Today only one synagogue survives from pre-war Warsaw. The scuffed turn-of-the-century tiles are silent witnesses of a world that was all but extinguished under the Nazi occupation.
A black shadow may hang over Poland's 700 year Jewish heritage, yet there are also tremendous riches to be discovered. Even looking at the inter-war period alone, you find that some of the most cherished figures in Polish culture were Jewish, including the writers Bruno Schulz, Juliusz Tuwim and Boleslaw Lesmian to name but a few.
At the moment the capital has no satisfactory introduction to the world of Jewish Poland. But after much deliberation, it finally looks like a major modern museum is about to be built. A whopping 33 million dollars will be needed to realize the enterprise, which has already attracted architects of the calibre of Frank Gehry.
Such a huge project requires the metaphorical moving of mountains. Poland's post-communist government is not overflowing with cash, and the bureaucratic labyrinth is enough to try the most stoical of heros. City President Lech Kaczynski found as much when he endeavoured to create the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, which did indeed finally open to much applause for the sixtieth anniversary of the Varsovian Rising against Nazi rule (1944-2004).
Kaczynski himself made a trip to Isreal earlier this year, where he revealed his hopes for the new project - The Museum Of The History Of Poland's Jews.
"This museum is needed for my city, for my country, and is our debt to the Jewish people and to the history of Poland," Kaczynski told The Jerusalem Post.
Big words. But will Warsaw be able to deliver the goods? The good news is that the Polish government has just pledged 26 million dollars towards the enterprise - a colossal amount by national standards. Given that only 20 per cent of the remaining budget now needs to be found, the project looks like it's in safe hands.
Until this day, Polish-Jewish relations are often muddied by ill-informed stereotyping on both sides. ''We have to free ourselves from all sort of stereotypes from the past," Kaczynski said in his interview with the Jerusalem Post. "Granted it is going to take a lot of time, but we have just got to do it."
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