Poland | Białystok: On the trail of Esperanto and Jewish life

Offer Podlaskie specialties and traditional Jewish dishes: Anna and Mariusz Ciołko Photo: Carsten Heinke »Truskawki! Polunitsi! Braškės! Klubnitzy!” the fruit merchant praises his strawberries – in Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belarusian. The customers at the farmers' market on the outskirts of Białystok are predominantly locals. However, Polish is not the native language for all Polish citizens in today's border triangle with Lithuania and Belarus.

The multi-ethnic region of Podlasie - German: Podlasie - has been multilingual for centuries. The region in northeastern Poland, characterized by nature and agriculture, once belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later to the heartland of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic. Traditionally, it is shared by Poles, Eastern Slavs and Jews, Balts and Tatars. The Catholic and Orthodox churches, synagogues and mosques represent their religious diversity.

There were once over 80 Jewish prayer houses in the regional capital Białystok alone. Only three remained, but are no longer used religiously. Most of the others were destroyed by the German occupiers, some only in the post-war period. At the end of the 19th century, three quarters of the population of the eastern Polish city was “Israelite”.

200 years earlier, the Polish noble Branicki family laid the foundation for the development of such a large Jewish community. In order to turn the Białystok estate into a city, the royal dignitaries - themselves strict Catholics - settled primarily with Jews: merchants, craftsmen and entrepreneurs.

While the Branickis' baroque palace still bears witness to their power and wealth, Jewish life in Białystok has remained almost exclusively a culture of remembrance since the Holocaust. The “Path of Jewish Heritage” connects 36 memorial sites.

Three of them are dedicated to Ludwik Zamenhof. When the future doctor and brilliant amateur linguist was born in 1859 to Ashkenazi Jews, his hometown was part of the Russian Empire, but geographically and culturally it was part of Poland. Polish was the language of his everyday life. The young Zamenhof spoke Yiddish with his mother, Russian at school and with his father, who also taught him German and French.

The confusion of communication in which he grew up often led to conflicts. Zamenhof recognized early on that conflicts arise when people “don’t understand” each other. As a high school student, he began creating an easy-to-learn and culturally neutral language. It should unite people and not divide them. The now 27-year-old ophthalmologist published the first textbook on this topic in 1887.

His pseudonym “Doktoro Esperanto” (the hoping doctor) gave the language its name. It spread around the world in no time. On the occasion of the 94th Esperanto World Congress, which took place in Białystok in 2009, the city set up the Ludwik Zamenhof Center in the former home of a Jewish manufacturer. The permanent exhibition there documents Białystok at the time of the young Zamenhof. Family traces of the Esperanto inventor also lead to nearby Tykocin.

The town on the Narew welcomes its guests with stork nests on the roofs. Red-roofed houses nestle together between castle towers and church domes. In the middle: two carefully renovated synagogues, now a museum. The Great - characterized by the Baroque and Renaissance eras - is one of the most beautiful in Europe. Inside the Great Synagogue, the magnificent Bima remains almost unchanged: a raised platform from which the Torah was read. The small one served as a teaching and prayer house.

“The Zamenhofs’ house was opposite,” says Mariusz Ciołko, pointing to a plaque dedicated to Ludwik’s father Marek, who was born here in 1837. Jews no longer live in Tykocin. But today's residents care about their heritage - like Mariusz and Anna Ciołko. The couple has been running the “Villa Regent” hotel and restaurant behind the Great Synagogue since 2000. The menu includes Podlaskie specialties and traditional Jewish dishes.

“Kosher catering is also possible if you register in advance,” says Anna. The owners are particularly proud of the mikveh in the basement of their house, consecrated by a priest from Israel. “It is available to religious guests for ritual baths,” says Mariusz.

Only around 70 gravestones remain from the Jewish cemetery. It was created in 1522 after the then owner of the city, the Lithuanian nobleman Albertas Goštautas, brought the first ten Jewish families to Tykocin. More and more followed. The shtetl grew. Soon it was Poland's second most important Jewish community - after Kraków.

With the mass murder of probably 2,000 people in the forest near Łopuchowo in 1941, the German National Socialists ended the city's 400-year-old Jewish history in the most cruel way. The site of the massacre, from which fewer than 20 victims survived, is also the final resting place of those killed. Stones and Stars of David decorate monuments and graves.

Ludwik Zamenhof, who created Esperanto in the hope of reconciling peoples, died in 1917 and did not experience the Holocaust. However, his vision did not remain entirely unfulfilled. The language he created is used by an estimated two million people in over 120 countries.

Poland, which officially recognizes Esperanto as an intangible cultural heritage, regularly occupies a place in the top 10 countries with the most speakers. Maybe one day in Białystok the fruit seller will also shout “Fragoloj!” That means “strawberries!” in Esperanto.

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