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Desecrated, broken tombstone with carved Torah scroll from Turek Jewish cemetery

Object | Accession Number: 1990.292.6

Broken headstone carved with a Torah scroll, indicating the grave of a reader of the Torah, Kohen recovered during a 1989 renovation of a building in Konin county, Poland. The tombstones, from the desecrated Turek Jewish cemetery, were broken and used as paving stones for the courtyard of the local headquarters for Organization Todt. This sandstone marker was mass produced in the late 19th century. Poland was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in September 1939. Hundreds of Jewish men from Turek were taken as forced laborers. By January, all Jewish property was confiscated and the remaining Jews were confined to a ghetto. The synagogue was set on fire and destroyed. In October 1941, the ghetto was liquidated and Turek was Judenfrei (free of Jews.) Organization Todt was in charge of road and large scale construction projects, such as factories and fortifications, for the German Reich. By the early 1940s, it controlled over a million workers, slave laborers, war prisoners, and camp inmates.

Date
creation:  approximately 1850-1899
recovered:  1989
use:  after 1939 September
Geography
use: Jewish cemetery; Turek (Poland)
use: Organization Todt local headquarters; Konin (Poland : Powiat)
Language
Hebrew
Classification
Jewish Art and Symbolism
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Muzeum Okręgowe w Koninie
 
Record last modified: 2023-08-10 13:52:47
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn3508