Welcoming the President in Krosno
In Krosno in 1929, a white-bearded rav stands in the street with a sefer Torah as the town welcomes the president.
From Shimon Mahler’s home movie of Krosno, 1929. Film courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
PREZYDENCIE
On 22 July 1929 Shimon Mahler is filming with a home-movie camera as Krosno welcomes the president of Poland. A sefer Torah is held to a rav’s chest in the street, under an arch whose banner still reads PREZYDENCIE: the greeting for President Ignacy Mościcki.
The sefer Torah
Mahler’s camera leaves the arch and holds on the rav: the sefer Torah against his chest, the mantle and the silver crown catching the light, the white beard in the open street.
On Lwów Street
Five days later, Kraków’s Jewish daily Nowy Dziennik reports the visit, headed “P. Prezydent w Krośnie” (“Mr. President in Krosno”).
Nowy Dziennik puts the president on Lwów Street at half past one on 22 July, after people had been waiting for hours under the arch by the district office. Mayor Krukierek spoke for the town, with Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic priests there and, with them, the local rabbi on behalf of the Jewish religious community. By a quarter to two the president was already leaving for Polanka, where the oil men put on a lunch, and by six he was in Jasło.
A print from Truskawiec
The paper puts the local rabbi in that party. A later street portrait shows an old rav walking with a cane. The back of the print says it was received on 9 July 1939 in the spa town of Truskawiec (today Truskavets, Ukraine). When the picture was taken, we do not know. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Alexander White, names him Rabbi Schmuel Fuehrer, the rav of Krosno: Rabbi Shmuel Ozon Fuhrer.
It could be the same man. If you have an idea, leave it in the comments.
The face looks like somebody else
The identification does not sit still. Poland’s National Digital Archive keeps another picture from the president’s day: a white-bearded rav holds a crowned Torah while Mościcki stands before him. In Krosno’s local news site Krosno24, Łukasz Stachurski of Krosno’s Museum of Crafts later named that Torah bearer as Rabbi Fuhrer.
The face looks like somebody else.
Timeline
- 22 July 1929
- President Ignacy Mościcki comes through Krosno. Mahler films the PREZYDENCIE arch and a rav with a sefer Torah. A photograph from that day shows a Torah bearer later named as Rabbi Shmuel Ozon Fuhrer.
- 27 July 1929
- Kraków’s Jewish daily Nowy Dziennik prints “P. Prezydent w Krośnie” (“Mr. President in Krosno”), naming the local rabbi in the welcoming party.
- 9 July 1939
- A street portrait of Rabbi Shmuel Ozon Fuhrer is received in Truskawiec (today Truskavets, Ukraine).
- 2008
- Warren Blumenfeld donates the Mahler film to the Podkarpackie Museum in Krosno.