30.07.2022 | Redaktor

The street around Żwirki i Wigury square on the photos by Schaje Weiss

Some time ago we received several new photos from prof. Charles Weiss Jr. These pictures were also taken by his father, Schaje (Charles) Weiss, during his short stay in Brzesko in 1929. Thanks to Marek Sukiennik it was possible to place these photos on the modern map of Brzesko (red line in the photo from google maps).

Brzesko, 1929. Photo from the family archive of prof. Charles Weiss Jr.
You can see St James church, which allows to locate this photo in the vicinity of today’s Żwirki i Wigury square. The second building on the right has got advertisement of “Glazier and painter Abraham Teichtahl”
Brzesko, 1929. Photo from the family archive of prof. Charles Weiss Jr.
House # 129, where Schaje (Charles) Weiss was born. The same building can be seen of the first photograph as the third house on the right. Uncle of Schaje Weiss, Szymon Leib Schindler, stands in front of the house.

The buildings on the right in the first photo (including the house where Schaje Weiss was born, presented separately on the photo # 2) are on this line closest to the present Żwirki i Wigury square. The one-story building with large windows visible in the background of the first photo, as well as the two-story building with a balcony, have survived to this day. The houses in photo # 3 were located on the same street, just further away from the church seen in the first photo.

Brzesko, 1929. Photo from the family archive of prof. Charles Weiss Jr.

This street can be seen also on the drawing made before the great 1904 fire.:

The drawing from „Chronicles of the town of Brzesko” by Jan Burlikowski

Back in 1939 it was actually quite a wide street (Altmarkt on the map from 1939; this map also shows the old Jewish cemetery at Głowackiego street).

Brzesko map from 1939 (from “Chronicles of the town of Brzesko” by Jan Burlikowski). Houses from the photos #1-3 were located along Altmarkt on this map. The old Jewish cemetery can be seen by Głowackiego street.
The red line on the modern Brzesko map shows the location of the street from the photos by Schaje Weiss; photo from googlemaps.
Fragments of the1929 photo by Schaje Weiss and a modern googlemaps photo showing the same area in Brzesko. You can see two buildings that have survived to this day: a red one-story house with an “Optyka” advertisement and a two-story tenement house with a balcony.

© Anna Brzyska, 2022