Virtual Shtetl in Lower Silesia

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews has announced that a project called ‘Virtual Shtetl in Lower Silesia, Opole and Lubuskie Regions’ was launched in south-western Poland in September.

The announcement says that the primary objective of the project is to develop an internet portal that will give information on some 60 Jewish shtetls in Lower Silesia, Opole and Lubuskie Regions. The portal will comprise detailed data, including texts and images, on German Jews who resided in those areas up to World War II and on Polish Jews who formed the largest Jewish settlement in Poland after the war.

A catalogue of Judaica from the Lower Silesia, Opole and Lubuskie Regions, a book devoted to Jewish schools in Wrocław, 12 interviews with members of the Jewish community who graduated from the Sholem Aleichem Jewish Common School and Jewish High School in Wrocław will complement the project.

Click the links above for more information on the general ‘Virtual Shtetl’ project -- an internet portal dedicated to the history of Jewish life in small towns within historical Polish borders. It will feature old and recent photographs, preserved Jewish memorabilia, film clips and interviews. It will also give practical information – GPS coordinates, charts, landmark locations.