Heart and Soul: Synagogue for sale

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr Aleksandra Janus is a Polish Cultural Anthropologist with a Jewish background from Warsaw, Poland. Living in the capital flattened by Nazi bombs and then recreated by Communism, her multi-layered identity has always conjured mixed feelings about former Jewish memory and cultural spaces. As President of the organisation, Zapomniane Foundation (which means forgotten in English), one of her jobs is to trace mass graves in forests, cityscapes and death camps across the country in cooperation with local villagers, WWII survivors and non-invasive scanning technologies. Alerted by her friend Karolina Jakoweńko, she's come across an interesting proposition – an historic synagogue in the area of Poland that belonged to Germany before WWII. Once owned by a thriving Jewish community who were exterminated by the Nazis, now decades later the synagogue is in the hands of a private owner and Jewish people no longer live in the village. Synagogues in Germany were at first destroyed by the Nazis but not this synagogue – it miraculously survived. So, she's trying to grapple with the idea - does she buy a synagogue back to revive it or leave it where it belongs - in the past. The BBC’s Amie Liebowitz travels across Poland to explore the daily life of Aleksandra and her quest to both bury the dead and re-sanctify spaces. Driving through cities, forests and villages in between, Amie and Aleksandra alongside her colleagues unpacks what this purchase could look like and what post-Jewish, post-German spaces represent in modern Poland. Presenter/ Reporter: Amie Liebowitz

Transcript

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0:00.0	Seriously, where are you taking? We're like, we're completely off-road.
0:09.3	What is this? Is this a village road? Yeah, it is a dusty village road and I don't think it's it's a good idea to drive from here. So that's the end of the village and we're just we're just about to get off the car and
0:24.7	walk from here.
0:26.7	Okay.
0:27.7	I'm currently in Poland and we're at the edge of a village called Hobart, which is about an hour's drive from Warsaw.
0:39.0	That just speaking was Dr. Alexandra Janus, but everyone affectionately calls her
0:44.4	Ola, a Polish cultural anthropologist with a Jewish background. She's taking me
0:49.5	on what some might say is an adventure, but I have a feeling it's going to be more like a journey.
0:55.0	Well, I don't think you would actually know what you're looking at unless you know what you're looking at.
1:02.0	It's a big field with different kinds of trees and
1:06.5	overgrown plants. Lots of different kinds of birds are here and a muddy track.
1:12.3	You know where you're going? here and a muddy track.
1:13.0	You know where you going?
1:15.0	Yes, I think so. I hope so.
1:18.0	So we should go straight ahead to the forest.
1:21.0	Yes, ma'am. I'm laughing because I'm nervous. I don't just normally walk
1:28.7	into a forest. That's Alexander Schwartz. They work together and he's guiding us through the tracks, oaks and pine trees with his dog, Yusha.
1:38.0	My name is Amy Leibowitz and you're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service.
1:48.0	In this episode of Hut and Soul, which explores personal approaches to faith,
1:52.0	I'm looking into the life of Alexandra Janu. which explores personal approaches to faith.
1:52.5	I'm looking into the life of Alexandria Janus
1:55.6	and her quest to both bury the dead
	...

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