I visited Ulanow in 2003. In every place I visit, I ask local people if they
have or know
of someone who has jewish items/documents/photos/books etc. I did
the same here and got great results!
I received a lot of help from a local man. First I went to the Jewish cemetery. The cemetery has about 150 tombstones. The earliest I could find was dated 1708.
In the center of town, many former Jewish
houses are still found, including the bakery.
A local man helped me arrange a meeting with a man who renovates
houses. In the garbage of one of the houses he renovated, he
found lots of typed Hebrew and Yiddish documents dating from the
1930's. The documents were
relating to AGUDAT ISRAEL and other
zionist organizations in Ulanow. He also found 3 photos of people
from the town named WERNER and BIRNBAUM. That's not all, this man
had a 1905 Hebrew manuscript sent from a Hungarian rabbi to his
student in Ulanow. Also found was a copper "MIGDAL BESAMIM" (this is
a holder of BESAMIM, which we smell when doing "HAVDALA").
I took photographs of the Migdal Besamim and of the 3 photographs (the
photos can be found on the Ulanow main page).
ANOTHER TIP: bring a good camera and, in cases like this, take not only 1 photograph of each item, but 5 or more. Take one photograph with a flash, the other without. Take a few more in different light and background conditions. Don't miss the chance to document everything clearly, even if it cost just a little more.
I also exchanged my email, address and
phone number with this person and gave him money
for photocopying + scanning + mailing me the paper documents. He
didn't want to sell any items yet, but at least he was very kind and
cooperative, allowing me to photograph it.
The person who helped me also said that his relatives are photographers and that their father was also a photographer before WWII. Since they might have old photos, he promised to check it out for me.
So here is the next tip: look for
photographers or their families and ask for old photos!
This article was written with the kind permission of Tomer Brunner.
Copyright © 2003 Melody Katz