BS”D 20 Sivan 5781 Zofia Ameisenowa was born on 31 May 1897 in Nowy Sącz. She was a professor of history of art in the Jagiellonian University (UJ) as well as a Curator of the Jagiellonian Library (JL). In 1915 she started to study Philosophy in the UJ, where she also studied history of art and archaeology. After the completion of her studies she began to work in the JL, taking care of visual collections and Jewish Old Testament iconography. She was quickly among the best researchers of the middle ages. After the beginning of the was she went to Lvov but eventually was caught and placed in a ghetto, from which she escaped to Romania, hiding in Bukovina and then in a convent in Bucharest. After…

BS”D 20 Sivan 5781 Stefan Ritterman, the son of Maria (born Dawidowicz) and Izydor Ritterman, was a professor in the Jagiellonian University (UJ) and an associate dean of the law department. He began to study medicine in the UJ but changed a year later to law. He was very talented and while studying medicine he finished music school in the conservatory of the musical society in Kraków and was fluent in three foreign languages: Russian, German and French. He became a master of law in 1927 and a doctor in law in 1929. At the beginning of the war he escaped to Lvov and then, as a “class enemy” was sent by the Soviet Union to the Ural mountains. In 1946 he came back to Poland. In…

BS”D 16 Sivan 5781 Róża Rock, born Grossman on 27 May 1871 was the founder of a modern educational centre for Jewish orphans in Kraków. In 1918 she was in charge of the “ Megadle Jesomim” Association, called “Association of Jewish Women for the Defence and Education of Orphans”. In 1922 it changed its name into “Bet Megadle Jesomim” and “Association of the Educational Centre of Jewish Orphans in Krakow. The children had a basic education and learnt skills that would allow them to cater for themselves after leaving the orphanage. She had the building of the Association on ul. Dietla renewed, which improved the conditions of the orphans. The works were supervised by her husband, Łazarz Rock, an architect and a councillor of the city of…

BS”D 15 Sivan 5781 Artur Stefan Nacht-Samborski was born on 26 May 1898, originally Artur Nacht. His parents were Joel Nacht and Sara Weindlig. He was a painter and a professor, in Sopot, of the Gdansk Higher School of Plastic Arts, as well as a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He studied painting from 1918 to 1921 in the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Józef Mehoffer and Wojciech Weiss. In this free time he liked to box. During the occupation he was in Lvov. Rescued from the ghetto of that city by friends, he hid near Warsaw with the assumed name of Stefan Samborski. He legally changed his name in 1956 into Stefan Artur Nacht-Samborski. Further information in English: https://culture.pl/en/artist/stefan-artur-nacht-samborski Translation…

BS”D 14 Sivan 5781 Dawid Alter Kurzmann was born in Rzeszow on 25 May 1865. In Kraków he was a trader and a philanthropist. He came to this city in 1887 and lived in Kazimierz on ul. Mostowa 10. After the expulsion in 1941 he was forced to live near Plac Zgody 16 (today’s Plac Bohaterów Getta). He was connected to the chassidic movement and with the Reb Aron house of prayer on ul. Józefa 33. At the same time he was active in the Agudat (“Agudat Israel” , an international political party among Orthodox Jews) and was the vice-president of its Kraków branch. He was active also in the Jewish Community, where he was a council member and responsible for religious matters. Starting already a few…

BS”D 12 Sivan 5781 Gizela Reicher-Thon, may she rest in peace, was born on 23 May 1904. She was a researcher of literature, called the mother of Polish Comparative Literature. In 1914 she finished her general schooling and then studied in private girls’ secondary school. In 1922 she passed her school exam and then read Polish and English philology, linguistic and philosophy in the Jagiellonian University. She defended her doctoral thesis in 1927 while still a student. After that, she worked as a teacher in a Secondary School and in a Jewish charity called Central for the Associations for Orphan Care. In 1933 her doctoral thesis was published. What happened to her in the Second World War is unknown. Photograph from National Archives in Kraków. Translation Dr…

BS”D 9 Sivan 5781 Architect Ferdynand Liebling, may he rest in peace, was born on 20 May 1877 in Kraków. He graduated from the Industrial School in the same city, which he attended from 1892 to 1896. In the academic year 1903/04 he worked as an assistant in the construction department in the school he had attended. His most famous works include the buildings on ul. Starowiślna 32 (shown below from Wikimedia Commons), Wielopole 9, Dietla 25 and 27, the restructuring of the Jewish hospital on Skawinska 8, Kordeckiego 3 and 5, the restructuring of the Tempel Synagogue and the house of mutual support on ul. Szpitalna 24 and together with Jozua Oberleder the building on Stanisława 12. He was murdered by Germans on 1942, may the…