The item belonged to Roman Szkaradek, collector, co-founder and first curator of the Sącz Land Museum (now the District Museum in Nowy Sącz). He most likely acquired it from a trader. Before the war, it may have belonged to a Jewish man living in Nowy Sącz — the town had a large Jewish community, and many of its members were forced to leave their homes and other property behind.
A five-sided wooden cabinet with an oval mirror, in a carved frame of irregular shape, richly decorated with carved floral motifs. On either side of the mirror are standing lions, an important symbol in Judaism (more: https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=17052).
Stanisław Murzański's gift
Dariusz Popiela, an inhabitant of Nowy Sącz and an activist of Sądecki Sztetl (https://www.sadeckisztetl.com/, accessed 17 October 2022), works to preserve the memory of the Jews of Nowy Sącz. He is the author behind the "People, not numbers" project, which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust by name in local cemeteries, holds meetings with young people in schools to explain the history of the local Jewish community and organises educational trips to the Museum-Memorial Site in Bełżec. "Knowing that I am doing this for the victims gives me inner strength", Popiela admits. Dariusz Popiela is the winner of the 2021 POLIN Award.
In a letter to the POLIN Museum, Stanisław Murzański — a resident of Nowy Sącz and one of POLIN's donors — described one of the ways in which items left behind by Jews may have been acquired by Poles, as well as Polish-Jewish relations in Nowy Sącz. As Murzański recalls, the cabinet was acquired by his father — Roman Szkaradek: "(...) a passionate collector, co-founder and first curator of the Sącz Land Museum probably at the end of the war, or shortly after its end, from a person dealing in second-hand items. How this individual came into their possession, I can only guess (...). At both common and junior high school, I had classmates from Jewish families, former German colonists, who were numerous in those parts, as well as those with Hungarian, Slovakian and Czech roots. But Jews were the most numerous group. I still maintained relations with some at the beginning of the occupation, I even went to the ghetto before it was closed, visiting Nathan Einziger, with whom I was friends." Stanislaw Murzański goes on to describe his friendship with Einziger, recalling something he vividly remembers to this day. "Then, I went over there one day, and Nathan's mother said he had been taken somewhere to work, and she gave me his English textbook." The final liquidation of the ghetto took place on 23 August 1942. Before that, its part next to Kazimierza Wielkiego Street was surrounded by a three-metre-high brick wall. The elderly and sick were transferred there to be shot on the spot. All Jews destined for deportation were gathered at the Dunajec River. They were to report there with a specified amount of food and luggage and with marked keys to their homes. They were told that they would be deported to work in Ukraine. Following a selection, with around 800–900 young men earmarked for labour (they were sent mainly to labour camps in Muszyna, Rożnów and Sędziszów Małopolski), the rest of the Jews were taken to the death camp in Bełżec in three transports on 23, 25, 28 August 1942. (For more on the history of the Jewish community in Nowy Sącz, see https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/n/538-nowy-sacz/99-historia-spolecznosci/137763-historia-spolecznosci).
As a result of the Holocaust of the Nowy Sącz Jews, there were numerous abandoned homes across the town. These began to be occupied mainly by Poles. What they needed were mainly everyday items. As noted by Stanisław Murzański: "Finding items of no use value in the homes they occupied, they must have tried to get rid of them. This is how the items I donated (...) eventually ended up with my father. The Jews took little with them, only as much as they could carry. I saw this shocking, tragic exodus of thousands of Jewish women, men and children as I happened to be near the exit of the ghetto, situated in the middle of the city". After the war, some Jews returned to Nowy Sącz in an attempt to revive their community, though they were few in number. But the atmosphere in the town was not conducive to this. Stanisław Murzański recalls that none of his schoolmates was among the Jews returning to Nowy Sącz: "As the memory of that tragic reality faded, the items I kept only to be able to donate them to the Museum now, after so many years, began to take on the meaning of a symbol, a sign, a link with that tragic reality, and I am convinced that my father would have found this kind of institution the most appropriate place for them". Ultimately, the years 1968–1969 saw the last representatives of the Nowy Sącz Jewish community leave Poland altogether.
Natalia Różańska
