Nasielsk Newsletter
Here's the most recent newsletter emailed to the Nasielsk Society distribution list. If you'd like to be added to the list, please send us a message.
December 3, 2023
Newsletter
November 25, 2023
Dear Friends:
A recording of this morning's dedication ceremony for the memorial to the victims of the 1939 deportation from Nasielsk has been posted to Facebook. Thank you again to Mayor Ruszkowski and his dedicated staff for helping to make this memorial and the ceremony a reality.
Dear Friends of Nasielsk!
This coming year, 2024, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first "Return to Nasielsk" by members of our descendants' group. Reflecting on that decade of engagement with the local community in Nasielsk, we have reason to be proud of our accomplishments. We reclaimed and restored the Jewish cemetery; placed a historical marker about the town’s Jewish history; we recovered the synagogue windows, the last remnants of Nasielsk's great synagogue; and we erected and dedicated the Memorial Gate on the cemetery grounds to honor the generations of Jewish Nasielskers buried there as well as those who should have been buried there but have no stone to commemorate their resting place.
In 2022, we saw the dedication of a new mural, created on the initiative of a local artist, commemorating the Jewish-owned button factory, and we visited the exhibit in Nasielsk’s Historical Museum dedicated to Jewish life. We sponsored several screenings of the documentary, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, attended by hundreds of local residents. And perhaps most meaningfully, we were treated to “This is Our Common History,” a musical and dramatic production by local students, Kindergarten through high school, the culmination of a year’s curriculum on Jewish history and culture.
Our engagement with the local community has fostered meaningful friendships and has brought the history of Nasielsk's Jewish community back into historical consciousness.
In this anniversary year, we hope to continue building on this extraordinary decade of work, to deepen our relationships and ensure that the history and memory of Nasielsk's Jewish community persists.
It is therefore of profound significance that the town of Nasielsk has taken the initiative in honoring the victims of the German deportation in 1939.
Deportation Memorial
On December 3, 2023, the town of Nasielsk will dedicate a memorial to the thousands of its Jewish citizens who were deported by Nazi Germany on Dec. 3, 1939. The dedication takes place on the eighty-fourth anniversary of this event, which marked the end of the 400-year history of Nasielsk's Jewish community.
The memorial stands on the Rynek (marketplace), facing the site of the former Synagogue. The text, in Polish and English, explains the fate of the town's Jewish citizens and their contributions to Nasielsk's history.
By coincidence, the memorial also stands at almost the same spot where my grandfather, David Kurtz, stood when he filmed the vibrant cluster of Jewish residents during his brief visit to Nasielsk in 1938.
The memorial was conceived and constructed on the initiative of Mayor Bogdan Ruszkowski. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Mayor Ruszkowski and his staff for their steadfast support and friendship over the past ten years.
Memorial Gate Repaired
In April, the municipal administration in Nasielsk completed repairs of the Memorial Gate, which was dedicated in May 2022. The broken glass panels, vandalized in Sept. 2022, have been restored, and the Memorial again recalls the Synagogue windows on which its design is based. Once again, we extend our profound thanks to Mayor Bogdan Ruszkowski and the Nasielsk town administration for their sensitive and prompt response to this deplorable incident.
the restored windows
Maurice Chandler turns 99!
On a joyous note, our beloved friend Maurice Chandler celebrated his 99th birthday on November 16. Morry appears as a 13-year-old boy in David Kurtz's 1938 home movie. His miraculous wartime survival, his extraordinary memory, his undaunted courage, and his profound compassion and wisdom are our inspiration and are at the heart of all our efforts to preserve the history of Nasielsk's Jewish history.
On behalf of the Nasielsk Society for Remembrance and Reconciliation, we wish Morry a very happy birthday. Biz hundert un tsvantsik!
Plans for 2024
In 2024, we will begin two new projects. First, in our most complex and expensive undertaking yet, we will place a fence around the cemetery grounds, to define the space and preserve its integrity as a sacred site of memory.
In addition, we will continue to expand our involvement with Nasielsk’s schools, bringing Jewish history and culture to the curriculum and fostering interpersonal contact between students and members of our group. We are inexpressibly grateful for our partnership with Olga Ickiewicz and Nasielsk’s dedicated teachers, who continue to bring the message of tolerance and respect to students throughout the school system.
Our educational projects include a creating self-guided tour of Jewish Nasielsk, drawing on family histories of our members as well as archival documents and oral histories.
You can learn more about some of the significant milestones of our first decade in the October 2022 Newsletter posted in the Blog section on the Nasielsk Society website.
In early 2024, I will send an update with more details about these projects.
Year-End Donations
As the year comes to an end, I hope you will continue to support our efforts to preserve the history of Nasielsk's Jewish community and to pass on its memory to the next generation.
The accomplishments of the past decade have only been possible because of your support! Your contributions now will help make the upcoming fence project possible and will enable us to deepen our engagement with Nasielsk’s students.
To those who have not yet contributed, I urge you to do so. The preservation of Nasielsk’s Jewish history is in our hands. No donation is too small!
The Nasielsk Society for Remembrance and Reconciliation is a registered 501(c)3 organization, and your contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
You can easily contribute through PayPal via our website: visit nasielsksociety.org, and click Donate!
If you prefer, you may contribute by check payable to The Nasielsk Society, and mail it to:
The Nasielsk Society
c/o Glenn Kurtz
2323 Laguna Street
Apt. 401
San Francisco, CA 94115
Thank you all for your support.
Glenn Kurtz
President,