Objects

The huge synagogue in Żółkiew (now Zhovkva, Ukraine), decorated with a Renaissance attic, is not as lucky as the one in Dąbrowa Tarnowska (see MPOLIN-M726) and is still awaiting restoration to its former glory. When Tadeusz Rolke was taking this picture in 2003, the walls of the decaying building served as a makeshift rack for clothes sold at a street market. On the wall hung three dark, double-breasted winter overcoats with wide lapels. Looking at this photo for the first time, we pay attention mainly to the journalistic view of the difficult, post-Soviet everyday life of the Ukrainian town. It is only a closer look at the frame that allows us to recognise the large opening, embedded in a deep recess finished with a full arch, as the window of the Żółkiew synagogue. It is still divided with bolections, but most of the panes are already broken and only a thin mesh protects the rest of the panes.

In his black-and white-photographs, Rolke records the traces of a world which is no longer there, destroyed in the Holocaust. His photographic story tells about the emptiness that remained after the exterminated Jews, but also about the decay of the places where the Jews lived.

Renata Piątkowska