II. Mezuzah (מזוזה)

Text: Magdalena Krysińska-Kałużna, March 2022

The librarian walks over to me with a box that looks like a jewel case more than a normal box. She opens it and gently unwraps the many layers of paper. A mezuzah appears in front of my eyes. I have never seen one before in my life. I think hardly anyone in Konin has, although they were once embedded in door frames of many houses in town.

I look at the piece of parchment and ponder what did the people that had it nailed to their door look like. And whose hand was capable of such precise calligraphy.

Photo: Magdalena Krysińska-Kałużna

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
(Book of Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

The reverse of the scroll is inscribed with one of the names of God: שדי, Szaddai.

Photo: Magdalena Krysińska-Kałużna

A mezuzah consists of two excerpts from the Torah, rolled up and placed in special containers, which are in turn embedded in the outer, right side of a door frame, at an angle. A person entering a house of religious Jews should touch the holy scripture with their hand. How many devout hands touched this mezuzah?

In 1972, the building at 3 Maja Street 1-3, back then referred to as Armii Krajowej Street, was under renovation. Mr. Jan Szadkowski, who lived next door, decided to chop up an old, discarded door frame. The axe rebounded on a metallic object hidden inside the wood. It was a small container concealing a piece of rolled-up paper.

‘Dad knew that this wasn’t just any piece of paper’ says Mr. Jan’s son, Grzegorz, who stored the mezuzah following his father’s death. We’re sitting in Siesta. We order some tea. Mr. Grzegorz is drinking an orange-flavored one. This our first meeting ever.

‘My Dad was born in 1927. He was a stove fitter. His family lived at Armii Czerwonej Street 82, next to an evangelical church. Later, after he got married, he moved to live with my mom at Obrońców Westerplatte Street, next to Zofia Urbanowska’s mansion. In 1968, when I was 6, we moved to a house by Plac Wolności. My dad knew this square from early childhood. He would often come running here, and more than a few times he received a piece of candy from the Jews trading there.

‘Summer of 1972 someone was changing casings in the tenement house on the corner of Plac Wolności and what was then called Armii Czerwonej Street. My dad brought back a wooden beam. When he was chopping it up, a coffret jumped out of the wood, from that coffret – the mezuzah. Only in December of last year I learned, what the object was… a co-worker, who has a Jewish relative, helped me out.

‘Dad passed this roll of paper to me and I kept it at home the whole time. Uncle Edward, who fought in the Anders’ Army and later stayed in England, once sent cigars to my Dad. I stored the mezuzah in the cigar box for over 50 years. I’d like it to stay in Konin, which is why I brought it to the library [the Municipal Public Library at Dworcowa Street]. People should be able to see it.’

The coffret that held the parchment was broken. The mezuzah survived.

Translation: Ada Kałużna