By Dovid Zaklikowski – Lubavitch.com
A rookie researcher from S. Paulo, Brazil, made it her goal to locate the once glorious building of the Lubavitch Yeshivah school, known as Tomchei Tmimim, in Otwock, Poland.
Sila Rosenfeld, an independent publisher and researcher, traveled to Poland numerous times during recent years. She became interested in Jewish Poland after her parents died; her father was a Holocaust survivor and her mother immigrated to Brazil in 1936. At the time she studied Polish at the Polish consulate in S. Paulo, and in 2009 she went on a three week language immersion trip to Poland where she visited her father’s shtetl, Dzialoszyce.
During her travels from Warsaw to Krakow, Sila happened upon the small town of Otwock, pronounced Otvotzk.
“My guide, Robert Sieradzki, asked if we would like to see the town and the Jewish cemetery,” she recalled. “It was a town in the middle of the pine woods, 12 miles south from Warsaw. He wanted to show me the beautiful houses in świdermajer style where Jewish families lived.”
Eventually, Sila learned that there was a Chabad center in the town before WWII that was used until the first Nazi bombardment of the Jewish area. Herself once a student at a Chabad seminary, she visited Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, New York in 1980, where she met the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Hence her interest in exploring Chabad’s roots.
Otwock was a vacation area for many Chasidic Jews. It was also the base of Chabad-Lubavitch operations in Europe for many years prior to WWII. The sixth Chabad Rebbe, the Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn, spearheaded some two dozen schools in Europe, Israel and many more in the Former Soviet Union, all from his office in Otwock.
So with the address Slowackiego 1 in hand, she made her way to the city. Alas, “all I found was an empty piece of land,” she said.
For the next few years, Sila was bothered: could it be that the entire school building was actually demolished while all the homes in the vicinity were still standing?
“I looked at the pictures of the neighboring homes, I looked at Google Earth, and still couldn’t find any answers. Maybe the houses changed numbers?”
Rabbi Shalom Ber Levine, author of Toldot Chabad b’Polin, [The History of Chabad in Poland], and chief librarian of the Chabad-Lubavitch Library, did extensive research on that era and location. He and other researchers believed that the building did not exist anymore.
“The building was built from wood and presumably did not survive since it was abandoned in 1939,” said Levine, explaining why no one looked for it until now.
Last month, on her third trip to Poland, Sila decided to do some more research. Her efforts were well-rewarded when she learned that at some point, the city changed the address, and it was now Slowackiego 22. With that, she made her way back to the town.
Photos from the building reveal the surrounding gardens and trees where students would relax, study or spend hours in contemplative prayer. Sila had her eureka moment: “I could not believe my eyes when I saw the house from outside.”
According to Sila, the building was owned by the city until it was recently sold. Call it serendipity, or better, call it Providence, but while she was there, the owner, who rents the property to tenants, showed up and offered to give Sila a tour of the inside.
“We went inside and I felt like it was all a dream. Here we are in the study hall, the living space, the balcony, where thousands of students studied until the Nazis destroyed Jewish life in Poland,” she told lubavitch.com.
The interior of the building has since been renovated and the structure reinforced, but all the exterior details remain unchanged.
“I feel that all my visits to Poland were worth this discovery.”
Reb Nochum Preger ob”m learned in Otvotzk
I think that only some Bochurim had permission to come, perhaps they needed to take turns. Perhaps it was only from the older kvutza.
Moishe L. Chanowitz
Reb gershon chanowitz ob’m is my zaidie
If my memory serves me right, I believe that my Father OB”M, Reb Gershon Chanowitz told me so. He also said that it was quite a walk to “Prussa Zex” where the Freerdiker Rebbe,lived, Davened and said Maamorim. The Bochurim were usually not permitted to come to the Maamorim. Once a group of Bochurim came. Later The Rebbe asked the Hanhalo if they had permission to come… Are there any remnants of that building? My Father told also that Reb Itche Masmid stayed at a nearby hotel (as did other Chassidim), when they came. My great Uncle R Moishe Leib… Read more »
if you look at the house on google maps, you see the central tree has developed into a full bush
Rabbi Yosef Rodal was a bocher there and Rabbi Yosef Avrohom Kagan was the mazkir of the yeshiva.
rabbi Feigelstock zol zain gezunt did NOT learn in Otwock
In a video-taped recounting of his memories of those days, my father, a”h, describes how after a Yud-Tes Kislev Farbrengen with the Friediker Rebbe, the bochurim followed the Rebbe out, singing “Ki V’simcha…” as the Rebbe boarded his horse and wagon. A number of them (my father included) then proceeded to push the wagon as they were singing, so that it would be them and not the horse transporting the Rebbe. They did this all along the path you see in the picture there. When the wagon arrived at the main road, the Rebbe turned to those few bochurim and… Read more »
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juliusza+S%C5%82owackiego+22,+Otwock,+Poland/@52.1165259,21.2659797,37m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x47192aecb6b76a03:0x7b1d686853a8c385
Horav Reb Moshe Elye Gerlitzky for sure
I think rabbi feigelstock learned there and he’s bh still alive
i’m not that brave! i went with my polish jewish-friendly friend Robert Sieradzki, from Warsaw, the one that introduced me to Otwock, and was there for the second time when we found an empty land and now again; he did the talking in polish – he said i was from brazil and was looking for the house where once stood a jewish orthodox school, and the guy invited us immediately into the house;
yes, this is the house, and the picture in “swidermajer z autem i antena”
sila
How on earth did you get Polish people to open up to you? Aren’t they still resentful? Does the current owner realize or acknowledge that this was a Jewish-owned property?
R brysky r sapochinsky r wineberg r Tannenbaum
R garfinkel r bukiet r kotlarsky r Rubin r help me out
Admire your perseverance Sila. This is really exciting. יגעתי מצאתי תאמין. Moshiach Now!
What’s the law does it still belong to chabad
my father learned in the lubavitcher yeshiva in otvotsk
as did many poilishe yidden
there are many chasiddim among us who’s parents learned in otvotsk
perhaps we can all be enlightened about who these
chassidm are
was march in poland and visited chmelnick my fathers and your fathers home. did not go to otvotsk but would love to go again lets plan it.
i was given a set of machzorim signed by previous rebbe by a friend who wasnt lubavitch but passing through just before the war.She brought them to England just a few of the items she managed to bring out.When she passed on her daughter gave them to me as a gift..very precious.
you can go to my facebook to see more pictures;
sila
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juliusza+S%C5%82owackiego+22,+Otwock,+Poland/@52.1163882,21.2662791,129m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x47192aecb6b76a03:0x7b1d686853a8c385
Any mention of a mikvah on location ?
Is this on google maps or google earth?
Was in otwock back in 2001. Went to see the yeshiva. Got there as per my grandfathers instructions. Took pictures and a video. Video was confirmed by my grandfathr as the correct location. I still have pics and video
“I’m in. When are we going? This was the 770 of Poland! This was where the Frierdiker Rebbe pointed at a wall with his Holy finger saying “Hinei zeh omeid achar kosleinu” literally as though Moshiach was right behind the door
Tatty a”h saw and heard this.
Rivky Katz (Bryski)
Zaklikovsky breathes atvotzk.. his zeide Rabbi Bukiet learned there and he has written many times about the shtetl..
lets buy it
Thank you sila
looking at the old photo you can see that:
the left wing of building is gone.
a hut was added on the right side
the center tree is gone
a small room was added to the left of center basment
looks like the original photo may have been taken from the back yard
It seems from two different angles because the trees are blocking the side where the old photo was taken
would love if a group of us descendants of the Yeshiva Bochurim who learned in this Yeshiva would organize a visit and hold a farbrengen in this home…
There is probably no one alive anymore. My grandfather was the Rosh Yeshiva in Otwock (don’t know the exact years)Reb Chaim Meyer Lis and some of those who were his Talmidim have passed away.
in 5762 while a Summer Shlichus In Lithuania, under the auspicious of the Great Shaliach Rabbi Krinsky, My Chavrusa, the excellent teacher from Chicago R’ AV, and I traveled to Warsaw in addition to visiting the Yeshiva Building and speaking to the current residents, we then went to the now abandoned house of the Fridekeh Rebbe on Prussia 6. I am sure we weren’t the first as my sister traveled our route the previous winter.
ZS
Thank you for sharing!
is there any remnant at all of anything Jewish?
Amazing discovery!!!
We also went looking for the Yeshiva(in 92) where my father had learned as a bochur but couldn’t find it All we saw was flatland!! Thank you!!
My father learned in that Yeshivah.
Wow how everything is coming out in the open before Moshiach’s coming!
The place was abandoned 75 years ago in Sep of 39, Anyone who learned there is well into their 90’s.
5 years ago there was still a handfull of otvotzk talmidim that were still alive. Today, I think that they are all gone
check with Rabbi Motel Altein (father of Rabbi Leibel Altein) who lives on Carrol and Kingston. He was there.
Pictures don’t really match up.
Has this been confirmed with someone that learned in otvotzk? Or knows exactly what it looked like?