Lost Treasures: The Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe

In this new online exhibition, you can view many linocuts created by artist Bill Farran of New York, each a representation of a wooden synagogue that once stood in Eastern Europe. A very brief history of each synagogue is included.

These synagogues stood in such towns as Chodorow, Gombin, Grodno, Gwozdziec, Kielmy, Koskie, Kornik, Kosow Lacki, Lackorona, Olkieniki, Ozery, Piaski, Pohrebyszcze, Przedborz, Sniadowo, Suchowola, Szawlany, Warka, Wolpe, Wysokie Mazowieckie, Yarchev and Zabludow.

You can visit this exhibition by clicking here.

Three Short Films, Courtesy of Tomek Wisniewski

The Museum of Family History now presents to you, with permission, three short films created by Tomek Wisniewski of Bialystok, Poland. He has created a great many such films, and the Museum hopes to present many of them to you in the coming months. These first three films will be shown within the Museum's Film Series until May 29th; more will be added along the way. Best to check this Museum's blog from time to time to learn when new films are available for viewing.

Here are the titles of the first three, all with an instrumental background, at least one with vocal music and Polish dialogue:

--Bialystok, Poland: Rabbi Gedaliah Rozenman (once the Chief Rabbi of Bialystok);
--Tykocin, Poland: The Tykocin (Tiktin) Synagogue, 1929;
--Suwalki, Poland: Suwalki 1937 (That Which is No More.)

The links to these web pages/films can be found by clicking here. The links are at the top of the film listings.

Additionally, if you would like to learn more about the history of the Great Synagogue in Bialystok, read the memoirs of Rose Schachner, a granddaughter of the builder of the synagogue, Solomon Rabinovitch. You can find her short biography by clicking here.

The Museum's Education and Research Center Map Room: Topographical Maps of Poland and more of the 1920s and 30s

Are you curious to see what the topography was like around the town or city in which your family lived while in Eastern Europe before World War II? Would you like to know what small towns and villages existed within a particular area before World War II?

Displayed within five web pages within the Museum's Map Room are more than one hundred topographic maps of various regions in Poland, along with some from Belarus and the Ukraine. Most maps shown have been divided into a right half and left half. All of the maps were drawn and produced between World Wars I and II. It is interesting to note the names of the various towns and villages in the surrounding areas as they appeared before World War II, as well as of course the varying topography within each region. The range of coordinates are given for each map, or rather for each two maps shown, as most of the maps shown are split into two halves.

Please visit www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/maproom-1.htm .