Ludwig Guttmann was one of the most outstanding doctors of the 20th century and the creator of an idea that changed the lives of people with mobility impairments. Although he was born in 1899 in Toszek, it was Wrocław that became the place where he developed as a scientist and a human being. After studying in Freiburg, he returned to the Oder region to work alongside the famous neurologist, Otfrid Foerster. In the municipal hospital on today’s Poniatowskiego Street, he developed as a neurosurgeon, combining scientific precision with deep compassion for patients. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, Guttmann, as a Jew, was deprived of the possibility of working in state hospitals. He then became associated with the Jewish hospital on Sudecka Street, and from 1937 he served as its medical director. There, he created a center for care and dignity, saving people who had been cast out on the margins of society. During the Kristallnacht in 1938, he opened the doors of the hospital to the persecuted, hiding them among the patients. His decision was an expression not so much of heroism as of deep humanism, a belief that medicine is an obligation to humanity. After emigrating to Great Britain in 1939, Guttmann brought the spirit of pre-war Wrocław to Stoke Mandeville, its scientific rigor, ethics, and respect for the patient. It was there that he created a new model for the treatment of spinal cord injuries, based on movement, rehabilitation, and sport. In 1948, he organized the first sports competition for veterans in wheelchairs, which is now considered the beginning of the Paralympic Games. In 1966, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him a knighthood. Sir Ludwig Guttmann became a symbol of medicine based on empathy and courage. His name is now on a memorial plaque at the Marciniak Hospital in Lower Silesia and on a square in Wrocław’s Zalesie. This is a reminder that the history of this outstanding doctor is also the history of Wrocław, the city where the idea of treatment that restores dignity was born.

Max Silberberg was one of the most prominent art collectors and patrons of culture in interwar Wrocław. In his villa on today’s Kutnowska Street, he created a place where modernity met sophistication. The architect August Endell designed the interiors with harmonious lines and bright spaces, and the walls were adorned with works by Courbet, Delacroix, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Liebermann, and Rodin. Silberberg’s home was a private gallery and an artistic salon where people discussed art, philosophy, and the future of Europe. The collector supported cultural institutions in Wrocław, chaired the Jewish Museum Society, and served on the board of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts. Thanks to him, Wrocław became one of the important centers of artistic life in Germany.
After 1933, his world collapsed rapidly. After Hitler came to power, Silberberg, as a Jew, was deprived of his positions and property; his villa was taken over by the SS, and his collection was dispersed in forced auctions in Berlin. In 1942, he and his wife were deported, probably to Theresienstadt, and then to Auschwitz, where they both perished. Today, works from his collection can be found in museums around the world, from the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay to the National Gallery in Washington, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the National Museum in Warsaw. Each of these paintings is a testament to the lost world of Wrocław’s culture, which was interrupted by the Holocaust. The story of Max Silberberg reminds us that Wrocław was a place where art could transcend boundaries.

Rudolf Walter Ladenburg was one of the most outstanding physicists of the first half of the 20th century, and his scientific journey led him through Wrocław, the city where his passion for research on light and matter was born. He was born on June 6, 1882, in Kiel, to a Jewish family of chemist Albert Ladenburg and Margarete Pringsheim. He studied physics in Heidelberg, Munich, and Wrocław, where in the early 20th century he developed his interest in optics and atomic physics. In Wrocław, he matured as a scientist, laying the foundations for his later research on dispersion in gases and the nature of light. After obtaining his doctorate in 1906 from Munich under the supervision of Wilhelm Röntgen, he returned to Wrocław, where he completed his habilitation and then became a lecturer and associate professor at the University of Wrocław. In his laboratory, phenomena were studied that would soon become key to understanding quantum mechanics. Ladenburg conducted pioneering experiments on dispersion anomalies and the behavior of gases excited electrically, and his works published in Annalen der Physik and Zeitschrift für Physik were widely cited.
In 1924, he moved to Berlin, and in 1930, he took over the Cyrus Fogg Brackett chair at Princeton University. After 1933, he was involved in helping Jewish scholars forced to emigrate, organizing jobs for them at American universities. He was a scholar who combined the classical tradition of experimentation with new quantum thought. He died on April 6, 1952, in Princeton. He was remembered as a man with a clear mind and a deep sense of responsibility.

Max Pinkus was one of the most prominent industrialists and patrons of the arts in Silesia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and his life was inextricably linked to Wrocław, the city he considered the spiritual center of Silesia. He was born in 1857 in Prudnik, into a family of Jewish entrepreneurs for whom work, education, and art were a common language of values. He grew up in an environment where tradition met modernity, and Wrocław was the place where the intellectual and economic life of the region was concentrated. After studying in Lyon and doing internships in England and the United States, he took over the family business, S. Fränkel, transforming it into one of the largest and most modern textile factories in Germany. Connected with Wrocław banks, the chamber of commerce, and the university community, he supported scientists and students, opening his collections and archives to them. His economic activity was inseparable from his patronage; he combined the precision of an industrialist with the sensitivity of a collector. The greatest work of his life was the Silesian Library in Prudnik, containing tens of thousands of volumes dedicated to the history, literature, and culture of the region. Its collections included works by Angelus Silesius and Martin Opitz, as well as manuscripts and first editions of the works of Gerhart Hauptmann, with whom Pinkus maintained a close friendship. It was with Wrocław, where they often met, that they shared a vision of Silesia as a space where cultures and languages intermingled.
After his death in 1934, part of his invaluable book collection was transferred to the University Library in Wrocław. To this day, it stands as a testament to his passion and conviction that the culture of Silesia is a shared heritage, and its heart continues to beat in Wrocław.

Erna Stein-Blumenthal was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in art history at the University of Wrocław, and one of those who, with her knowledge and passion, transcended the boundaries of her time. She was born on September 23, 1903, in Emden. She came to Wrocław to study art history, and the city was then one of the most important centers of the humanities in Central Europe. Here, she defended her doctoral dissertation on Baroque architecture, focusing on the symbolism and form of columns, which for her were not only a structural element but also an expression of the spiritual order of European art. After her studies, she collaborated with the Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart and the Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, publishing precise studies on artists and styles. In 1930, she began working with Karl Schwarz, who was creating a collection of Jewish art in Berlin. When the Jewish Museum in Berlin opened in January 1933, and Schwarz left for Palestine, it was Erna Stein-Blumenthal who took over the management of this institution. From May 1933, she managed the museum during a time when persecution was increasing in Germany. Her task became not only to collect works but also to preserve the memory of Jewish culture. Under her leadership, a guide to the collections was created, in which she described painting, sculpture, and ritual art. After the museum was closed by the Nazis, she emigrated to Palestine, where, as Erna Blumenthal, she helped to lay the foundations of Israeli art history and museology. She died on June 5, 1983, in Emek Hefer. Her journey, from the university halls of Wrocław to the first Jewish museums in Berlin and Palestine, remains a testament to the courage of a woman who made science a tool of memory.

Bente Kahan is one of the most important contemporary artists in Wrocław, and her work combines art, memory, and intercultural dialogue. She was born in 1958 in Oslo, into a family with Jewish roots reaching back to Andalusia, Lithuania, and Poland. Her father, Hermann Kahan, survived the horrors of the concentration camps during the war, along with his father, and after the war, he traveled through Hungary and France before settling in Norway. Having experienced traumatic events, he passed on to her a deep sense of responsibility for memory and culture. She studied acting in Tel Aviv and New York, performed on the stages of the Habima Theatre and the Norwegian National Theatre, and in 1990, she founded the Dybuk Theatre in Oslo, dedicated to Jewish culture.
She arrived in Wrocław in 2001 and found her place in the world here. In 2006, she established the Bente Kahan Foundation, whose goal became to revive the memory of the Jewish history of Lower Silesia. The foundation’s greatest achievement was the restoration of the White Stork Synagogue and its transformation into a center for culture, music, and meetings. Thanks to her determination, this historical site is once again full of life. As a vocalist, actress, and director, Kahan creates performances in which music becomes a vehicle for memory. Her projects combine historical testimonies with poetry and emotion. She sings in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, German, and Polish, and her interpretations have made her one of the important ambassadors of Jewish culture in the world. For her activities, she received the title of Honorary Citizen of Wrocław, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the title of Ambassador of Wrocław, among many other awards. Thanks, in part, to Bente Kahan, the city of Wrocław is learning to listen to old voices and create new harmonies from them. Thanks to her, history, which has been silent for years, is being rediscovered and is inspiring once again.

Abraham Geiger was one of the most prominent rabbis of the 19th century and the founder of Reform Judaism, and Wrocław played a key role in the development of his ideas. He was born in 1810 in Frankfurt am Main, studied in Heidelberg and Bonn, and after several years of work in Wiesbaden, he took up the position of rabbi in Wrocław in 1840. The city on the Oder River, with its vibrant intellectual and religious life, became a place where Geiger could put his vision of faith, based on reason, ethics, and openness to the world, into practice. He was convinced that Judaism had to develop along with the times. He sought to shorten and simplify religious services, allowed music during prayer, and introduced the German language into the liturgy, wanting to bring religion closer to believers. In his view, Judaism was not a collection of rigid rules, but a living moral system. He advocated for the establishment of a modern center for Jewish studies, and in 1854 he co-created the intellectual foundation that led to the opening of the Jewish Theological Seminary. However, Zacharias Frankel became the first director, and Jonas Fraenkel provided the funds for its operation. In 1863, Geiger left Wrocław and took up the position of rabbi in Frankfurt am Main, and later headed the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin. He died in 1874, leaving behind a legacy whose roots lie in the years he spent on the Oder River. It was here that his concept of a religion open to knowledge and culture took on a real form.

Zacharias Frankel was one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the 19th century, and his life and work have become an integral part of Wrocław’s history. He was born in Prague in 1801, and it was in the capital of Silesia that his religious and scientific views reached their full expression. After studying at the University of Budapest, he became the chief rabbi of Dresden in 1836, where he became known as a scholar who combined respect for tradition with openness to modernity. He opposed radical reformers who wanted to reject prayer in Hebrew, convinced that language, text, and memory were essential to Jewish identity. Frankel did not seek revolution; he reformed Judaism from within and believed that history, not just doctrine, shaped the Jewish people. In 1854, he came to Wrocław to take up the position of the first director of the newly established Jewish Theological Seminary on Włodkowica Street. Under his leadership, this institution quickly became one of the most important centers of Jewish learning in Europe and a place where Conservative Judaism was born. It was here that Frankel created a space where religion met history, and science met faith. He died in Wrocław in 1875 and was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery. His grave reminds us of the scholar who, in times of conflict, was able to maintain moderation and courage in his thinking. Wrocław remained the place where the idea of Zacharias Frankel, the combination of faith and reason, took its deepest root.

Heinrich Graetz was one of the most important Jewish historians of the 19th century, and his life and work were inextricably linked to Wrocław. He was born in 1817 in Książ Wielkopolski, but it was in 1842 that he came to Wrocław as a young teacher and researcher, eager to combine Jewish tradition with modern science. After obtaining his doctorate from the University of Jena, he returned to the Oder region to help create an intellectual center for Jewish thought, which in the mid-19th century made Wrocław one of the most important centers of learning in Europe. From 1854, he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary on Włodkowica Street, an institution that, under his influence, became a place for dialogue between religion, science, and history. At his initiative, the valuable collection of Jewish books by Saravala was brought from Trieste, which enriched the seminary’s collections and raised the status of the center. Graetz combined the erudition of a scholar with the passion of a teacher, creating a bridge between the rabbinic world and a modern view of history. It was in Wrocław that his greatest work, the monumental History of the Jews, was created, published in eleven volumes between 1853 and 1876. It was the first modern synthesis of the history of the Jewish people, written in the language of science, but also with deep emotional involvement. For his contemporaries, Graetz became not only a historian but also a teacher of identity, who showed that the history of the Jews is part of the history of all mankind. He spent over forty years in Wrocław, teaching and creating. He was an independent thinker, often critical of Kabbalah and overly strict Talmudic traditions, which, in his opinion, alienated Jews from reason and progress. His views sparked discussions, but they stemmed from a genuine concern for the spiritual and intellectual future of the nation. He died in 1891 in Munich, but his body rested where it truly belonged, in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław. Among the graves of scholars, doctors, and rabbis, his grave reminds us that it was in this city that modern Jewish historiography was born.

Otto Toeplitz was one of the most original mathematicians of the 20th century, and his scientific journey began in Wrocław. He was born there in 1881 into a family of mathematics teachers and, from a young age, showed an extraordinary sensitivity to logic and the beauty of numbers. In his hometown, he completed his secondary education and began his studies at the University of Wrocław, where he obtained his doctorate in algebraic geometry in 1905. Wrocław was the place that shaped his mind, full of academic tradition, intellectual discipline, and the courage to think. After years of working in Göttingen and Kiel, he took over the chair of mathematics at the University of Bonn in 1928. There, he developed research on infinite forms and matrices, as well as on functional analysis, engaging in debates with prominent scholars and criticizing the overly abstract approaches of some concepts. Toeplitz, however, was not only a theorist but also an excellent popularizer of science. In the book Die Entwicklung der Infinitesimalrechnung, he introduced readers to the world of differential and integral calculus, showing how the ideas of modern mathematics grew out of the questions of the ancient Greeks.
With Hitler’s rise to power, his life underwent a dramatic change. In 1935, he was dismissed from his position at the University of Bonn due to his Jewish origin. In 1939, he emigrated to Palestine, where he died a year later in Jerusalem. His career was brutally cut short, but his legacy endured in the concepts, theories, and books that bear his name.

Philip Lazarus Hirschel was a prominent figure in the Wrocław Jewish community in the mid-18th century. He led the first synagogue in Wrocław since the Middle Ages, which was a crucial step in rebuilding the religious life of the Jews after previous persecutions. During his time, the Jewish community began to revive, and Hirschel became a symbol of this revival. He tragically died in the explosion of the powder tower in June 1749, which caused great shock among the Jewish community throughout Silesia. His tragic death, along with several dozen other people, and the almost complete destruction of the community’s property, were commemorated with a special day of remembrance until the 1930s.

Zachariasz Łazarz, born in the Czech town of Nachod, was the manager of the imperial mint in Wrocław from 1657 to 1658. He was the first Jew since the 15th century to be allowed to settle permanently in the city, and his activities had a significant impact on the rebuilding of the Jewish community in the region. Łazarz demonstrated numerous talents, including excellent management skills and the ability to easily establish relationships with city authorities. Thanks to him, it was possible to resume minting coins in the local mint, which strengthened Wrocław’s economy. His unique position almost led to the revival of the Jewish community in Wrocław. Unfortunately, resistance from city authorities, concerned about the presence of Jews, and a kind of competition in trade and crafts, meant that this did not succeed.

Isaac Meyer was the lessee of the imperial mint in Wrocław from 1546 to 1548. His activities as the mint’s manager sparked controversy among the Christian inhabitants, who referred to the coins he issued as “Jewish halers.” This was due to the imperial policy, which led to the devaluation of currency. Meyer was one of the few Jews who had an influence on the local economy at a time when Jews were excluded from many aspects of social life. Despite his short stay in the city, he left a lasting mark, becoming a symbol of the complex relations between the Jewish community and the city authorities. His story is an example of how Jews, despite numerous obstacles, sought to find their place in European society.

Louis Cohn was one of the wealthiest Jewish entrepreneurs in Wrocław at the end of the 19th century. He was actively involved in social activities and supported initiatives for the Jewish community in Wrocław. At the beginning of the 20th century, his family ran the Trautner department store, designed by the architects, brothers Paul and Richard Ehrlich. The luxurious department store attracted wealthy residents of the city, offering a wide range of products, from clothing to household goods. After the Nazis came to power, the Cohn family lost almost everything, which ultimately ended their involvement in all aspects of city life.

Moses Lax was the first Jewish citizen of Wałbrzych to settle in the city after the emancipation edict in the 19th century. In Podgórze, a district of Wałbrzych, he ran an inn called “Zur Stadt Berlin,” where he produced liqueur. His economic activity was crucial for the development of the Jewish community in the region, and Lax played an important role in the construction of the first Jewish cemetery in Wałbrzych.

Willy Cohn was a distinguished German historian and teacher who dedicated his life to documenting the daily experiences of the Jewish community in Wrocław during the time of increasing Nazi persecution. His detailed diaries from 1933–1941 are an invaluable record of the growing discrimination, the Aryanization of Jewish property, and the gradual exclusion of Jews from the city’s social and cultural life. Cohn meticulously recorded the progressive marginalization of his community, documenting both the dramatic events and the everyday difficulties faced by the Jews of Wrocław during those years.

Cohn tragically died in November 1941 when, along with other Jews from Wrocław, he was deported to Kaunas, Lithuania. There, together with approximately a thousand other people, he was murdered by the Nazis. His diaries constitute one of the most important testimonies about the fate of Jews in Breslau (Wrocław) in the pre-war years and the early years of World War II, documenting not only the process of the Holocaust but also the daily life of the community before its final destruction.

Fritz Haber, born in Wrocław in 1868, was a Nobel laureate in chemistry for developing the ammonia synthesis process, which was crucial for the production of fertilizers. His research contributed to significant progress in agriculture, but also to the development of military technologies, including chemical weapons used during World War I. His work sparked controversy, and Haber himself gained a reputation as the “father of chemical weapons.” They were first used in the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. Their creator personally supervised the use of the weapons prohibited by the Hague Convention, keeping dry, unemotional scientific notes. After the war, surrounded by the aura of a hero of the German cause, and after the Nazis came to power, due to his Jewish origin, he was forced to emigrate to Great Britain. He received a job offer in Palestine. He died in Switzerland in 1934, on his way to Rechovot.

Max Born, born in 1882 in Wrocław, was one of the most outstanding theoretical physicists of the 20th century. His research in the field of quantum mechanics earned him the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his statistical interpretation of the wave function. After completing his studies in Wrocław and working in Berlin, Göttingen, and Cambridge, Born played a key role in the development of quantum mechanics, collaborating with scientists such as Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he had to emigrate to Great Britain, where he continued his scientific career. Together with Albert Einstein, he signed the “Russell-Einstein Manifesto,” opposing the use of nuclear weapons. His life and scientific work continue to inspire many generations of physicists, and his contribution to the development of science is undeniable.

Reinhard Selten was born in Wrocław in 1930. His father was Jewish, and his mother was Protestant. As a young man, he experienced the difficult fate of a mixed-race individual, and therefore, although he was mathematically gifted, he could not develop his interests at school. His father’s death probably saved him from deportation to a concentration camp, which befell most of the Jews of Wrocław in 1942. He left with his mother and survived the last years of the war by hiding in Saxony, Austria, and Hesse. In 1961, he was invited to a conference on game theory at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA. Selten became interested in game theory, for research in which he received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 (together with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He only visited Wrocław in the 1990s, promoting his second passion after economics – the Esperanto language.

Otto Stern, a distinguished physicist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1943 in his field for his contribution to the development of the molecular beam method and the discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton. The scientist, who came from Żory, moved with his family to Wrocław at the age of 4, where he studied at the famous Johannes Gymnasium, where representatives of many faiths worked and studied in a spirit of tolerance. Among those who worked there was the famous historian and author of a diary, Willy Cohn. Although the school that Stern attended had a humanities profile, he completed his studies in physical chemistry and later obtained a doctorate from the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. He collaborated with many outstanding scientists, including Albert Einstein. The rise to power of the NSDAP forced Stern to emigrate to the United States, where he continued his work in the field of molecular physics. He was one of the absolute record holders in the number of nominations for the Nobel Prize, having received as many as 82.

Hedwiga Kohn, born in Wrocław in 1887, was one of three women in Germany who obtained a habilitation in physics before 1933. She specialized in spectrophotometry and promoted the development of this field, supervising numerous doctoral dissertations. After the Nazis came to power, she had to emigrate, first to Sweden and then to the United States. There, she continued her scientific career, collaborating with American universities and research institutions. In 2019, Google honored her with a graphic, commemorating her contribution to the development of science.

Symche Natan was a distinguished theater director. After World War II, in Dzierżoniów, he established a theater group with which he organized the first post-war theatrical production in Yiddish. His activities contributed to the rebuilding of the cultural life of the Jewish community in Lower Silesia, and his productions were an important step in the process of reviving Jewish culture after the tragedy of the Holocaust. Natan became a key figure in promoting art in Yiddish.

Jakub Rotbaum, born on August 13, 1901, in Lviv, began his career in the theater of interwar Poland, and after World War II, he settled in Wrocław, where he played a key role in the development of the Jewish Theater. As artistic director, he contributed to the revival of Yiddish theater, staging the outstanding work “A Dream of Goldfaden” in 1950. From 1946 to 1949, he lived in the United States, where he established contacts with the local Jewish diaspora and theater circles. This experience resulted in a modern approach to directing and enriched his skills, which he utilized after returning to Poland.

One of the key moments in Rotbaum’s career was his collaboration with Ida Kamińska, a distinguished actress and director. Kamińska, the founder of the State Jewish Theatre, supported his artistic ambitions, which allowed the theatre in Wrocław to become a cultural center not only for the Jewish community but also for a wider audience.

King John of Luxembourg, although not Jewish, played a significant role in the history of the Jewish community in Wrocław. In 1345, he ordered the desecration of the Jewish cemetery, which symbolized the long history of persecution experienced by people of Jewish origin. His decisions reflected the prevailing prejudices and intolerance of the time, which were evident in many European countries.

Julius Schottländer, born in 1835 in Ziębice, was one of the wealthiest and most influential entrepreneurs in Wrocław. His fortune, built on trade in wool and grain, allowed him to invest in the development of the southern areas of the city, especially the present-day district of Krzyki. In 1877, he founded the Southern Park, which was intended to serve the residents as a place for recreation. Schottländer also owned numerous plots of land in the vicinity of today’s Grunwaldzki Square, which had a significant impact on the urban development of this part of Wrocław.

In addition to his business activities, Schottländer was a philanthropist, funding, among other things, the construction of the Jewish Old People’s Home (1896) and the Jewish Home for Hospital Sisters (1903). Thanks to his support, both social institutions and urban infrastructure developed. He was buried in the Old Cemetery on Ślężna Street.

Paul Schottländer, the son of Julius, inherited his father’s estate and continued his industrial and philanthropic activities. He successfully developed his father’s financial empire, dividing his time between new investments and self-improvement, dedicating himself to learning. He was a Doctor of Philosophy and an honorary senator of the University of Wrocław, while also taking care of the city’s development and its reputation abroad. In the early 20th century, he became interested in new technologies and department stores modeled after American ones. As a result, in 1896, at the intersection of today’s Ofiar Oświęcimskich and Świdnicka streets in Wrocław, he opened a modern department store, known as the Red House, which became a symbol of elegance and luxury.

Ferdinand Lassalle, born in 1825 in Wrocław, was one of the pioneers of the socialist movement in Europe. As the founder of the first workers’ party in Germany – the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV) – Lassalle fought for the rights of workers and their political representation. His actions had a significant impact on the development of the socialist movement in Europe, including the establishment of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Lassalle was also the author of numerous essays and manifestos, in which he emphasized the importance of workers’ organization. He tragically died in 1864 as a result of a duel over the affections of his beloved, and his grave is located in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław.

Jakub Egit was the leader of the Provincial Jewish Committee, which began its activities in 1945, after the end of World War II. Thanks to his efforts, the communist authorities allowed for the organization of a yishuv, which meant a structure similar to a Jewish autonomous district within the Wrocław province. Egit played a key role in the reconstruction of Jewish life in Lower Silesia, becoming one of the most important figures in the process of reactivating Jewish communities after the Holocaust.

Szulim Trejstman was a rabbi who led religious activities in the Congregation of the Mosaic Faith in Wrocław from 1946 (the beginning of the Jewish community). His leadership contributed to the rebuilding of religious life among the surviving Jews, and his efforts to preserve Jewish traditions and culture were extremely important in the post-war period, when many people were trying to find their place in the new reality.

Walter Tausk was an entrepreneur and interior designer. However, he is best known for the diaries he wrote in Wrocław between 1925 and 1940. During World War I, he served in the army, where he received the Iron Cross for his bravery. In his diaries, which are a valuable document of the history of German Jews, he described not only everyday life but also the increasing persecution, including Kristallnacht and the destruction of the New Synagogue. The seven surviving volumes of his diaries are kept in the Library of Wrocław University. He met a tragic fate. On November 25, 1941, he was deported to Kaunas, where he died.

Ida Kamińska was one of the most important figures in Polish Yiddish theater. She was born into a Jewish family in Odessa and took her first steps on stage in Warsaw, where she gained recognition for her acting talent. After World War II, she took over as director of the Lower Silesian Jewish Theater in Wrocław, where she promoted Yiddish art by organizing numerous performances. Her adaptations of classics of Jewish literature were of great importance in preserving artistic traditions. In 1965, at the Cannes Film Festival, she received a special award for her role in the film “The Shop on Main Street,” directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, and was nominated for a Golden Globe. For the same role, in 1967, she became the first Polish actress in history to be nominated for an Oscar. Ida Kamińska was also active as a director and screenwriter, and her contribution to theater and film culture is invaluable. She died in 1980 in New York, leaving behind a rich artistic legacy and an influence on the development of Yiddish culture in Poland.

Brothers Paul and Richard Ehrlich were prominent architects whose work had a significant impact on the architecture of Wrocław in the early 20th century. Their most important work is the Trautner Department Store, built in 1903 at Rynek 24. This building was a seven-story structure in the Neomannerist style, distinguished by its glazed facade and characteristic glass globe. The Ehrlichs also designed many other public buildings in Wrocław, including the Jewish hospital on Sudecka Street, where their monograms can be seen.

Erich Mendelsohn was one of the leading figures in modernist architecture. He designed a new department store on Oławska Street for the Jewish entrepreneur Rudolf Petersdorf. His work, known as the Kameleon Department Store, opened in the 1920s and was characterized by its futuristic form and large, glazed shop windows, which attracted customers. Mendelsohn drew inspiration from American designs, combining functionality with minimalism. His designs were a response to the needs of the modern era and also represented an architectural manifesto that combined modernity with tradition.

Edwin Oppler was a renowned Jewish architect who designed the New Synagogue in Wrocław, also known as the Synagogue on Wygon Street. Built in 1872, it could accommodate 1,850 people and, along with the New Synagogue in Berlin, was the largest synagogue in Germany. Oppler, a proponent of the assimilation of Jews into German culture, created a monumental building in the Neoromanesque style, which was a symbol of the liberal Haskalah movement. His design featured a dome with a diameter of 18 m, rising to a height of 73 m, which was a modern architectural achievement for that time.

Georg Wertheim was a Jewish entrepreneur from Stralsund who revolutionized the way his parents’ small shop operated by introducing the possibility of exchanging goods, fixed prices, and a quality guarantee. His new department store on Świdnicka Street (today’s Renoma department store), designed by the architect Hermann Derenburg, was opened in 1930. Despite the economic crisis, Wertheim invested in the construction, resulting in an elegant building with a modern, modernist design that attracted customers with luxury goods. Wertheim became one of the most important players in the Wrocław department store market, and his innovative approach to retail had an impact on the entire industry.

Rudolf Petersdorff was a Jewish entrepreneur who commissioned the architect Erich Mendelsohn to design a new department store on Szewska Street (corner of Oławska Street). Mendelsohn, known for his modern approach to architecture, created a futuristic building with large, glazed shop windows that attracted customers’ attention. The opening of the Rudolf Petersdorff Department Store (now the Kameleon Department Store) took place in the 1920s and immediately became a sensation, attracting large crowds. Mendelsohn was one of the creators of modernism in architecture, and his works contributed to the redefinition of commercial space in the city.