the jewish service of morning prayer for retaliation and warsaw's main synagogue led by the chief rabbi of poland michael should rick. the fact that there's noise behind me because the people who are prayed are now having breakfast together is a sign that there is jewish life resurgence of jewish life in poland that's a little less than a miracle. this was the country that nazi germany chose as its focus for a systematic genocide. during the holocaust some 6000000 jews died across europe we don't talk a lot about auschwitz. christmas this person has it as a gift a great gift. we desperately needed the rabbi.

some. fundraising. they said that. might shatter a catholic bishop among other public figures attending an interfaith service in the polish capital warsaw. the host chief rabbi michel should rick. it's a. prayer that anti semitism will disappear. change doesn't happen overnight. it takes time but as long as you see you're going in the right

direction that gives you gives you energy and gives you the. hope that sustains michael she directs work. this is the office of the chief rabbi of poland warsaw's knows that synagogue is home to the american born rabbi. and never find what you want or need it the son of a new york rabbi should rick 1st visited poland in the 1970 s. in search of his jewish roots at the end of the cold war the young man now a rabbi himself emigrated there the communist regime had long been hostile towards jews. this is the 1st time that a jewish prayer book was reprinted in poland. after the fall of communism this is the regional page was from a few $26.00 this is probably from. 9192. 30 years old warsaw has numerous jewish institutions including a flourishing school. the school caters to some 200 pupils so this is not.

you know on and the america's children among them like thousands of other polish jews the 40 year old started discovering her jewish heritage when she was already an adult. thanks to the dedication of chief rabbi michael should read. this school in which their jewish identity is respected and fostered as a great support for you on a knee a mere script her husband and their 3 children. are being murdered still. and so far still for her it's never never know for me i think this whole time on my no it's a few so real minority so it's real sometimes it feels like you know we only adults in the whole our own country. the school flourishes with financial support from the united states the american billionaire ronald s. lauder founded the institution in the 1990 s.

. his motive to encourage a renewal of jewish religious life in poland. we needed somebody to go to poland. i heard about this rabbi michael she's rich so we brought him over we saw him. and we said this is the right person was interesting is that the men. he became much more from would be much more polish there is to lead but which monica and stanislav were faithful to their jewish heritage even during the communist era as we had began before that you know we had as them they are watching early air and this money cause a book the 2nd one by the way of the summit there is there is some others involved on the research their jewish ancestry some 90 percent of the jewish population of

poland was slaughtered during german occupation those few who survived often did so by adopting christianity. the old cemeteries are the sole witness to poland's extensive jewish population before the shoah. then to learn anything to do with and. feeling jewish and when we were children because we were not introduced into it. chief rabbi michael sitrick on a visit to southern poland. the dutch. rabbi should rick is constantly on the move even when traveling he's multitasking today he's conferencing with the jewish community in pittsburgh. just steps or so. they're setting up an exchange program for young jews from poland and the u.

. les i think the our biggest challenge the very practical and it's still it's less but still existing on follow up is we don't necessarily have the professional staff to follow up the way we show. so many projects and sometimes it seems like too much for one person. who said it was going to be easy. i can say that the jewish community of poland in the last 30 years has gone from a stagnating dying dysfunctional jewish community to a reemerging vibrant dysfunctional jewish community. we're still dysfunctional but at least now we're alive we're vibrant we're creating. today there are once again jewish communities in all of poland's larger towns with several 1000 members . nobody knows exactly how many some say there are up 212000 practicing jews.

this renee's on says given rise to new business ventures kosher food for instance the rabbi shubrick is visiting 3 of those businesses today only one was willing to be filmed the profit of vodka distillery that. the production 1st of the office of the production. rabbi shubrick checks that the body is produced in conformity with jewish law. for instance no flavorings with gelatine may be used or any other ingredient derived from pigs. so this is the see here actually some when we see it signed in hebrew by our scotia supervisor it's. with a a lock here here and here and here and here. so we know that when we come back to the passover the passover production that it really is from that. most of the

production is destined for export only a fraction for local consumption so at least the share you are selling opponents which means. people who. are. paid it's not going to be could. if you think about it to politicians jewish people but i think most of people don't know that. from jewish communities so i think. this is still in progress so. you have. information to get information about. roads and they can range very well so. i'm very happy that i wasn't the only jew who won through live as a jew in both of them because otherwise it would have been very lonely. the rabbi with a present. very point it's kosher for passover. so far our impressions

have been positive but jewish gentile encounters don't always run as smoothly lets go. relations with the polish government have been strained recently. the nationalist right wing government introduced legislation in 2018 that offended jewish sensibilities deeply. it makes it illegal to claim that poland collaborated with nazi germany and perpetrating the holocaust. it basically was the the good name of poland the polish shouldn't be blamed for things that they didn't do but there was then a great concern is but they were poles they did bad things and how we going to deal with that jewish push back met with a wave but anti-semitic rhetoric in the media. name staff the legislation was controversial keystone opponents on the one hand poles feel insulted when the. in europe or international media referred to the german

concentration camps as the polish death camps and he told us you have to understand that at that point the polish people themselves suffered during the 2nd world war and after she was given a shot. at the end there was an unnecessary. problem that as some. moral lasts is no longer you know people remember it but it's no longer a wound it's a scar. when international jewish organizations protested the legislation warsaw held discussions with the israeli government and made some substantial amendments. rabbi should rick likes to focus on the positive aspects of life in poland.

that poland is represented by people like daria's p.l.o. for instance. a member of the polish olympic team. is as busy as the chief rabbi but he still finds time to get involved in the restoration of jewish cemeteries. like the one in southern poland for many years the cemetery was completely neglected. we'll do something here to improve things 1st a launch an appeal on facebook we already have permission i just thought i'd have more time now to do something otherwise i'd have come much sooner to get this fixed up. book yellow once to clear the cemetery of brambles and restore its former dignity. several months later the reopening after a lot of hard work. a memorial plaque is a wrecked it listing the jewish residents of the small village who were killed by the nazis. or. why should rick especially appreciates the commitment of

these volunteer workers. it's a real life for the group of reason was closed after several centuries you know august 9th 242 on trying to provoke was the nazis started there i'm sure the phrase . that. you. hear. that was why. i know. there are initial divs like this all over poland for the past 30 years the restoration work has been focusing on a few more towns or villages each year michael should rick considers this one of his most important tasks. relatives of the people

buried here often come from overseas to visit. my 2 kids my niece and nephew my sister my brother in law. my wife i to go somewhere. it's an obligation of every good. not only to germany it's really the obligation of every good human being to me what happened when i was there but if you think about that then perhaps the 1st thing we should do is make sure that every victim of the holocaust has a great friends i know this to me to the best of our ability we'll never get close to you have to graze for success we understand that each of the budget cuts you 100 more like 30 or more even one. there's a tremendous value why it's sometimes said of michael should rick that he's rabbi of the living and of the dead in poland. a little bit if at home

with yana look asha and their 3 children as rob rima and nina. the couple have international contacts you know ana is an actress and recently appeared in a swedish film. husband who is a theater director and has been working in slovakia. who question the myths that living openly as a jew in poland sometimes makes him feel and secure. what was going to undergo moments after the war you have to do is after all he belonged with the 68 because it was the moment when. my family had to go go go out from bolen's the so-called march events of $968.00 where a further trauma for polish jews the communist party declared the student protests a jewish rebellion there was an upsurge in anti-semitism. many polish jews who had

survived the shoah now left in fear of their lives. my life our war was the person 1st person who told of mary's no one to some of his men in poland but now i'm. talking to myself where you are and where. the strange way. jewish kids into a school. the jewish community in poland is on a journey that started 30 years ago in a small village in the south of the country. at an adult education center here michel should rick organized seminars on jewish life. today it's a hotel and guest house. it's the 1st time in many years that rabbi should rick has been back to the place where it all began i mean it seems people have 1520 years i

know for i reckon. maybe some ladies would think. it's impossible to. be jewish in poland and not feel the presence of the apps it's the generation born after the show i often don't know anything about their jewish roots and even those who knew never had a chance to experience they've never had a shot before. not some some did but many didn't. and so it was really a 1st chance who was also a chance just to be openly jewish. you know he didn't have to worry about anybody making a comment or wondering what it meant so. a lot of ways it all started here. we had a dinner. i look to these kids they would not kids anymore they wouldn't have thirty's and forty's and i'll never

forget. the raisins. and he said. to sing this song. to his children all those with hundreds who remember the song heard the song please join. the 1st 102080 kids 80 of the 100 missing. from this just something by them they've probably never heard before since that. one year later the latter foundation financed the 1st jewish courses in respond. stanislav and monica craig esky were 2 of the 1st participants. at last they felt

able to practice their jewish faith openly no need to hide and be discreet as in the communist era stannis talk even led community prayers sometimes. many of the participants were holocaust survivors. during the war there were 2 of them so they were not some of them were very little babies some of there were 8 or 10 and the sort of 5 to know either because they were hiding somewhere or no were given the. both the crate yet skis were born after the war. this was very helpful make me more. knowledge. make me know how do the things that rug a lot of jewels do because this is not something that i got from our family also this is true about all almost all people of my generation and the younger so those who lived. were jewish in some way in the seventy's or in the eighty's they were

mostly very very far from. jewish involvement. you know 8 weeks a year 6 that rudeness. a makeshift synagogue was constructed in the corner of the education center for jewish religious like poland it was like starting from scratch. everything from basic things in judaism should be kosher holidays history to what does it need to be jewish how do you feel about being jewish and then also getting to know each other icebreakers and sometimes fun things everybody reenact the biblical scene. and on friday nights we'll put all the different benches that we could find and

we'd have the prayer outside which is really i think everyone's favorite moment of the week. appropriately the seminar buildings where this jewish renaissance began are located just an hour by car in the former german concentration camp auschwitz birkenau. or nazi henchmen carried out the largest act of mass murder in history to take place at any single location. but i think it's harder to visit this place than easier. when it really became harder. and so there's through with 2 things one is so once my daughter was born i think in a natural way when you walk here when you don't have children you think that i could have i survived how much of a child you think could be cured could your child have survived and their 300 comes

a completely different experience. to gas chamber 3 chamber for gas chamber 5 and this is the sauna. sometimes the rabbi visits auschwitz birkenau several times a month many visitors from america and israel ask to meet him at the site where their relatives were killed and he's also the auschwitz foundation's senior religious representative the foundation that administers the concentration camp museum rabbi shooter it says keeping the memory alive is crucial. it seems that in europe the shock of the. holocaust of the genocide the genocide in history. kind of silenced those people who refused to learn the lesson and it seems now

75 years later many people do know the lesson there are those who never knew the lesson and now want to speak. in a loud voice about. denying the holocaust. holocaust. and restart an austrian jew from vienna was an auschwitz survivor in august 1954 he was sent to auschwitz birkenau on one of the last transports to leave the concentration camp. the platform of its. slaughter. this. shot of if. it's in front of muscle. this is the place where.

you know we go like this and my uncle told me the story when they arrived on the train from trees and shot into raisin. the world war one veterans were treated better because there was some level of jewish self-government enter a cinch that some level but these 3 of the veterans were treated better and mangled they were lined up 5555 and they were in the same line as some vets world war one veterans and mengele sent the veterans straight to the gas chambers and my uncle and his brother followed immediately with them figuring they're going to a better place based on their experience in theresienstadt and then mengele had his guards kicked my uncle and his brother to the other side saying that huge you can't decide your fate those you couldn't leave and you couldn't even decide to be killed

. and so ironically mengele saved my uncle's life. which is bizarre. henry star survived auschwitz and emigrated to the us where he married and had children michael should rick learned a lot from his uncle what extent. you know the ideas that you just i very much it took away from that i think took away from that that you just you can't be indifferent as something is wrong you have to try to fix it. it's december christmas and warsaw. christian traditions are by. hard polish culture. the jewish community is celebrating hanukkah the festival of lights.

simply put it was the place i was supposed to be. even after 30 years there are still lots to do in this country where jewish life was virtually a radical aided by nazi germany. no looks like it's still the place i'm supposed to be. a in. c past.

and. you can me turn at main to your industrial complexes. and she's armed with brushes paint and canvas. the artist zucker's silk a bonnet is captivated by the night. her dark passion blossoms as magical paintings of. your romance next on the table you.

check in takes this special trip. to do this show is not just the city trip but also a journey for jewish history fire wars and mines are considered the freedom of european judaism. jewish life has shaped these 3 cities for more than 100 years and i want to know what remains of it. 60 minutes on t.w. . every 2 seconds a person is forced to flee their home. the consequences come into sas trysts hour documentary series displaced depicts dramatic humanitarian crises from the world. forgetting we don't think i'm going to i didn't go to university to kill

people who don't know the impact that handful of people feel for the miners and their future so they seek refuge abroad but what will become of commerce who stay behind. displaced this week on d.w. . taking a ride on the wild side we'll find out what euro max before the match merrill is up to later on in the show. everyone welcome to another fun filled edition of euro max i'm your host meghan li here's a.