After World War I ?- 1942

The building structures of this small corner lot, with its street-facing tenement house in Chłodna Street and the free-standing building from the Walicowo direction, had probably come into existence towards the end of the seventies of the 19th century[1.1]. The only mention of the prayer house can be found in a survey of 1926; it seems that it was merely a specially adapted hall. Its walls were covered with wood panelling; it had a wooden floor. It appears that the sole decoration of the hall consisted of plaster coving with stucco; there was a typical tiled stove. The hall was lit by hanging electric lamps: a three-candle pendant lamp and an oriental-style ner tamid lamp with a Hebrew inscription, only partially legible: “…for the soul[…] Cwi […]in the year 1832…”

In the Ghetto this became the headquarters of the Jewish Ghetto Police, and also the premises of an officially sanctioned school, one of the nineteen schools opened after 5 September 1941[1.2]. From February 1942 near the tenement house there was a bridge which linked the so called ‘large’ and ‘small’ ghettos. The buildings in the street were almost completely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising.

An extract from a book by Eleonora Bergman  “Nie masz bóżnicy powszechnej. Synagogi i domy modlitwy w Warszawie od końca XVIII do początku XXI wieku”by  permission of the Author and the Publisher. All rights reserved including the right of use on other websites.