"To Bring Memory Back" edition 2006-2007

BIŁGORAJ - Zespół Szkół Leśnych

Who are we

Forestry School Complex from Bilgoraj is a school which gathers students from all around Poland. Students from Bilgoraj are a minority and in contrary to all expectations our group consists of students from outside the town. Our project in its guidelines had two localities with remaining traces of Jewish culture, to take into account: Jozefow and Stary Dzikow, both close to us.

Why we do this project

Before the war Bilgoraj and its vicinity was a mixture of two cultures – Polish and Jewish. We want to prove that the population making one milieu could live together in peace, learning each other customs, culture and religion, exchange experiences. 

     We would like to show that one cannot create a culture and develop in distance from the past, because it is the very source of our knowledge. We wrote about facto known so far only to some few, maybe even about things log forgotten. The painful memory about events which are awe-inspiring toward to different culture is very important to us.

What we do in the project

We’re just a little group (there’s only three of us) but we decided to act. So far we gathered information on life of Jews in Jozefow, their culture, activities, and coexistence in Polish neighbourhood. The work includes also information on history of Jews from Jozefow during the war and a description of the Jewish cemetery. We’ve wanted to contact a Jewish lady still living in Jozefow. Alas, she refused but some time ago she was interviewed by a reporter from local gazette “Magazyn Kresowy” which we let ourselves to gain, copy it and send to FODZ. The interview is a story of a woman who survived the war and how did she fund herself in the presence.  

Paper on Jozefow has been illustrated with photos of the cemetery which is located in our town.

          One of the students decided to write about his hometown – Stary Dzikow. He concentrated mainly on history of Jews living there before the war – he’s giving names and occupations of local Jewish population. All is illustrated with photos of a synagogue erected before 19th century. 

          During the Local Government Day in our school we organized an art contest under the motto “To Bring Memory Back”. The works were done in pencil and the best ones were displayed in the reading room of our library.




Within the frameworks of the Project we intend to clean up the Jewish cemetery in Bilgoraj.