Collections

Bedding and tablecloths left by the Jews of Żarnów

Bedding and tablecloths left behind by an unknown Jewish family from Żarnow, located near Opoczno and Końskie. Before the war, the family ran a restaurant and butcher's shop in the market square. During the occupation, they handed them over to their friendly neighbours, Wiktor and Henryka Spasiński, who shared the income with them. They also entrusted them - before being resettled in the Opoczno ghetto - with some of their bed linen and tablecloths.

The Jewish population gathered in the Opoczno ghetto was later transported to the German extermination camp at Treblinka.

The objects were donated to the museum collection by Anna Templin in the second decade of the 21st century. She received the textiles from Henryka Spasińska before her death in 2002 (Wiktor Spasiński died in 1975) in Kwidzyn, where the Spasiński family moved from Żarnów after the war.

Tablecloths and bedding, mementos of Jews who remain unknown by name, are examples of valuable items entrusted to Polish neighbours during the war by Jews.

The museum collection contains similar entrusted objects, but of a different type (bedspreads, cutlery, tableware, sewing machines). The collection also includes tablecloths donated out of gratitude for help (a tablecloth from a Jewish woman from the Warsaw Ghetto thanking Anna Stupnicka for providing food; a Shabbat cover given to the Adamczyk family by brothers Chaim and Mojżesz Fryml as a token of gratitude for hiding them).

The story of Lila Flachs (Zofia Trembska), who, after the war, specially came to Jan Lewiarz, who had once been hiding her, to collect bed linen, attests to how valuable bed linen was (see https://wmuzeach.pl/kolekcje/muzeum-historii-zydow-polskich-polin_1/pamiatki-zofii-trembskiej-lili-flachs-z-okresu-ukrywania_255, accessed 26.12.2023).

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