Desecrated Torah scroll recovered postwar by a Polish Jew

Object | Accession Number: 1991.227.1

Overview

Brief Narrative: Desecrated Torah scroll recovered in Pultusk, Poland by Jerome Lipowicz after the war in the former ghetto. Jerome had lived in Pultusk prior to 1940. After the end of the war in May 1945, he relocated to Szczecin and lived there with family. He and his father-in-law, Abraham Zielinski, traveled to Pultusk together in search of Jerome's family Torah. While in Pultusk, they were approached by a non-Jew who offered to sell them a scroll. The man claimed that it had been used as the backdrop for executions of Jews in a courtyard in Pultusk. It is not known how the man knew this information. Jerome and his father-in-law bought the Torah and brought it back to Szczecin where Jerome's wife Fryda kept it, permitting no one to touch it. When the family immigrated to the United States in 1960, the Torah was brought with them. It remained wrapped and hidden in their home until she died in 1989.
Date: found: approximately 1945
Geography: found: Pultusk (Poland)
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jerome D. and Fryda Z. Lipowicz

Language: Hebrew
Classification: Jewish Art and Symbolism
Category: Jewish ceremonial objects
Object Type: Torah scrolls (lcsh)
Physical Description: Five fragments of a Torah scroll with exportation stamps on the back of one fragment.
Dimensions: overall: Height: 41.000 inches (104.14 cm) | Width: 20.750 inches (52.705 cm)
Materials: overall : parchment, ink

Topical Term: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Religious aspects--Poland--Pultusk. Holocaust survivors--Poland--Biography. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Pultusk. Torah scrolls--Sacrilege--Poland--History--20th century.

Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The Torah scroll was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991 by Jerome D. Lipowicz.