By Shira Li Bartov
(JTA) — Eighty years after Auschwitz was liberated from the Nazis, Jews who make a pilgrimage there can eat kosher food.
A mile from the concentration camp, visitors can buy packaged, shelf-stable kosher meals for the first time at the Auschwitz Jewish Center — now a museum and the only surviving synagogue in Oświęcim, the Polish town renamed Auschwitz by the Nazis.
The kosher concession opened in time for Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, beginning on the night of April 23. The day is marked in Poland with the March of the Living, in which thousands of people march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. The Auschwitz Jewish Center also added prayer services to its program ahead of the occasion.
This year, 80 Holocaust survivors joined the March of the Living, making it one of the largest gatherings of survivors at Auschwitz in recent history. The march also included Jewish teens from around the world.
Before the Holocaust, Oświęcim was more than half Jewish, a small town with over 30 synagogues. Kosher butchers, bakeries and restaurants were commonplace. But this year, only one Jew is reported to live in Oświęcim — and she works at the Auschwitz Jewish Center. Hila Weisz-Gut, whose grandmother survived the camp, moved there in 2023 to join her Polish boyfriend. Many other members of her family were among the 1 million Jews killed at Auschwitz.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center has seen some 800,000 visitors since it was restored and reopened in 2000. That’s a small proportion of the people who go to Auschwitz, numbering well over a million a year. But the chairman of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation said in a statement that the synagogue should be prepared to host observant Jews.
“Opening the city’s first post-war kosher concession was a natural step, ensuring that Kosher-observant visitors could pray or reflect in our synagogue while also enjoying a kosher meal,” said Simon Bergson.
Previously, kosher-keeping Jews who wanted to eat at Auschwitz have had to bring their own food or could arrange catering in advance. But the new availability of kosher food at the Auschwitz Jewish Center is not just a dietary accommodation for a core audience, according to Jack Simony, the director general of its foundation.
“This concession is more than just a place to eat – it symbolizes continuity, resilience, and hope for future generations,” he said in a statement.
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