The idea
We are a family and a group of friends dedicated to saving the memory of the Jews of Mszana Dolna and building kind relations with the descendants of the few among them who survived the Shoah. We take care of the sites of memory and martyrdom of the Jews of Mszana Dolna, organise anniversaries of the Shoah in our town, as well as Remembrance Days and Remembrance Walks. Together with the town’s youth we plant crocuses at the mass murder sites to commemorate the youngest victims. Every week we light the Shabbat candles and bake challah, we also light the menorah during the Chanukkah. We do this in commemoration of Mszana’s Jews, for them and in their stead, to show our dissent to what happened to them. We also look for survivors’ descendants and keep in touch with them. We run the Facebook page Sztetl Mszana Dolna. We take initiatives, such as officially naming the alley leading to the main mass grave of the Jews of Mszana Dolna the Alley in Commemoration of Holocaust Victims (in 2012), setting up a historical marker at the former site of the synagogue (in 2020) planting a tree in honour of the town’s Righteous Among the Nations, Stefania and Józef Wacławik (in 2020), marking the unmarked burial sites of the Shoah victims buried at the Jewish cemetary (2020, in cooperation with Fundacja Zapomniane, see https://zapomniane.org/en/about/). and the erection of a common gravestone for them in the shape of a matzeva, with the names of the Victims inscribed, which have been established (2022), the renovation of the monument on the mass grave of the Jews on Pansky Street and the separation of the actual burial place ic stone posts with a rope (2022). We are planning further initiatives - including commemorating the Holocaust Victims of Mszana Dolna by name, on a granite plaque at the site of the deadliest crime of 19.08.1942 on Pańskie (2023).
Project Coordinator:
URSZULA ANTOSZ-REKUCKA
A graduate of Kraków’s Academy of Theology (currently the Pontifical University of John Paul II), Urszula Antosz-Rekucka has been a religious education teacher in state schools for many years. She has made continuous efforts to commemorate the Jews of Mszana Dolna and its vicinity, as well as to teach the young people dialogue with and respect for the others. To do all that, she takes action at the personal, professional, and public levels. She and her students engage in projects connected with commemoration and dialogue and keep on visiting the mass Jewish graves in the town on a regular basis. She has organised Polish-Israeli youth meetings in Mszana Dolna. She delivers lectures on her experience and understanding of the Jewish-Christian dialogue, including: “Christianity and Judaism: What Catholics can learn from religious Jews” (during the 2018 Day of Judaism at the Pontifical University of John Paul in Kraków), “Remembering the Jews in Mszana Dolna” (at the Center for Jewish Culture in Kraków, 2018), “My way to the dialogue” (at the Jewish-Christian joint Simchat Torah celebration in Warsaw in 2019), and the lecture during the 2019 and 2020 Jewish Culture Days in Słupsk. She received an honourable mention in the 9th edition of the Irena Sendler Award “For Repairing the World,” and a nomination to the 2017 Polin Museum Award. Urszula Antosz-Rekucka received the S. Musiał Award, founded by the Rector of the Jagiellonian University, Mayor of the City of Kraków, and Jewish Religious Community of Kraków, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Medal in 2018, and the J. Boniecki Polcul Foundation Award in 2019, "Meritorious for Culture" statuettes from the Limanowa District in 2023, and "Gratitude הכרת הטוב" B’nai B’rith International. She is a member of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, a member of Przymierze (Covenant)—the Krakow Association of Christians and Jews, a Leader of Dialogue, and a Social Guardian of Monuments.
Project Translator:
JAKUB ANTOSZ-REKUCKI
A PhD candidate at the Doctoral School in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and aneditor and translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project, Jakub Antosz-Rekucki is a graduate of a Master’s Programme in English and American studies at the Jagiellonian University in Ktaków. He was a participant of such programmes as the Polish-Israeli Youth Exchange (2016), To Bring the Memory Back—a project of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, and Let’s Save the Memory—project of the Centre for Education Development in Warsaw.
Co-Editor, Translator of correspondence with the descendants of the Jews of Mszana Dolna:
RACHELA ANTOSZ-REKUCKA
Graduate of psychology at the Jagiellonian University, doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Social Sciences at the Jagiellonian University, participant in the projects "To preserve memory. History and Culture of Two Nations", "Faces of Dialogue. Young Assisi. Youth for tolerance and dialogue". Translator of some articles. Author of translations into English in the publication: Jewish cemetery in Mszana Dolna " And the memory of them will not cease with posterity" (Est 9:28).
Vice-Coordinator and Public Relations Specialist:
MAREK REKUCKI,
A member of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, Dialogue Leader, Vice President of the Shtetl Mszana Dolna Foundation, graduate of the 2019 Dialogue Forum "Social Project Management" seminar, 2021 Academy of Memory Keepers, 2021 Academy of Public Procurement.
Author of descriptions of tombstones in the Jewish cemetery, translator of the inscriptions:
JOLANTA KRUSZNIEWSKA
Judaist, passionate photographer and explorer of the Jewish history of Grybów and the surrounding area.
