Toward the end of our journey, we got to ride bikes around the countryside of Bialowieza Village. The ride was part of a village tour led by Kasia, a non-Jewish memory activist who has studied the Jewish history of the area for many years. She knows more about the history of Bialowieza’s Jews than anyone — down to which homes families lived in — and built the virtual museum of the Jews of Bialowieza.
In this easternmost part of Poland, the dominant group other than Jews was Orthodox Christian, many of them Belarusian — not Polish Catholics. This shaped relationships between Jews and their neighbors for the better, especially once Poland regained its independence after WWI, when Polish nationalists were pushing for a Poland that was ethnically Polish and Catholic, with little room for other traditions. As marginalized communities, they were more natural allies.
Jews owned some of the houses and rented out the other half to Orthodox Christian neighbors, while Orthodox Christian families did the same in reverse, all on the same street — no ghetto here. Relationships were reportedly good, and the same was true in Milejczyce, where the pacifist, anti-nationalist Rabbi Aaron Tamares lived.
The other special thing about this part of Poland is that the villages look much as shtetls did back in the day. Wooden houses are valued here in the countryside, and restored instead of knocked down to build modern homes.
Our ride also led to a memorial in the woods that Kasia made happen. The spot previously held a Holocaust memorial only for the Poles and Orthodox Christian people who died there. Now there is a beautiful Jewish memorial too, stones growing from the earth. Kasia has also created gatherings that bring descendants of Bialowieza’s Jews from around the world to learn about their history here.
🌳 Applications due 11/23 for the 2027 cohort (we start in January!).
