Centuries Old Mikveh Discovered
in the Jewish Suburbia
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In anticipating a renovation to Bardejov's Beit Hamidrash, the Bardejov Jewish Preservation Committee initiated a survey of the building's foundation. Much to the surprise of everyone involved, another much older structure was discovered beneath the soil: a Mikveh from the Eighteenth Century.
Thus, what promised to be a short examination for structural integrity has been shifted into a full-scale archaeological dig led by Mr. Juraj Timura. Mr. Timura and his team have now uncovered the majority of the old mikveh, including preserved wooden steps, beautiful brick archways, the mikveh pool and a second basin that retained water for use in the ceremonial bath.
The discovery is exciting for the organization and, moreover, for the story of Jewish Heritage in Bardejov. With this revelation, the physical record of Jewish life in the town is extended substantially. Written documents indicated the presence of a large Jewish community during the 18th century, but the excavated mikveh gives that history a tangible shape. In the case of this site, the shape is quite substantial. The footprint of the dig has swelled to approximately 600 square feet and the foundations of the old mikveh are nearly 20 feet below grade.
Plans for its preservation are ongoing, but we expect that future visitors to the Jewish Suburbium will not only be welcome to enjoy the complex of restored 19th and 20th century buildings, but will also be given an opportunity to peer into a well of history. Examining the ruins will be like meandering two and a half centuries into the past, to the very origins of the vibrant Jewish community that would leave a profound and lasting effect on the entire town of Bardejov.
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Sketches of Jewish Heritage:
"Preparations for the Sabbath"
by Emil A. Fish
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Of the many things I remember from my childhood in Bardejov, something that resonates with me as a young Jewish boy was my experience going to the mikveh (ritual bath) with my father every Friday. While it may have been something we did routinely, this weekly experience is something I hold close to my heart.
There is a lot of rushed excitement preparing on Fridays leading up to the Sabbath, including cooking food for family and friends, washing and folding clean clothing, and tidying the home. But going to the mikveh with my father every Friday stands out to me and has stayed with me my entire life.
Many orthodox Jews go to the mikveh daily, and some just go prior to the Sabbath eve and/or prior to holidays. Many old-time mikvehs included a schvitz (sweat room). Before entering the mikveh, bath tubs lined the interior for bathing. To hang your clothes, there were benches with hooks.
My father would take me with him to the mikveh on Fridays, but before the mikveh we bathed. The tubs were full of hot water that was pre-filled by a maintenance man. There were no running faucets to fill the tubs, and the maintenance employees would drain and manually re-fill the warm water between each attendee. We were limited to use the tub for approximately twenty minutes before it had to be cleaned and re-filled for the next person; there was always a line on Friday afternoons for the next attendee to get a tub. Once the hot water was ready for us, we’d climb in together.
After the mikveh, we moved to the schvitz which was a hot sweat room filled with wooden seating. The higher you climbed, the hotter the steam would get. I challenged myself to get as high as I could without invoking any danger. But overall, the process of remaining in the sweat room was known to open pores, cleanse the skin, and allowed for friends to gather and relax after a long week leading up to the Sabbath.
When I returned in 2005 to Bardejov for the first time since my childhood, I immediately became nostalgic to find the bench and hooks where I once hung my clothing as a young child, left exactly in the same place where I saw them last. The rush of memories of each Friday came back to me, remembering this sacred orthodox tradition.
It is my hope that upon the restoration of this mikveh, g-d willing in the near future, we will be able to showcase these memories in a way that can commemorate the past while educating for the future.
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Do you have a story about Bardejov’s Heritage that you’d like to sketch for us?
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Historical photo of Bardejov's Mikveh, undated |
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Bardejov Means the World:
"Haunting Inscriptions"
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In the spring of 1942, the Slovak State became the first European country to voluntarily deport its Jewish citizens into the captivity, slavery and death that awaited them in Nazi-occupied Poland. Slovak State officials were so anxious to betray their Jewish citizens that they paid as much as 500 Reichsmarks for every Slovakian Jew the Nazis transformed into a slave. The cruelty of this arrangement that victimized neighbors and friends is difficult to imagine in the modern world where we tend only to pay for the removal of garbage. But the government of the Slovak State believed their Jewish brethren to be such a scourge on society that they actively treated thousands of human beings like toxic waste.
During the mass deportations that decimated Bardejov’s Jewish community, individuals were often corralled together in the Suburbium before being marched to the trains. Such scenes were shamefully commonplace across eastern Europe. Nazis and their collaborators used places of calm and contemplation to keep suspicions and fear at bay, to help numb the innocent to the reality that they were being treated like criminals. They used places that the Jewish community had built with their own sweat and blood, places that hosted the happiness of weddings and bar mitzvahs, places that were part of the daily ritual that helped inscribe meaning.
In these places, many members of the Jewish community of Bardejov spent their final hours of freedom. And in the midst of the dissonance, confusion and terror that must have constituted this reality, resistance blossomed. Knowing the fascist goal of eradicating all traces of Jewish existence from the face of the earth, some members of Bardejov’s community hid traces of themselves that last to this day. On the walls of the Beit Hamidrash, found decades after their deportation, are the inscribed names of numerous people who resisted the extinguishing force of hatred that was waged against them. A humble pencil was their weapon of choice.
This act may seem at first glance to be neither defiant nor meaningful in light of their ultimate fate, but it stands is a brave and clear antagonism to their dehumanization, enslavement, and erasure. It reaches through time and space and touches us here and now, infusing the present moment with a sacred sense of inheritance and a call to understand ourselves as heirs to this past, living and breathing within us.
Our work at the Bardejov Jewish Preservation Committee responds to this call. We pay homage to their memory and their act of resistance not simply by preserving the pencil markings, nor merely by telling this story. Our work is imbued with the sacred responsibility that is bestowed upon anyone who attends carefully to these names.
We work to render the presence of the absence. We endeavor to weave the threads of history into a conversation with the modern moment. We labor to make it clear that the past infuses the present with its meaning and determines how we propel ourselves into the future. We do this because each and every person is a product of this past. We have all inherited a piece of the story that calls out from those inscriptions on the wall. If we read them carefully, we will recognize ourselves there. And in this recognition, we unearth something true about ourselves that was always present, even in its apparent absence.
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The Samuel Singer and Elza Grün Family |
Samuel, Bardejov's municipal veterinarian, was born in Púchov and Elza, his wife, was born in Vienna, Austria. The couple lived on Kellerova Street; Elza’s sister, Fritzi, lived with them. Samuel studied veterinary medicine at the University of Vienna as part of his military service in the cavalry of the Austro-Hungarian army. He earned a Gold Cross for excellent service in WWI. He settled in Bardejov after the war and became the municipal veterinarian treating the livestock in all neighboring villages. Samuel and Elza had three children: two sons, Fritz and Ernest, and a daughter, Lisel. They sent them to Palestine in the 1930’s and had planned on joining them but never got the opportunity to leave. An exemption was issued and they were not deported. Samuel was issued a document that licensed him to function as the municipal veterinarian until December 31, 1943. Shortly after that date, Samuel was taken to Auschwitz where he perished. Elza was a talented musician and poet as well as multilingual. She was an active Zionist who took lead roles within such organizations as WIZO and KKL. Elza also perished. |
The Singer Family of Bardejov |
You may read more about Bardejov's Jewish families in our Memorial Book of Jewish Bardejov |
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Don't forget to send us your photos and documents for inclusion in our new publication! We are slowly narrowing down our selections for the book and would love to receive any more submissions before making our final decisions.
If you have any photos or documents relevant to our work that you’d like to share, please reply to this email or call us at 626-773-8808.
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Our mission is to preserve Bardejov’s Jewish Heritage, memorialize and honor Bardejov Holocaust victims, and conduct educational outreach to school and community groups to teach tolerance and diversity. The Bardejov Jewish Preservation Committee relies on on the support of generous individuals like you. Please consider a donation today.
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TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT BJPC:
If you have any friends, or know of someone who may be interested in our organization, please invite them to fill out our mailing list request form so that they can receive updates and information from us.
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350 Cordova Street, Pasadena CA 91101; 626.773.8808;
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