This Very Stone Shall Be a Witness:
The Jewish Cemetery in Wielkie Oczy
The foundation is pleased to announce the publication — under the imprint Wielkie Oczy Foundation Publishing — of This Very Stone Shall Be a Witness: The Jewish Cemetery in Wielkie Oczy by Andrzej Trzciński, Poland's foremost authority on the artistic and material culture of Ashkenazi Jews. This almost 400-page study documents the gravestones that remain and those that were not long ago returned to the Jewish cemetery in this small town in southeastern Poland. In addition to its in-depth discussion of the history and description of exiting matzevot or gravestones, Professor Trzciński compares patronymics and other information on gravestones to existing vital records in order to elicit, wherever possible, family names. It is expected that the books will be printed and be made available during April 2019.
The book is available at various libraries and archives around the world, and is uniquely available in paperback and eBook format, which can be accessed at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Elsewhere, the book may be purchased as a paperback at Amazon and at the Book Depository (free international shipping). In addition, the book is available for distribution to addresses in the United States directly from the Wielkie Oczy Foundation; for more information write to wofoundation@gmail.com.
"This publication will be of significant importance to local historians, to enthusiasts of Wielkie Oczy's past, and to numerous people from around the world who are interested in the local monuments of material culture. Undoubtedly, the book will also be used by Jewish genealogists for whom this type of publication is an important source of knowledge about the past of their families. Finally, an important task of this work is its potential impact on standards of documenting Jewish cemeteries in Poland."
Marcin WodzińskiProfessor of Jewish History and LiteratureUniversity of Wroclaw