Great synagoge 2016

The synagogue was called Great Synagogue because it had 2.000 seats, the synagogue was the center of the Jewish life in the town. Before the 2nd World War this was the center of Jewish religious life. The Great Synagogue was destroyed and burned down by the Germans on the night of November 29th and 30th 1939. The site was long an empty lot, with in recent years signage describing the synagogue.

Thanks to support of the town of Oświęcim as well as institutional and private donors from Poland and abroad, this space has been ransformed  into a Memorial Park to create opportunities for reflection and remembrance for residents of Oświęcim and visitors to the town. 

On November 28, 2019 the Great Synagogue Memorial Park was opened with a special program - a concert and candlelit ceremony. Oświęcim’s mayor, around 200 local citizens, and some 50 descendants of Oświęcim Jews attended the dedication.

Oświęcim is today a 40,000 peoples town located in the Soła river valley. Therefore it has always been an important location for trading routes (especially salt route). 

Oświęcim's history starts in the 11th century with a settlement on the castle hill and around the year 1272 the town received municipal rights which were confirmed by the duke of Cieszyn, Mieszko I, on 3rd September 1291. In 1457 the Duchy of Oświęcim was incorporated into the Polish Crown. Half a century later, a huge fire destroyed the castle and it was rebuilt in 1534. On the 2nd half of the 16th century, the first settlement of Jews appeared in the town and a Jewish community was formed with a synagogue and a cemetery. The Jewish inhabitants called their town Oshpitzin, taken from the Hebrew word for "guests".

The town was invaded by the Swedes in 1655 and  was inhabited by no more than 200 people until the 18th century. With the first partition of Poland in 1772, Oświęcim belonged to Galicia and was under the rule of the Austrian Empire until Poland regained independence in 1918.

Before the 2nd World War about 14,000 people lived in Oświęcim and more than half of the population were Jews (around 60%). The relations between the inhabitants were mostly peaceful, also some anti-Semitic incidents occurred in 1918 and in the 1930s. In the town were around 20 synagogues and prayer houses.

During the 2nd World War Oświęcim was under German occupation and the town was annexed in the German Reich. Oświęcim was renamed Auschwitz and in spring 1940 the Germans established the Auschwitz concentration camp - firstly for Polish political prisoners, since 1942 the place served as the site of mass extermination of the European Jews. In 1941 all Jewish inhabitants of Oświęcim were deported to nearby ghettos in Będzin, Charnów and Sosnowiec and most of them were murdered later in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

On 27th January 1945 Oświęcim and the concentration camp were liberated from German occupation. In 1947 at the site of the former camp, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim was founded.

After the 2nd World War only a few Jewish inhabitants could return to the town - most of them were murdered in the Holocaust. In the year 2000 the last Jewish inhabitant, Szymon Kluger, died. Today there is no Jewish community in Oświęcim.