Synagoga Cytronów

It was supposed to be a tourist attraction and there is a shanty

The building remained from the synagogue, it was impossible to get inside

The wealth of the Białystok factory owner Samuel Hirsz Cytron and his family is evidenced not only by numerous residential houses and factory buildings, but also by the foundation of a prayer house called the Cytron Synagogue - Cytron Bejt Midrasz. Few rich Jews at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries could afford such luxuries, but for Samuel Cytron, probably nothing was impossible, and so in the second half of the 1930s, along ul. Polna, the former Białystok, the last synagogue in that city was 'embedded'. The building has a modernist facade with two avant-corps and semi-circular windows on the second floor. The synagogue's interior is lined with exotic wood paneling, and the prayer room is topped with a coffered ceiling with a huge chandelier designed by Izrael Biskupicki and Jakub Fiszer. After the war, the building was used as a prayer house for the local Jewish community, it was the site of mourning academies and theater performances. After the reconstruction, a tailor's workshop was set up, and then art workshops. Currently, he has accepted the Galeria im. Sleńdziński with the collection of a famous family of Vilnius artists. Thanks to the takeover of the custody of the building by the local government and placing a cultural institution there, an important symbol of history and another architectural gem of the city were saved. What the building could look like had it not been for legal and financial protection is best demonstrated by the condition of the neighboring tenement house, which is desperately calling for support. The surroundings of several old buildings of today's Waryńskiego Street is a modern, high block of flats, which radically highlights the contrast with the pre-war enclave. I will mention a few sentences about the owners of the interwar period - the Jewish family of Cytrons. Her senior Samuel Hirsz Cytron had four sons and four daughters. They were Abel (Aleks), Benjamin, Efim, Simon, Chana Perla, Roza, Jochwed and Sonia. Before the outbreak of World War II, part of the family left for the USA, but some others died or disappeared without a trace in the Holocaust or deported to Kazakhstan. Only a few managed to survive the drama of war ... The location of the synagogue in the city's topography seems obvious, but despite a lot of experience, it was not easy to get here, being in Białystok for the first time. To my surprise, when questioned, the inhabitants hid their ignorance or provided imprecise, divergent information. Information materials in the form of handy plans and brochures available, among others, were of great help. at the IT point of the Branicki Palace. However, the hardship of walking in this part of the city will certainly be rewarded with a lot of impressions, generated mainly from the old, preserved urban substance, characteristic relics and artifacts not necessarily limited to architecture.