Great Synagogue in Orla, POLAND
Located in Orla, a village in Bielsk county on the eastern border of Poland, with Belarus, the Great Synagogue was founded in the second half of the 17th century. The building’s interior reflected Baroque and Renaissance influences, and its most distinctive feature used to be the Torah ark.
The survival of the building to the present-day bears witness to the high status held by the local Jewish community. Until the mid-20th century, the synagogue was one of the few stone buildings in Orla. Archaeological research revealed the existence of a small wooden synagogue in the same place. In the 18th century, women’s galleries were added on each side of the building: wooden at first, and then made of brick. In the 19th century, the building was given a classical façade with a frieze resting on two columns.
For centuries, the synagogue represented the heart of Jewish life in Orla and was respected by Jews and non-Jews alike.
In the spring of 1942 a cruel fate befell the Jewish communities in the territories occupied by the Third Reich: they were forcibly moved into a ghetto and, later the same year, transported to Treblinka extermination camp where most of the community was murdered. As a result of the Holocaust, the building of the synagogue in Orla served as a storehouse for property stolen by the German soldiers from the Jewish population and the ark was destroyed.
Many furnishings of the Great Synagogue in Orla have not survived. Nevertheless, preserved to this day are remnants of colourful polychrome wall paintings with vegetal and animal motifs, as well as four columns surrounding the place where the bimah stood. Although this fine example of Jewish heritage has survived the turmoil of wars, it still awaits full scale repair after incomplete renovation work in the 1980s. The local funding capacity is clearly insufficient for that. The building is not used anymore as a synagogue, and the structure suffers from a state of decay and structural deterioration which calls for a rather full restoration. The Great Synagogue in Orla is a symbol of the problem of the heritage without heirs that the Holocaust left in Poland.
The Great Synagogue in Orla is owned by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, which aims to create a cultural and educational centre in the building after its full renovation.
The nomination of the Great Synagogue in Orla to the 7 Most Endangered Programme 2025 was made by Future for Religious Heritage, a member of the European Heritage Alliance.
The Advisory Panel of the 7 Most Endangered Programme stated that: “This nomination can make a difference in saving a crucial piece of local heritage that has the potential to make a real impact in the local community and its socio-economic development. The Great Synagogue in Orla stands as a symbol of the complex, often difficult history of Polish lands, and represents today an impressive grassroots energy of Polish, Belarussian and Ukrainian residents who – at the absence of Jewish descendants exterminated during the Holocaust – unite above cultures, ethnicities and religions to bring this Jewish monument to its former glory. It is a symbol of the fate of the Jewish heritage after the Holocaust, but at the same time an instructive example of restoring memory.”