Warsaw Walicow 14 St. | Bronze Mezuzah

This isn’t just a mezuzah, it is an art piece that exists as a witness to the history of Warsaw Jews. This mezuzah is a bronze cast, of an imprint of the mezuzah trace found at the old tenement at Walicow Street in Warsaw.

Part of a series by MI POLIN of over 160 entry doors catalogued throughout Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Belarus; this mezuzah imprint from the doorpost at 14 Walicow St. has a special legacy to share.

The designers behind MI POLIN created a new mezuzah out of bronze to make the history tangible. Touching the mezuzah activates a link between past and present. The address 14 Walicow St. has been laser engraved into one side of the mezuzah and the Hebrew letter “Shin” is engraved on the opposite side. Read below to find out more about this fascinating art piece!

• Dimension: 4.33” long x 1.18” wide
• Material: Bronze
• Note: Mounting screws and parchment scroll are not included.

LEARN MORE ABOUT | MEZUZAH FROM THIS HOME SERIES

THE HOME

From November 1940 until August 1942, during the German occupation of Poland the building at 14 Walicow St. was located within the grounds of the Warsaw Ghetto. Many distinguished persons lived in the tenement house at 14 Waliców St. in Warsaw before WWlI.

One of them was Dawid Szulman, a lawyer who during the war was a member of the Jewish Military Union. As a lawyer he judged traitors and Jewish members of Gestapo - SS and Wehrmacht collaborators. Together with Bert Braudo and Sara Granatsztejn he executed a death penalty on the director of the Judenrat economic department, Izrael First, for collaborating with the Germans. All three of them were killed in the Holocaust.

Wtadystaw Szlengel, a poet, a song and cabaret text writer, was another famous inhabitant of the house. In 1941 he lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and participated in theatrical performances in Janusz Korczak's Orphanage. He and his wife were shot dead by the Germans in 1943. Menachem Kipnis, a famous photographer, singer, satirist and journalist also lived there. He and his wite, Zmira Zeligteld, died in the Warsaw Ghetto.

WARSAW UPRISING

During the Warsaw Uprising Waliców St. was the area for fighting battles by the Home Army "Sowinski" battalion. A participant of these battles, Jerzy Wozniak "Spila" reported: "On 24th September the German infantry, supported by two tanks, attacked our positions at Waliców St in Warsaw. The attack was preceded by the explosion of a huge bomb, that destroyed the façade of the building at 14 Waliców St. After heavy fighting, the attack was repulsed."

THE TRACE

No proprietary claims regarding the building have ever been filed. The tenement house was partially inhabited until the year 2000. In 2015 the city authorities issued the order for the house to be demolished. The order was suspended after intervention from the local authorities. In 2017 a group of municipal activists applied to the conservator - restorer to register the house at 14 Walicow St. in the Polish National Registry of Historic Buildings. It is one of the very few tenement houses from the former ghetto area that survived to this very day, bearing witness to the history of Warsaw.