Hello, I am Tobias. I'm doing a voluntary social year at Hillersche Villa and so I had the chance to participate in the second part of the project in this year.
In the first week we got insights into Jewish life in the Zittau/Görlitz region as well as beyond the Czech and Polish borders. Especially moving was the morning with Alex Jacobowitz in the
Görlitz synagogue. In his rousing manner, he told us how the place has been treated and used over the past 100 years. A few days later we traveled to the Czech Republic for a day. In the new
synagogue of Liberec we were allowed to listen to the stories of the Holocaust survivor Pavel Jelínek. The following week we reconstructed the foundation walls of the former mourning hall at the
Jewish cemetery in Zittau. In addition, some of us prepared colorful stones marking the location of the former dome above the hall. Others prepared the results of the previous MAZEWA weeks – the
online tour of the cemetery - to make them visible for our final presentation. I am glad to have contributed my part to the project and take away a lot of knowledge about Jewish life as well as a
lot of interpersonal experiences. Thank you for letting me be a part of it and to all the participants for this exciting time.
TS
