18 photographs depicting the life of the Jewish congregation in the town of Rychbah (Reichenbach / Dzierżoniów), Lower Silesia (present day Poland), ca.1946.
14 photographs taken during a gathering in memory of the Jews of Biala murdered by the Nazis. An additional photograph is a New Year Greeting from the committee of Biala survivors in Rychbach, and three other photographs are of a family, one dated 1946. Four of the gathering photographs are ink stamped on the reverse: "Foto Muza" (located in the town).
In the town of Rychbach Jews tried, in 1945, to found an autonomous communal settlement of holocaust survivors. After the war, survivors of extermination camps in the vicinity (Gross-Rosen and others) congregated in Rychbach and through the leadership of Jakub Egit, a Jewish soldier in the Red Army, tried to found an autonomous Jewish communal settlement. At first the Soviet authorities assisted them and the settlement grew fast and included a school, hospitals, agricultural farms, orphanage, a theater, newspapers and even a publishing house. At its peak 50,000 Jews lived in the settlement and the spoken language was Yiddish. When the Soviet authorities realized what the nature of the settlement was they stopped supporting the project, Egit was sent to jail, and the survivors immigrated to Israel, the USA and South Africa. 8X11 cm – 10X13 cm. Good condition