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| This 1884 masterpiece by Aleksander Gierymski depicts a poignant scene on the bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, traditionally known in Christian contexts as the Feast of Trumpets. The painting captures the profound spiritual devotion of Orthodox Jews gathered by the riverbank to perform the ritual of Tashlikh. During this ceremony, participants recite prayers near flowing water and symbolically cast away, or "shake off," their sins by emptying their pockets into the river to enter the New Year spiritually cleansed. |
This 1884 masterpiece by Aleksander Gierymski depicts a poignant scene on the bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, traditionally known in Christian contexts as the Feast of Trumpets. The painting captures the profound spiritual devotion of Orthodox Jews gathered by the riverbank to perform the ritual of Tashlikh. During this ceremony, participants recite prayers near flowing water and symbolically cast away, or "shake off," their sins by emptying their pockets into the river to enter the New Year spiritually cleansed.
A crucial, haunting historical detail cuts through the serene dusk in the upper right corner of the canvas: a train can be seen crossing the bridge, coming from the east in the direction of the Danzig Railway Station (Dworzec Gdański). Decades later, during the tragic years of 1942–1943, this very rail line and station became an omen of horror. Such trains were frequently empty cargo trains returning from the German death camps, heading back toward the Umschlagplatz to pick up a new load of Jewish men, women, and children destined for extermination.
The heavy historical burden of these destinations ties directly to the photograph from Stockholm, where a sea of lit candles illuminates the darkness, each flame marking a grave. Before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, this moment of prayerful reflection is a stark reminder of what has been lost. The six stones that the Stockholm Jewish community quietly tore out in the summer of 2020, destroying the Holocaust Monument, had the names TREBLINKA, AUSCHWITZ, and MAJDANEK engraved on them—the exact locations where the parents and sisters of the Holocaust victims buried in Stockholm since 1945 perished. Every lit candle is a grave. Each of the six stones is a symbol of 1 million murdered people, 6 million together.
As religious Jews, the leadership of the Stockholm Jewish Congregation should deeply reflect on the very ritual depicted in Gierymski's painting during this time of judgment. If they wish to truly "shake off" their sins during this season of repentance, they must do so by returning the Holocaust Monument to its former, rightful place—the graveyard of the Holocaust victims. Only by restoring this sacred memorial can they truly honor the memory of those who survived Bergen-Belsen, only to rest far from their murdered families under these quiet, candlelit fields.
The former view of the graveyard and the altered Holocaust Monument in Stockholm. Before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I particularly recommend a visit to the graves to the members of the Jewish Community of Stockholm, which desecrated the Holocaust Monument at the cemetery, as well as the memory of the Holocaust victims buried there, who were brought to Swedish hospitals in the summer of 1945 from Bergen-Belsen. I recommend precisely this moment of prayerful reflection during the ritual of "shaking off" sins. Supposedly religious. Across the railway bridge visible in the background of Gierymski's paintings, Jews were deported in 1942 and 1943 from the Warsaw Ghetto to the death camps: Treblinka and Majdanek. Two of the 6 stones that the Stockholm Jewish community quietly tore out in the summer of 2020, destroying the Holocaust Monument, had the names TREBLINKA and MAJDANEK engraved on them. That is where the parents and sisters of the Holocaust victims buried in Stockholm since 1945 perished. Every lit candle is a grave. Each of the six stones is a symbol of 1 million murdered people.
