Lodz-Warsaw

We survived the drive from Krakow to Warsaw! Fiver perilous hours on beaten dicrepid roads. Most of the public utilities and infrastructure are from the days of communist rule. The fun was further enhanced by a 2001 Mercedes van that did not have functional suspension. Nonetheless, we managed to take a 2 hour break in Lodz. This was the city my great grandfather was from. Lodz was the home of some of the most powerful and prominent 19th century Jewish industrialists outside of Berlin. Its textile industry rivaled that of Manchester. Unfortunately, there is not much left of the former district. However, the residential home and factories of Posmanksy still exist and have been restored. This man was the Polish equivalent of Bill Gates. An Ashkenazi Jew who settled in Lodz in the mid 19th Century, he amassed a fortune by pioneering the mass production of affordable, albeit, of poor quality, clothing. We also saw the Jewish Cemetery of Lodz. This is the second largest surviving Jewish cemetery in the world. It is only rivaled by the Jewish Cemetery of Berlin. We saw Posmansky's tomb, which is literally the size of the Jefferson monument. Inside it is decorated with gold leaf and Helenistic mosiac tiling This was a man who, defying Jewish traditions, wanted the world to know how wealthy he was in death. In Lodz, we visited the recently restored Jewish community center. Lodz has a surviving community of about 300 Jews. Upon entering the community center a Hasidic gentlemen spoke to my mother in Polish. My mother responded in Hebrew that we did not speak Polish. He then switched into fluent English. This was very surprising, as most people we encountered only spoke broken English. However, he also proceeded to unfurl a carton of cigarettes from underneath his taiylet. We said goodbye to our new found Hasidic friend boarded our van to Warsaw.