Poland 2007: Interview with Witek Wrzosinski

During a break in our work at the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, Witek Wrzosinski, with JRI-Poland, explained the purpose behind the project and the importance of documenting the names of those buried here. What follows is a partial transcript of our interview with him, which Witek was kind enough to do in English:

TLP: Could you describe what we have happening here? Why is this work taking place and when was the last time this was done?

Witek: There hasn't been any time like that. It's 50 years of negligence here. Nobody has done anything since the war, because there has been no money and no people to do it. So, [the Jewish Cemetery] became a jungle, a wild forest. So, you are the first to do things like that. Sometimes there are groups of Israeli army trying to do something but they are worse than you. It will enable us to write down everything, to write down the graves and put it in a database for the first time because the list was destroyed during the war... and we are the only ones trying to keep a record. And it will be possible now in that sector and the previous sector...

TLP: Because you can actually see the graves, for the first time you can see the graves.

Witek: Yeah, see the graves. It's as simple as that. With trees and bushes, you just don't see them and that's it. And we don't have people to do it and no one is interested, actually, in doing that. It's more convenient to just leave it as a forest.

TLP: Why do you think it is that no one is interested in taking part?

Witek: Because there are, I think, other things that are considered more urgent, and also easier, and not requiring sums of money that nobody knows. Nobody knows here how much it costs to take care of it, so nobody wants to take the risk. And people also are not really happy with walking here in the mud, cutting down trees, writing down the graves. It isn't very attractive. They prefer, for example, to organize a festival. Easier, cleaner, you know. So, people are [holding their] thumbs up, saying you're doing a great job, keep it going, and we'll gladly see the database on the internet.

TLP: How many Jews were in Warsaw before the war and how many are here now?

Witek: In Warsaw there were 300,000, one third of the population. In Poland it was three million, which was 10% of the population. Now, nobody knows of course, because lots of people don't know whether they're Jewish, or don't tell anyone they're Jewish, or don't consider themselves Jewish. It's estimated that there are around 5,000 Jews in Warsaw, maybe, and maybe 25,000 in Poland. It's also a question of who is Jewish, because there are not really many Jews in Poland who are religious or who have had a Jewish mother and Jewish father... It's not attractive. It's Orthodox only. There's like 300 people in the community versus 5000 in Warsaw, and it's the community that is responsible for the cemetery. So, if they have 300 people, they don't really have the means to do everything. They would have to employ them all everyday to keep the [cemetery maintained.] There's a manager of the cemetery who is working hard, trying to do anything to control the growth of the plants, but he's not successful.

TLP: What do you think could be done in order to make this cemetery a more vibrant place and a place where upkeep would regularly happen?

Witek: One way would be to publicize this as a park, a wild forest in the middle of the city, to encourage people to come here to walk, which would in itself would work. For example, by walking they would prevent the plants from growing. But, it's dangerous because large amounts of people coming here would be hard to control. Maybe groups of skinheads, things like that, you know... nobody knows. So it's better to keep it low, [under community supervision]. And the other way I think is with what we are doing, putting it on the internet and maybe the descendents of the people who are buried here will come and try to do something about the graves that are falling down. I have no idea actually, it needs huge sums of money and it wouldn't be a good business. There's no way to earn that money, so only charity, and that's it. I don't imagine anything else. Anyways, it's a cemetery you know, it's the house of the dead, so nothing very lively can happen here - and shouldn't.

TLP: How long will it take you to write down all of the names of all of the people in all of the sectors that remain here in the cemetery?

Witek: We thought it would be a project for three-four years, but now it seems that it will be a year more, maybe a year and a half, because officially there have been 250,000 burials here, but practically it's not like that. Lots of those numbers are in mass graves, with 40,000 people - there's one like that in the middle. And also - they did stuff like that when there was no more place to bury people and they couldn't buy another piece of land to make the cemetery larger, they just chose a sector with poor people or forgotten people, they piled dirt on it, and then rich people could have graves on the ground. And there are three or four sectors like that here too, so the numbers are diminishing all the time. We think that maybe we could write down 100,000 graves here, that would be a maximum.

TLP: Why is it important to document the names of all of the people here?

Witek: Because it is one of the biggest Jewish cemeteries in the world. Probably millions or hundreds of thousands of people have ancestors here and don't know it or know it but can't find the graves, and it's important to have a grave of your great-great-great someone, to just stand by it, look at it - I discovered it in myself when I found the grave of my great-great grandfather... It's a strange feeling, but it gives you something, it's important, you feel rooted. And many people are rooted here and don't know it, or cannot know it, and now it will be official. They will be able to find the name in the database and the grave, and see the grave because we have pictures in the database. Maybe come here and clean up a little.

TLP: Can you tell us more about the time when you discovered the tomb of your great-great grandfather? Were you looking for it and did you expect to find it?

Witek: I knew that my grandmother's parents died in the ghetto. And I also knew that the parents of my grandmother's mother died in Israel. But there was a document with the names of the parents of my grandmother's father and I just started to look for the names in the database of the manager of the cemetery and in the graves that we wrote down. I found one grave that looked like that, I went there, and it was the mother of my grandmother's father. So it was the first time when I... it was moving... and then we were just writing down that one sector. And I stepped on one grave to make it easier, it was lying down. I just stood on it to write it down, and while I was writing it down I discovered that it's everything summed up - it's the name, the family name, the date, everything I was looking for. So, yeah, it was the grandfather of my grandmother and, on the inscriptions, on the Jewish inscriptions, you always have the name of the father of the deceased. So, I knew the first name of the previous generation, I started to look for it and it was in the database, so we went there. And I looked on it, and it was something, you know? To find someone who was your direct ancestor like six, seven generations back - moving, but also exotic because you can't completely assimilate it and to see those names written only in Hebrew, not even one Polish letter, so strange...

	Poland 2007: Witek Wrzosinski
Home	During a break in our work at the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, Witek Wrzosinski, with JRI-Poland, explained the purpose behind the project and the importance of documenting the names of those buried here. What follows is a partial transcript of our interview with him, which Witek was kind enough to do in English: TLP: Could you describe what we have happening here? Why is this work taking place and when was the last time this was done? Witek: There hasn't been any time like that. It's 50 years of negligence here. Nobody has done anything since the war, because there has been no money and no people to do it. So, [the Jewish Cemetery] became a jungle, a wild forest. So, you are the first to do things like that. Sometimes there are groups of Israeli army trying to do something but they are worse than you. It will enable us to write down everything, to write down the graves and put it in a database for the first time because the list was destroyed during the war... and we are the only ones trying to keep a record. And it will be possible now in that sector and the previous sector... TLP: Because you can actually see the graves, for the first time you can see the graves. Witek: Yeah, see the graves. It's as simple as that. With trees and bushes, you just don't see them and that's it. And we don't have people to do it and no one is interested, actually, in doing that. It's more convenient to just leave it as a forest. TLP: Why do you think it is that no one is interested in taking part? Witek: Because there are, I think, other things that are considered more urgent, and also easier, and not requiring sums of money that nobody knows. Nobody knows here how much it costs to take care of it, so nobody wants to take the risk. And people also are not really happy with walking here in the mud, cutting down trees, writing down the graves. It isn't very attractive. They prefer, for example, to organize a festival. Easier, cleaner, you know. So, people are [holding their] thumbs up, saying you're doing a great job, keep it going, and we'll gladly see the database on the internet. TLP: How many Jews were in Warsaw before the war and how many are here now? Witek: In Warsaw there were 300,000, one third of the population. In Poland it was three million, which was 10% of the population. Now, nobody knows of course, because lots of people don't know whether they're Jewish, or don't tell anyone they're Jewish, or don't consider themselves Jewish. It's estimated that there are around 5,000 Jews in Warsaw, maybe, and maybe 25,000 in Poland. It's also a question of who is Jewish, because there are not really many Jews in Poland who are religious or who have had a Jewish mother and Jewish father... It's not attractive. It's Orthodox only. There's like 300 people in the community versus 5000 in Warsaw, and it's the community that is responsible for the cemetery. So, if they have 300 people, they don't really have the means to do everything. They would have to employ them all everyday to keep the [cemetery maintained.] There's a manager of the cemetery who is working hard, trying to do anything to control the growth of the plants, but he's not successful. TLP: What do you think could be done in order to make this cemetery a more vibrant place and a place where upkeep would regularly happen? Witek: One way would be to publicize this as a park, a wild forest in the middle of the city, to encourage people to come here to walk, which would in itself would work. For example, by walking they would prevent the plants from growing. But, it's dangerous because large amounts of people coming here would be hard to control. Maybe groups of skinheads, things like that, you know... nobody knows. So it's better to keep it low, [under community supervision]. And the other way I think is with what we are doing, putting it on the internet and maybe the descendents of the people who are buried here will come and try to do something about the graves that are falling down. I have no idea actually, it needs huge sums of money and it wouldn't be a good business. There's no way to earn that money, so only charity, and that's it. I don't imagine anything else. Anyways, it's a cemetery you know, it's the house of the dead, so nothing very lively can happen here - and shouldn't. TLP: How long will it take you to write down all of the names of all of the people in all of the sectors that remain here in the cemetery? Witek: We thought it would be a project for three-four years, but now it seems that it will be a year more, maybe a year and a half, because officially there have been 250,000 burials here, but practically it's not like that. Lots of those numbers are in mass graves, with 40,000 people - there's one like that in the middle. And also - they did stuff like that when there was no more place to bury people and they couldn't buy another piece of land to make the cemetery larger, they just chose a sector with poor people or forgotten people, they piled dirt on it, and then rich people could have graves on the ground. And there are three or four sectors like that here too, so the numbers are diminishing all the time. We think that maybe we could write down 100,000 graves here, that would be a maximum. TLP: Why is it important to document the names of all of the people here? Witek: Because it is one of the biggest Jewish cemeteries in the world. Probably millions or hundreds of thousands of people have ancestors here and don't know it or know it but can't find the graves, and it's important to have a grave of your great-great-great someone, to just stand by it, look at it - I discovered it in myself when I found the grave of my great-great grandfather... It's a strange feeling, but it gives you something, it's important, you feel rooted. And many people are rooted here and don't know it, or cannot know it, and now it will be official. They will be able to find the name in the database and the grave, and see the grave because we have pictures in the database. Maybe come here and clean up a little. TLP: Can you tell us more about the time when you discovered the tomb of your great-great grandfather? Were you looking for it and did you expect to find it? Witek: I knew that my grandmother's parents died in the ghetto. And I also knew that the parents of my grandmother's mother died in Israel. But there was a document with the names of the parents of my grandmother's father and I just started to look for the names in the database of the manager of the cemetery and in the graves that we wrote down. I found one grave that looked like that, I went there, and it was the mother of my grandmother's father. So it was the first time when I... it was moving... and then we were just writing down that one sector. And I stepped on one grave to make it easier, it was lying down. I just stood on it to write it down, and while I was writing it down I discovered that it's everything summed up - it's the name, the family name, the date, everything I was looking for. So, yeah, it was the grandfather of my grandmother and, on the inscriptions, on the Jewish inscriptions, you always have the name of the father of the deceased. So, I knew the first name of the previous generation, I started to look for it and it was in the database, so we went there. And I looked on it, and it was something, you know? To find someone who was your direct ancestor like six, seven generations back - moving, but also exotic because you can't completely assimilate it and to see those names written only in Hebrew, not even one Polish letter, so strange...
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Poland 2007: Witek Wrzosinski