomashov can still convince themselves today what donations their
ancestors were made by the Count."
(Festschrift
zur Erinnerung an das 100-jährige Jubiläum der 7-klässigen
öffentlichen Rey-Volksschule Nr. 5 zu Tomaschow-Mazowiecki,
edited by Rudolf Lembke, Tomaschow-Mazowiecki 1935, p.
10, 12 according to Polona Digital Library)
In
particular, the noble of the noblemen had supported the religious
life of his dear guests
He
has established foundations for
the Protestant settlers
from Germany and
for the Jews,
through which the two communities received land (and a significant
part of founds) for their temples and other facilities. The
Catholics
were able to count on the support of their then still very rich
church, but he
has supported them too
with an amount of donations for their common goals and purposes,
including for them who were most in need (the poor families).
In
1829 he gave to the worshippers of the Jewish community the property
for the construction of the ritual bathing establishment
They
used the asylum for more than one hundred years. In 1939
it was taken away from them, after the Third Reich’ German invasion
of Poland. A few years later, the Jewish inhabitants of Tomashov were
murdered by the Nazis.
The
Jewish bathhouse was, surprisingly, located
on the same street as the main institutions of the evangelical
believers
of Tomashov. Namely: their first church, the pastor's house and the
Evangelical Lutheran elementary school (intended for the youngest
children).
The
street was first called (in the 1820s) Grünberg Street
because
it was built by the settlers from the district of Grünberg (Lower
Silesia), who mostly built themselves closed on this one road to keep
their identity and cohesion. This meant no chauvinism; the Jews were
tolerated there, the Polish culture exercised its attraction. In the
early 20th
century,
this ethnic German community had been largely
polonized.
One fought on this street, which was then called Tkacka, for the
Polish language in the school. Polish was introduced there in 1919 as
the language of instruction, at the suggestion of the patriotic
Protestant clergy.
The
temple was built in the years 1823-1829, in neoclassical
architectural style
About
1830, op. cit..
Even
the presbytery and the elementary school building (the parish of St.
Trinity) have been preserved
to this day,
on Kosciuszko
Square,
the national hero of Poland, Belarus and the United States of
America..
The
Tomashov men and women of Jewish faith had been very active in
various spheres of life
Among
other things, they contributed to the flourishing of art and culture
in central Poland in the late 19th century and in the first half of
the 20th century. Noteworthy in particular is the music and
singing society Hasomir, which was founded in Tomashov.
After
the Second World War, the former Jewish community building was
nationalized by the Communists
...
and
quickly turned into a bathhouse
accessible to the whole population of the city.
Due to the extensive destruction of residential buildings during the
war and the increased cultural level of the Polish people, the
institution had been very popular among the urban population. This
changed only in the 1960s and 1970s, when the modern prefabricated
housing estates solved the worst sanitary and hygienic problems. In
1989
the bathhouse was closed and several meat shops opened in the same
building.
You can
often find the new residential buildings in the quiet, safe and
silent landscape of prefabricated blocks of flats from the time of
the People's Republic of Poland. An image of Wilkie Drawking.
In
the 21st century the building was left to its own fate as long as it
was finally ripe for breakage
It
is to be expected that a building site won in this way will be
sold very advantageously by the city administration to a Western
European or North American construction company.
