Objects

Black-and-white photograph taken with a wide-angle lens showing the building of the Secondary and Economic School Complex (Zespół Szkół Licealnych i Ekonomicznych) at 10 Stawki Street (ul. Stawki 10) in Warsaw, on the site of the former Umschlagplatz – from where thousands of Jews were deported to German extermination camps.

The photograph shows the façade of the building located at 10 Stawki Street (ul. Stawki 10), built right next to this street. It houses the Secondary and Economic School Complex No. 1 (Zespół Szkół Licealnych i Ekonomicznych nr 1) in Warsaw. Its tradition originates from the Public Merchant Gymnasium and Administration High School named after J. and M. Roesler, which before Second World War was considered the best secondary vocational school in Warsaw. The school was then located in a building at 33 Chłodna Street (ul. Chłodna 33). In 1940, Janusz Korczak’s Orphanage moved into the school building. It was forced by the creation of the ghetto, as the Roesler school building at Chłodna Street (ul. Chłodna) was located within the closed Jewish quarter, while the Orphanage at the end of Krochmalna Street (ul. Krochmalna) in the so-called Aryan district. The exchange of buildings was carried out by Janusz Korczak and the director of the gymnasium and high school, Szczepan Bońkowski. The building of the school complex was demolished in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising.

The depicted building at the Stawki Street (ul. Stawki) is located on the site of the former Umschlagplaz, or “reloading point” – a tragic site for the history of thousands of Polish Jews. There once was a railway ramp there, which no longer exists, where, from 1942 to 1943, Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were gathered and then transported to the Nazi extermination camps, mostly the Treblinka II camp. About 300,000 Jews were deported from this site.

MBK