The “Breslau writings”, a collection of important books from the rabbinical seminary in Wrocław, which was destroyed in 1938, are to be restored and made accessible to a wider public by the Swiss Jewish community.
The books are considered cultural heritage of national importance. They were handed over to the Swiss Jewish Community in 1950 and have been kept in the library of the Zurich ICZ Jewish Cult Community since 2017.
In the initial phase of the project, efforts are underway to establish the feasibility of obtaining financial support from the Canton and City of Zurich for its restoration. Additionally, an expert opinion will be commissioned to investigate the provenance and historical background of the written material following the conclusion of the Second World War.
The Jewish Theological Rabbinical Seminary in Breslau was founded in 1854. It promoted the values of the Enlightenment movement of a “science of Judaism”. In 1937 it comprised around 40,000 mostly Hebrew volumes and contained both Torah and Talmud literature, works of classical literature, philosophy, philology, astronomy, and mathematics as well as Christian writings.
In 1938 the seminar was closed and completely destroyed by the National Socialists. Some of the material found after 1945, around 6000 volumes, arrived in Switzerland in 1950 and were handed over to the SIG.
European Jewish Congress (EJC)