Impressions in Old Paint Become New Mezuzas
In 2021, Aleksander Prugar and Helena Czernek found traces of a mezuza — an outline in old paint of the traditional small case containing verses from the Torah — on the gray door frame of Halina Parzonko's apartment.
Over time, as they gained Ms. Parzonko's trust, she told them stories about the prewar tenement where she was born in 1942 and still lives today. In one of those tales, her mother watched as German soldiers during World War II used knives to pry mezuzas off door frames in the building, telling her to mind her own business or she would end up like her neighbors who had been taken away.
Now the traces of the mezuza from her door frame, along with more than 200 others, have been recreated by Mi Polin, a business founded by Mr. Prugar and Ms. Czernek in 2014 to save such reminders of the six million Jews killed and the millions more displaced during the war. (The Hebrew name means, in English, From Poland.)
'We wanted to make something important, something tangible,' Ms. Czernek said. 'There was such a strong voice that gave me this feeling that mezuza traces represent the whole emptiness that left after the Jewish population, and that there are these voices saying, 'Don't forget us.''
In recent years, Mr. Prugar, who also is a professional photographer, and Ms. Czernek, a product designer, have traveled to more than 160 locations in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and other parts of Eastern Europe to try to recapture some of that loss. Maps indicating where they have found traces of mezuzas, photographs and histories of the Jewish communities in those areas and even a few original door frames now are displayed at the Mi Polin shop, which opened in July 2024 on Zlota Street, near one of the few remaining walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. The space also doubles as a studio for the business.
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