Worth remembering

Jewish life in Poland prior to the Nazi initiated Holocaust is worth celebrating in contrast to the suffering documented and displayed in museums and historical sites concentrating on the horrors of German occupation. 

A new museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Poland, opened this week in what was during WWII Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews offers a reminder of the Jewish culture that thrived in Poland for millenia before the devastating Nazi occupation.

Some Holocaust survivors were in attendance as the museum unveiled its core exhibition, "A Thousand-Year History of Polish Jews." The museum takes its name from the Hebrew word for Poland, Polin, which means “rest here." When the Jews began settling in Poland in the Middle Ages, they found a tolerant government that offered a great deal of political autonomy, allowing them to thrive for many centuries when they were persecuted and shunned in most other countries .

"When you are a Jew, even if you were not born in Poland, the very name 'Poland' stirs up trembling and longing in your heart," noted Israeli president Reuven Rivlin during the opening ceremony. Of 14 million Jews worldwide, nine million can claim Polish ancestry.