In Poland, a Jewish Cemetery Gives Way to New Hotel Construction

In the Polish city of Wroclaw, a cemetery lies at the center of a question about how to preserve its Jewish cultural heritage.

Before WWII, Wroclaw—then called Breslau, and part of Germany—was home to a diverse and prosperous Jewish community, the third-largest in Germany, with roots dating back eight centuries. More than half of the city’s Jewish population, which stood at over 20,000 in 1933, was decimated during the Holocaust. With the postwar border and population shifts, cultural continuity was disrupted: German Breslau became Polish Wroclaw, and in line with Poland’s Communist policies, the prewar cultural heritage was wiped away or neglected. As a result, the Jewish history of the city vanished from the consciousness of its Polish citizens.

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