History

The Jewish commune in Piotrków was established under the privilege granted by king John III Sobieski in 1679. The wooden synagogue was built in 1689. It was destroyed in 1740. Next to the synagogue, the building of the former Jewish school (Beth-Hamidrash) was founded in 1765 by Hern Piotrkower. The classrooms were situated on the ground floor. On the first floor, there were offices of the rabbinical court and the communal board. Between 1791 and 1793, the present-day large synagogue was erected, funded by Mojżesz Kocyn. Inside, there is a fragment of the polychrome painted in 1931 by Perec Wilenberg. It depicts lions supporting the tablets with the Ten Commandments.

During the Second World War, the building was destroyed. Between 1964 and 1966, it was renovated and converted into the Public Library. Under an agreement with the Jewish Community, the synagogue was purchased in 2000 by the Municipality of Piotrków Trybunalski.

Behind the synagogue, there is an area formerly occupied by a Jewish cemetery, used in the years 1689-1795 and destroyed by the Germans. It was a place of mass executions of members of the Jewish population from the Piotrków Ghetto - the first ghetto established in Poland in October 1939.

Description

The synagogue is situated in the eastern part of the city, approximately 60 metres to the east of the castle, at the north-eastern corner of the intersection of Wojska Polskiego and Jerozolimska Streets. The building adjoins 19th-century frontage buildings. The front, western elevation is included in the frontage of Jerozolimska Street. From the north, there is a connector linking the building with the large edifice of the synagogue.

Erected on a floor plan of an elongated rectangle, with an avant-corps on the axis of the western elevation. The layout of the interiors was modified to create three rooms of equal size. In the avant-corps, there is a staircase. The first floor has a similar layout.

The building has two storeys and a non-usable attic. It is covered with a gable roof. The avant-corps is covered with its own, gable roof, sloped at the same angle as that over the main building.

The building is set on foundations made from bricks and stones bound with lime mortar. Its plastered walls are made from solid ceramic bricks laid with lime mortar.

Ackerman ceilings rest on the walls. The building has a steel roof truss, made of flat lattice girders. The roof has sheet metal cladding which utilizes standing seam joints. The monolithic winder stairs are made from reinforced concrete, with terrazzo steps. The balustrade consists of vertical bars, with wooden, profiled handrail. In the passages and sanitary facilities, there are terrazzo floors. The other rooms have wooden parquet floors. The doors are wooden, frame-panelled, with one or two wings, lacquered. All windows are wooden, coupled.

The elevations are covered with smooth plasterwork.

The western, front elevation rests on a low plinth. One-axial. Smoothly plastered. On the ground floor, there is a rectangular entrance opening, in a profiled surround. Above the floor, there is a section of a profiled cornice. Further above, there is a window opening topped with a full arch, enclosed by a flat rectangular surround. In the attic, there is a triangular gable with a smoothly plastered tympanum, framed by a profiled cornice. The eastern elevation is two-axial. Both on the ground floor and on the first floor, there are two windows topped with segmental arches. In the attic, there is a triangular gable with a central, rectangular window opening.

The southern elevation is two-storey and six-axial (with the sixth axis in the avant-corps). The axes are defined by rectangular window openings. In the avant-corps, there is a blende left by a walled-up door opening.

The northern elevation is designed in a similar way. The axes on the ground floor are obscured by the connector linking the two buildings.

Inside, there is a preserved fragment of the original polychrome.

The building can be visited during the opening hours of the library. www.http://biblioteka.piotrkow.pl/

Compiled by Agnieszka Lorenc-Karczewska, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Łódź 14 May 2020

Bibliography

• Florek R., Record sheet of monuments of architecture and construction, 1992, Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Łódź, National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw,
• Głowacki K., Urbanistyka Piotrkowa Trybunalskiego, Piotrków Trybunalski – Kielce 1984.
• Karpowska M., Baranowska Z., Baranowski J., Studium historyczno-architektoniczne, PKZ Warszawa 1964