Our Mother from the Ghetto

When I was in Poland in 2010, I visited my grandmother. I found in her house some Catholic newspapers. I started to page through them. At a certain moment, an article drew my attention and its title was "Mother of God from the Ghetto". I read the article and it revealed to me the unique history of the group of Catholic Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the story of the statue of Blessed Virgin Mary, which the faithful called "Our Mother of the Ghetto". I understood that the statue now stood alongside the Church of Saint Catherine in Warsaw, the community in which Father Anthony Czarnecki spent his final days, he being the priest who had taken care of the pastoral work in the ghetto. I immediately called the parish priest of the Church of Saint Catherine, Father Jozef Roman May, and fixed an appointment with him. When I arrived at the place, Father Josef received me with great joy. We went to see the statue, we prayed a little and then sat down to talk. During our conversation, Father Yozef expressed his desire to contribute his painting of the statue of Our Mother from the Ghetto to the kehilla in Haifa. I did not know what to think and returned to Haifa without having given him an answer.

In 2012, I again went to Poland. At the same time, Stella, veteran member of the Haifa kehilla, was in Warsaw. She wanted to see the statue of Our Mother from the Ghetto and to get to know Father Jozef. We went to see him with Cryztina, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and a good friend of Stella. On this occasion, Father Jozef again expressed his desire to contribute the painting of Our Mother from the ghetto to the Haifa kehilla. I knew that in Father Daniel Rufeisen’s community (Father Daniel is the founder of the Haifa kehilla) there were both Catholic Jewish survivors of the Shoah, some from the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as Righteous Gentiles (who had saved Jews from the Nazis). They had been in touch with Father Anthony Czarnecki, who had told Father Jozef many things about his work with the Catholic Jews in the ghetto. Thanks to this history, Father Jozef has a spiritual connection with the Haifa kehilla. I then expressed our willingness to receive this very special gift.

In the painting, one can see Mary, Our Mother from the Ghetto, rising above the clouds and she is standing amid the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Above Mary is a triangle that represents the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, from which rays of light shine that lighten up all the painting and all of history. Under the clouds one can see the city of Warsaw. On the right side of the painting is the Church of All Saints, which during the Shoah, was known as the community of Jews (baptized Jews). There the statue of Mary stood during the war. On the left side of the painting is the church of Saint Catherine, to which Father Czarnecki brought the statue after the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and alongside which the statue stands even today.