Yesterday I met another amazing person as I continue recording conversations with non-Jewish rescuers of memory in Poland for the Rescuer of Memory Archive I am creating in partnership with Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN. From the moment I met him it was clear that Marek Kołcon is passionate about and dedicated to Jewish memory in Zamość. (Zamość is a town about an hour and a half from Lublin where I traveled with the indefatigable team of Agnieszka on camera, Łukasz who took a break from his usual duties at Brama Grodzka to drive and assist, and Monika who interpreted).
Trying to make small talk while testing the mics I asked Marek what he had done during his winter break from teaching high school.
“I read books,” he replied.
“What books?” I asked.
“A book about the Kielce pogrom, for example” he answered.
I had not known him five minutes before realizing that the topic of Jewish memory is never far from Marek Kołcon’s mind.
It’s the emptiness, he says, the fact that that forty percent of the population of pre-war Zamość is not here anymore that drives Marek. He believes that those who live here now need to know about their onetime neighbors. The school he teaches in now was once the school of many Jewish girls and people need to know that truth.
Marek talked about the emptiness but what I felt was how much he is filling that emptiness with memory. He knows who lived at particular addresses and who owned particular businesses. If you walked alone in Zamość it might feel empty of Jews (and of course it is) but if you walked with Marek you would hear stories of individual people and begin to feel the life that once made up forty percent of the population.
Marek is responsible for raising money to install plaques at what is called the Beetroot ramp—the place from where the Jews from Zamość were deported. Those plaques, in Hebrew, Polish and English are surrounded by material from the pre-War streets of the Jewish section of Zamość and pay tribute to all the Jewish victims of Zamość.
(On a personal note—but also a note that’s important for my work in Poland—our interview was in Polish and though we had a translator I am happy to report I did not need her for a lot of it and understood 80% or more of what Marek said! This is great news because it is of course easier to connect with people when you can speak and understand their language).
Zamość teacher Marek Kołcon and me.
Stolpersteine installed this summer in memory of Jews who lived on Żydowska Street, now Zamenhofa Street
Portion of one of the plaques from the Beetroot Ramp.
Beetroot Ramp Memorial