find out on the miracle of life in tomorrow today in 60 minutes from d.w. . earth the home for saving global india's tells stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas that protect the climate and boost green energy solutions by global warming to has been by a series of global 3000 on d. w. and online. a lookup. the jewish service of morning prayer shot for retaliation and warsaw's main synagogue led by the chief rabbi of poland michael should rick. mitchell yeah.

the fact that there's noise behind me because the people who train are now having breakfast together is a sign that there is jewish life but it's the 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. or the others. some. fundraising.

they said that. we trusted a catholic bishop among other public figures attending an interfaith service in the polish capital warsaw. the host chief rabbi michael should rick. it's. a prayer that anti semitism will disappear and 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 should ric's work this is the office of the chief rabbi of poland warsaw is no 6 synagogue is home to the american born rabbi. you never find what you want in your native 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 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 us. you know on any 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 america her husband and their 3 children. but will be neutral. in so far still for this it's never never milk for this i think this is so and the money my know it's a huge real minority so it's real sometimes it feels like you know we only see 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 need somebody to go to poland. i heard about this rabbi michel sheetrit so we brought him over we saw him. and we said this is the right person was

interesting is that the music. he became much more from. the much more polish. he started to lead for 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 begun they are watching early air and this money cause a book the 2nd one by the way of the summit there is the reason mothers involved on the research their jewish ancestry. some 90 percent of the jewish population of poland was slaughtered during the 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 jewish we didn't. feel jewish and when we were children because we were not introduced into it. chief rabbi michael sitrick on a visit to southern poland. the. 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 stands. there setting up an exchange program for young jews from poland and the. 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 should pick his visiting 3 of those businesses today only one was willing to be filmed the profit of vodka distillery that was the production for the office

of the production. rabbi should read 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 see here actually some when you 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. which means. people who. are. paid it's not going to be could communicate if you think about coalition jewish people but i think most people don't

know that they are from is coming so i think. this is true in progress so. information to get information about. roads and a generation very well. 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 the with the present. very important kosher for passover. so far our impressions have been positive but jewish gentile encounters don't always run as smoothly let's 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 in perpetrating the holocaust. and 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're going to deal with that. jewish pushback met with the way but anti-semitic rhetoric in the media. didn't name that staffer the legislation was controversial he said on opponents on the one hand poles feel insulted when the press in europe or international media refer to the german concentration camps as polish death camps and the hearts of poles you have to understand that at the point of the polish people themselves suffered during the 2nd world war and after she was given a shot i think at the end there was an unnecessary. problem that as

such. more or less 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 dogs and 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 brambles and restore its former. several months later the reopening after a lot of hard work. a memorial plaque is a wreck did listing the jewish residents of the small village who were killed by the nazis. so the rabbi should rick especially appreciates the commitment of these volunteer workers. it's a reasonable course of life for the group of reason was closed off for several centuries in august $94.00 to 2 unprintable i was the nazis started to run for the party so.

there. you have. you know i thought that was why. i know. there are initiatives 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 michel should rick considers this one of his most important tasks. my relatives of the people buried here often come from overseas to visit. to give to my 2 kids my niece and nephew my sister my brother in law. my wife fighting over there somewhere. it's an obligation of every good to. not only choose

germany it's really the obligation of every with human being remember what happened and all the rest of it 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 part of this dimension the best of our ability we'll never get close to you have to graze for 6 when you understand such public eye doesn't exist in 100 more like 30 or more even want to know. 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 they're at home with yana look asha and their 3 children as rab rima and nina. the couple have international contact with you ana is an actress and recently appeared in a swedish film. husband who is a theater director and has been working in slovakia. for you cautioned admits that

living openly as a jew in poland sometimes makes him feel in secure. what was the tragic moment after the war you have to do is after all in poland was the 68 because it was the moment when. my family had to go go go out from poland'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 however my life our war was the person 1st person who told me of mary's know to some of his men in poland but now i'm. talking to myself where do i use and where and he was. sure ange 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 michael 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 shooter it has been back to the place where it all began i mean people 1520 years. maybe it's only these were. it's impossible to. be jewish in poland and not feel the presence of the apps it's. the generation born after the shoah often didn't know anything about their jewish roots and even those who knew

never had a chance to experience they never had a shot before. not some some did but many didn't. and so it was really a 1st chance was also a chance just to be openly jewish. you know you don't have to worry about anybody making a comment or wondering what it meant so. in a lot of ways it all started here. we had to. look to these kids' movies that they would not kids anymore they were in the thirty's and forty's. to get. the raise and. so he said. to sing this song. to his children all those were 5 minutes before we members saw or heard the song

please joy and the 1st 20 to 80 kids thady of the hundreds was singing that song for. just some of them by their mother so they'd 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 stanislav even led community prayers sometimes. many of the participants were holocaust. 5 years. during the war there were 2 of them so they were not some of them were very little children or babies some of

there were 8 or 10 and those sort of i have to know either because they were hiding somewhere or there 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 my family also this is true all almost all people of my generation 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 for 6 years. 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 of judaism should be kosher holidays history to what does it need to be jewish how do you feel about being jewish and also getting to know each other icebreakers and sometimes fun things everybody reenact the biblical scene. and on friday nights we would 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 there was 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 could i could have i survived i want to have a child you think could cure it could your child have survived and there for a 100 comes a completely different experience. to chamber 3 or 4 guest chamber 5 and this is the song that. sometimes the

rabbi visits auschwitz birkenau several times a month many visitors from america and israel was asked 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 near the shock of the holocaust of this genocide the morse and 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 a little. uncle henry star 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. it's. slaughter. this. shot of if. it's in front of the muscle. this is the place where you also. you know we go like this and my my uncle told me the story when they arrived on the train from tories and shot into raising. 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 then good 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 were 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 starr survived auschwitz and emigrated to the us where he married and had children michael should rick learned a lot from his uncle to what extent. you know the

idea is 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 in warsaw. christian traditions are. vital part of polish culture. the jewish community is celebrating hanukkah the festival of light. 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. well looks like it's still the place i'm supposed to be. c

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of life you. tomorrow today in 30 minutes on g.w. . check in takes this special trip. to do a show it's not just the city trip but also a journey for jewish history spire warms the minds are considered the preview of the european judaism. jewish life has shaped these 3 cities for more than 900 years and i want to know what remains of it. in 60 minutes on d w. can i am going to get. to closest place to hell just for evening.

nice news and he. thought. i would tell her story. because a. mosque. even starts january 27th on d.w. . griffith to. change the world. the cry for freedom and the fight for freedom were always accompanied by music listening to. they transcend dreams and bring us all together for. our 2 part documentary about the revolutionary power of music. hard to john how songs become pieces of history. songs like that don't go away but stay with us for

all time by. time. the fresh starts february 7th w. no room. this is d w news lawyer from ballet and we begin with some breaking news u.s. basketball superstar kobe bryant has died in a helicopter crash in california it was unclear if family members were on board the private helicopter the 5 time n.b.a. champion was full she wanted the assault also on the program the deadly coronavirus

continues to spread more than 2000.