Tuesday, April 30, 2019

The Bathhouse in Tomashov or That's The Crux of The Matter. (About History of the Polish Midlands)






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.


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