Website idea

This website was created as a response to the requests I received to write a book about the Jewish community of Trzemeszno. I am not a historian and from the beginning I had serious objections to editing such a book. On the other hand, as the months passed and I had received more materials about the community, I thought that they should reach everyone interested in this story. The more so because there is no information about this community even on popular portals devoted to the history of Jews in Poland; sometimes they are distorted, incomplete.

As I was publishing articles about the Jewish community of Trzemeszno on the local website, I became even more aware of the widespread lack of knowledge about it and the resulting distortions and stereotypes. This strengthened my belief in the sense of creating a place that would be a reliable compendium of knowledge for those who want to fill these information gaps and would help them confront repeated slogans and stereotypes (most often resulting from lack of knowledge).

Another reason for creating a website was that it gives more possibilities than a book, both in terms of the amount of space available for publishing materials and reaching a larger audience, also abroad. It also gives a chance to reach the descendants of the Trzemeszno Jews, who can become another source of knowledge about this community. That is why I decided to run it in two language versions: Polish and English. I invited Anna Blasiak, Anna Keren, Olimpia Nowicka-Sulla, Jolanta Wojciechowska, Kasia Smialkowski, Jolanta Wojciechowska, Dr. Joachim Neander, Krzysztof Tomala, and Marcin Butka to help translate the texts. I am very grateful to them for their time and commitment, especially since the vast majority of them do the translations pro bono.

I really want the information provided on the website to be based on reliable sources and verified by specialists. That is why I invited Dr. Krzysztof Bielawski, a Judaist, with whom I will consult the most specialized articles. The department of Jewish tradition and culture will be run by Julita Semrau, a member of the Circle of Jewish Culture Lovers at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

The website would not have existed without the contribution of time, skills and heart invested into its creation by two high school graduates of the Economic School Complex in Gniezno: Klaudiusz Zdrojewski and Mateusz Springer. From the beginning, I have dreamed that young people from the Trzemeszno region would participate in the creation of this website and it happened, in which Piotr Tarłowski had a silent share. I hope that there will be more young people willing to participate in this project.

The beautiful logo of the website was created pro bono by Marceli Konieczny, artist-painter, photographer, employee of the House of Culture in Trzemeszno.

The costs of launching the website were covered by three wonderful, open to cooperation descendants of Trzemeszno Jews: Dorit Braun, Lee Pariser and Ronald Philippsborn.

A good spirit, which supported me from the beginning in the implementation of this idea, was Kasia Sudaj, also involved in work for the renovation of the Jewish cemetery in Trzemeszno. She will administer this site with me.