BS”D 9 Elul 5781 Julius Feldhorn was born in Tarnopol on 17 August 1901. He was a historian of literature, a teacher, a poet and a translator. He graduated from the Philosophy Department of the Jagiellonian University in 1923 and received his doctorate in 1927. Right after, he started to teach Polish in a Jewish school in Kraków. He worked for several newspapers and published books of poetry. He was well-liked by his pupils. He fought at the outbreak of the Second World War and was imprisoned in Lublin, but escaped to Lvov. After the outbreak of hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union he hid in Wiśnicz and Swoszowice, but was captured by the Germans and shot in August 1943, may he rest in peace. Text:…

BS”D 5 Elul 5781 The month of August is a very sad month for Jews since there are almost daily anniversaries related to the Shoah and therefore with suffering. We remember these events also so that those who were murdered will live on in our hearts. On 13-14 August 1942 the German occupants deported and then murdered most of the inhabitants of Dukla, Rymanów, Bobowa and Biecza. In all these places there was violence, then a selection, then deportation, then murder. 2000 people from Dukla and Rymanów were sent to Belżec and murdered. Healthy and young men were sent to concentration camps, others (women, children and old people) shot in the Błudno woods near Tyława and those who had not the strength to walk were killed in…

BS”D 3 Elul 5781 According to Martyna Grądzka-Rejak people were praying in the Kupa Synagogue. A crowd started gathering in front of the building and started to attack the building in front of the synagogue. The Jews at first did not react, thinking that stone-throwing and shouting were part of the usual anti-Semitic routine. A boy shouted that they were going to kill him. At about 11 AM the crowd went inside the synagogue, devastated it and burnt books. Physical violence ensued. Policemen and soldiers took part in the attack, which reinforced the idea, in the crowd, that attacking Jews was allowed. 56-year-old Róża Berger, may she rest in peace and may the murderers be punished, was killed after surviving Auschwitz.

BS”D 1 Elul 5781 Jan Bader was born in Kraków on 9 August 1901, the son of Leib and Jenny (born Bergstein). He was a Kraków lawyer, graduate of the Jagiellonian university and from 1949 to 1977 a member of the Israeli Knesset. In Kraków he had an office with his brother Henryk. He was a journalist. During the was he escaped to the East and was in Soviet territory, where he was arrested. In 1943 he managed to reach Israel. In Israel he was arrested by the British because of his underground fighting for independence and was only freed in May 1948. He died on 16 June 1994 in Ramat Gan, where a street is entitled to him. Another one can be found in Beer Sheva.

BS”D 29 Av 5781 Leon Sperling was born in Kraków, the son of Salomon. He represented Poland in football and played 21 matches in the national team. We was an Olympic athlete, three times Polish champion within the Cracovia football team (1921, 1930, 1932) and worked in a bank. The graduated from a school with a formation in commerce. One of the best forwards for Poland in the interwar period, he was called the “magician of the ball”. Almost his whole career was in Cracovia, for which he played 381 matches. His first match for Poland was on 18 December 1921 in Budapest against Hungary. In 1924 he took part in the Olympics in Paris. In 1934 he retired from his football career, wed Sara Perla and…

BS”D 23 Av 5781 Aleksander Biberstein was born on 1 August 1889 in Tarnopol. He was a medical doctor and a chronicler of the Kraków ghetto. After Polish independence in 1918 he worked as a doctor in the polish army and then for the social services. In 1942 he organised in the Kraków ghetto a hospital for infectious diseases and was its director. He was also president of the organisation for Jewish orphans. He was a prisoner in the concentration camps of Płaszów and Gross-Rosen. He emigrated to Israel in 1958. He is the author of one of the most important works on the history of Kraków Jews during German occupation, called The Extermination of the Jews of Kraków, published in 1986. He wrote in one of…

BS”D 18 Av 5781 Adolf Gross was born on 26 July 1862 in Kraków, the son of Mojżesz Dawid and Sara Gold. He was a lawyer, a member of parliament, a city councillor. He graduated from the Św. Anna school in Kraków in 1880 and from the faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University in 1888. He fought for the emancipation of women. He died on 28 December 1936 and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery on ul. Miodowa, may he rest in peace.

BS”D 13 Av 5781 On 21 July 1909 the Sports Club Maccabi Kraków was founded in order to “improve the physical strength of the Jews”. In 1932 it had 17 sports sections with 1018 members. It had its own stadium and after the war it was taken over by the Nadwiślan Kraków club. The club grew very quickly. The men’s handball section was, in the same year, vice-champion of Kraków and kept that place for two years. The volleyball section was third in the 1929 Kraków championship. The basketball section was second in 1930. The table tennis section was champion in 1932. The light athletics section was also successful and its Maryla Freiwald was champion of Poland in three specialties. The hockey and skating sections had the…