(Photos courtesy of Wajtek Mazan)
Rabbi Shimonovitz opened a new branch of the Novardok - Beit Yosef yeshiva in the early 20th century on Iłżecka 45 in Ostrowiec
Below is an excerpt and edited from article by Israel Blajberg -
Situated on the street Iłżecka 45 - was the mansion of Szmul Heine, wealthy owner of a sawmill. Built in 1913, during the war it was expropriated to house the Judenrat. The findings included various pieces and religious and Talmudic documents belonging to a religious school that worked there, Bet Yosef.
The documents were forwarded to the Museum of History of Polish Judaism, opened last year in Warsaw, where they will be digitized and preserved. In number 13 of the same street, the Blajberg family lived, whose patriarch, my grandfather Shlomo, managed to save 6 of his 11 children, sending them to gold pesos to Palestine, Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil.
Maybe he would be friends with his neighbor, Szmul Heine.
When it was built in 1913, my late father Abram Blajberg was only 3 years old when he was taken by his grandmother Ethel to the heder, where he would learn alef-beit ... Who knows ...
Below information from: http://judaika.polin.pl/dmuseion/docmetadata?id=6403&show_nav=true
The house was built by Szmul Heine, the owner of the sawmill at Kuźnia in 1913. According to the Ostrowiec historians, in September 1924, the Christian Guild of Craftsmen founded the Male Training School in this place. In the 1930s, the Heim's House housed the Talmudic College "Bejs Josef", in which future rabbis were educated. The school was run by the Association for the Support and Propagation of Religious and Talmudic Knowledge in Ostrowiec Św. operating since 1929. Its founders were rabbi Mordka Szymonowicz, shekita (ritual slaughterer) Ajzyk Mendel Bułka and merchant Chaskiel Fiszendler [Waldemar Brociek, Adam Penkalla, Regina Renz, Jews from Ostrowiec. Outline of history, Historical and Archaeological Museum, Ostrowiec Św. 1996].
Current view of Ilzecka 45 after the building's demolition and building of new music school/hall in original location
During the war, the seat of the Judenrat was located here - the Jewish Council established on the orders of the Germans. Some people even hid in this house, including Arye (Leibel) Zabner.
During the liquidation of the ghetto on October 11-12, 1942, the Heine House was devastated, and the documents assembled in the attic of the pre-war Talmudic school were probably burnt and destroyed.
In 2012, members of the Culture Association "Nie z tej Bajki" accidentally stumbled across the archives, which were then handed over to the Historical and Archaeological Museum in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.
In 2014, the house was demolished.
More information on this house can be found on Wojtek Mazan's blog.
