AUSCHWITZ JEWISH CENTER

Before it became the symbol of the Holocaust, Oświęcim was a peaceful Polish town where the majority of the inhabitants were Jews. Established in 1995, this Jewish cultural center aims to capture the life of the town's former Jewish community. It occupies the only surviving Jewish building in the city, the Synagogue for the Study of the Mishnah, a center for Talmudic studies and synagogue built in 1913. Ransacked by the Nazis in 1941, this synagogue was the first building in Poland to be returned to Jews in 1998.