In a first-of-its-kind museum, mezuzahs keep memories of pre-war Poland alive

Aleksander Prugar and Helena Czernek travel across Poland (and into Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Romania) searching for mezuzah imprints—indentations in old wooden doorposts where the pre-war metal mezuzah plates once sat. They capture these traces with silicone, cast them in bronze, and display them at the Mi Polin Mezuzah Center in Warsaw, opened in 2024. Each trace is a unique “fingerprint,” a tangible link to Jewish families—often forgotten or erased by history. Their work is painstaking, sometimes yielding no results, but it revives intimate stories of Jewish life, presence, and disappearance. The traces—and the museum that displays them—preserve the physical memory of communities lost to time.

Read Original Article: The Forward

Image credit - Mi Polin Mezuzah Center