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Use our multimedia maps, and explore the family pictures, archival material, and personal stories of 21 Jewish Holocaust survivors to get a unique insight into Europe’s rich Jewish heritage, and to discover sites of Jewish life in towns in Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.
The statue of a man smoking a pipe commands the attention of almost all visitors. On the cartouche we can see the signature of Roman Brandstaetter, born on 3 January 1906 in Tarnów — a distinguished poet, writer, translator and playwright. His work includes clear references to Tarnów and a wide range of Jewish themes, although Brandstaetter himself converted to Christianity during the Second World War. His conversion, attained in Jerusalem in 1941, was the result of in-depth study and personal reflection. After the war, Brandstaetter returned to Poland and continued his creative work. He died in 1987 and is buried in Poznań.
The Brandstaetter family was well-known in pre-war Tarnów. Roman’s grandfather, Mordechaj Dawid Brandstaetter, ran a prosperous oil mill. He was a supporter of the Jewish Enlightenment and a writer. He wrote stories in Hebrew that had a readership large enough to be translated into Russian, German, Yiddish, and also English. Mordechaj Dawid Brandstaetter died in 1928. He is buried at the Jewish cemetery in Tarnów.
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