Objects

The gift from Przemysław Szpilman, the long-time director of the cemetery at Okopowa Street in Warsaw. The ceramic floor tile is of rectangular shape, two-coloured (beige and black). On the face in the central part there are three geometric figures imitating leaves. The figures are folded into a circle. The composition is symmetrical. The central part of the surface is covered with a spatial, uneven pattern imitating cracks. The tile is unglazed. On the reverse side the surface is covered with cement paste.

The tile comes from the premises of the Preburial House at Flat 51, 49 Okopowa Street, destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. The author of the renovated cemetery-synagogue building was a Warsaw architect Adolf Schimmelpfennig. Only one photo of the building has survived, from 1941. The interior of the building, especially the eastern wall (the aron ha-kodesh is built in this place in the synagogue, the wall faces towards Jerusalem) resembles the symbolism used by Ludwig Förster in his 1853 synagogue in Vienna.

Natalia Różańska