For the first time since the Holocaust: The Jewish center in Oświęcim, near the Auschwitz extermination camp, will offer kosher meals.
Eighty years after the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, kosher food and prayers are returning to the nearby town of Oświęcim.
The Jewish center in Oświęcim announced ready-made kosher food packages that will be offered to visitors at the center immediately after Passover and ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be observed on April 23. The kosher food packages will be offered at a low price to visitors, including tens of thousands of participants in the “March of the Living” who will arrive at Auschwitz on April 24. The Jewish center will also offer organized prayers for visitors at the extermination camp starting on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Jewish center in Oświęcim opened in 2000 and has since been visited by over 800,000 people. The chair of the Jewish center in Oświęcim, Simon Bergson, told the news agency JTA that “the opening of the first kosher franchise in the city after the war was a natural step, ensuring that kosher-observant visitors can pray in our synagogue while enjoying a kosher meal at the same time.”
Jews who visited the Auschwitz extermination camp have had to ensure they eat kosher themselves or rely on catering from the city of Krakow, which is over an hour’s drive from the extermination camp.
Before the outbreak of World War II, Oświęcim was a town with a vibrant Jewish community, synagogues, and kosher restaurants. Today, one Jewish person lives in the town, Hila Weiss-Gott, who moved to Oświęcim in 2023 with her Polish husband.
