More about Jana Kilińskiego 49
20 June 2013
The building in which the Lejzerowicz family lived - and where Izrael seems to have had his studio during the 1930s - is a grand old building that is still standing today in the center of town. Alas, it’s now more of a standing ruin, but people still live there and probably some of the apartments are quite beautiful. The city is full of glorious buildings erected before World War I. For many years after 1945, there was little chance of restoring them, but now many of these older buildings are being saved and restored one by one.
This building was important to the Jewish community in Łódź. The last Jewish school in the city, the Perec School (featured in Sławomir Grünberg’s documentary film, The Peretzniks / Perecowicze) was in this building until it closed after the anti-Semitic campaign of the Polish government in 1968.
Lejzerowicz’s sister, Estera, ran a school in the building for a period in the early 1930s.
Today, the courtyard looks like a set for a Beckett play, complete with a spindly tree ready to be part of the set for Waiting for Godot. As the city reclaims its older buildings, we can hope that someone will see the beauty and possibilities in this one, provided that its structure is sound enough to permit restoration.
