How it all began

1992: A journey that changed everything

In 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dr. Aleksander Schwarz travelled back to his old homeland for the first time. What he saw there shook him: many elderly Jewish people who had survived the Shoah could barely afford food, clothing or medicine. Municipal flats were falling into disrepair, and their small pensions covered neither electricity nor heating.

1993: An idea becomes an aid fund

Together with his wife and friends he founded an aid fund in Munich. From the very beginning he was supported by the Munich B'nai B'rith lodge “Hebraica Menorah” and the lodge “Leopolis Emil Domberger” in Lviv. From then on he helped the Jewish population of Lviv and the surrounding region quickly and effectively.

Remembrance is part of it

In 1993 a scholarly colloquium on the Shoah of the Galician Jews took place in Lviv. Dr. Schwarz took part as one of the few survivors of the Janowska camp. In the post-war years there was no place of remembrance there; the camp grounds became a prison. He succeeded in having a granite boulder placed in front of the former “Valley of Death” in memory of the some 200,000 victims, and campaigned to the end for a dignified memorial.