Visit & Dedication of Tarlów Cemetery, Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2011

TARLÓW

Canadian Jewish News Article - “Jewish Cemetery Rededicated in Poland” Oct. 2011

“Poles, notice how you have changed. You have to hear it from us that for hundreds of years, it was your country, Poland, was the best place for Jews to live.”

— Eli Rubenstein, interview by Paweł Smoleński, Gazeta Wyborcza, Retrieved 25.01.2013

"Without the Right to Life"
A Documentary

"Without the Right to Life" was written and directed by retired SW Major Waldemar Kowalski. Professor Grzegorz Berendt, Director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, with roots in Tarlow, served as the historical consultant for the film.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk (Muzeum II Wojny Światowej w Gdańsku) produced the documentary with footage prepared by the regional TV station about Tarłów, specifically made to help restore the memories of approximately 7,000 Jews who were gathered and sent from the Tarlow ghetto to Treblinka on October 19, 1942, to be exterminated. The opening of this documentary states that well-known places are typically mentioned when talking about the Holocaust. However, the tragic events of the Holocaust took place in many lesser-known locations as well. One of them is Tarłów.

The film was produced to mark 80 years since Operation Reinhardt. The code name of what was then a secret German plan in World War II to exterminate Polish Jews in German-occupied Poland. On that same day, 80 years later (October 19, 2022), the film premiered in Gdańsk at the Muzeum II Wojny Światowej w Gdańsku. Three days later, the ceremonial screening was organized at the Cultural Center in the village of Tarłów.

TARLÓW

In the fall of 2011, the Jewish cemetery in Tarłów, which had laid in ruins since the Holocaust, was rededicated in a ceremony attended by Jewish people from around the world with roots in Tarłów, along with the town's residents. The initiative to restore the cemetery had begun a decade earlier, with the efforts of a local Polish citizen, Dr. Jan Curylo, who had organized the cemetery reclamation effort.

The inscription at the newly restored cemetery reads:

"In memory of the righteous Jews of Tarlow, those brutally murdered during the war, whose graves will forever be unknown, and those whose graves were desecrated here - at the hands of the soulless Nazi murderers.

May the descendants of Tarlow's Jews honour their memory through the observance of Torah and Mitzvot and by creating peace in the world.

This cemetery has been restored by North American Jews with roots in Tarlow and the surrounding region."

The visit & Dedication of Tarlów Cemetery was on Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2011. Click the link below to read about Eli’s experience.