WARSAW, Poland — A center honoring Jewish life has opened near the place that for more than half a century has been the paramount symbol of Jewish death.
Jordan’s Prince Hassan joined Roman Catholic clergy, Polish, U.S. and Israeli officials and Holocaust survivors in an emotional ceremony Sept. 14 dedicating the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oswiecim — the town surrounding the infamous Nazi death camp.
The center complex, which includes study, prayer and educational facilities, encompasses the lone remaining synagogue in Oswiecim — the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue — which has been fully restored. It is the only active Jewish institution near the site of the Auschwitz death camp.
“There is in today’s ceremony a message of hope, of tikvah,” said Hassan, who attended the ceremony in his capacity as moderator of the World Conference of Religion and Peace.
“After survival comes revival,” he said. “The message here is that death is not the end of life.”
Hassan, the brother of the late King Hussein, noted that he was aware of the “delicate nature” of his participation in the ceremony. But, he added, “further understanding through sharing in our common humanity is a duty of conscience.”
Former Knesset speaker Shevach Weiss, a Holocaust survivor from Poland who is now the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, hugged Hassan warmly and welcomed his presence.
“The fact that you are here with us is a symbol of the continuity of making peace,” he said. “It means solidarity with the present time and understanding of what happened in the past.”
The $10 million Auschwitz Center project was conceived and sponsored by the New York-based Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, founded in 1995 by philanthropist and businessman Fred Schwartz.
Its aim is to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and mourn their loss, not by showing how they died — but how they lived, focusing on the life, culture and history of the pre-war Jewish community of Oswiecim as a microcosm of destroyed European Jewry.