Today we walked down Matt's "memory lane". We visited two of Matt's childhood neighbourhoods. His first home is quite dim in his memories as he was very young when he lived there. The second one was still quite clear in his mind. We visited the building that he live in, and also strolled around it. Matt pointed out some well-remembered landmarks: his dad's parking spot, the path to where the sandbox used to be, and the tree that he spent time climbing all over. We even spent a few moments in the church (gasp) that he had celebrated his First Communion in.
Matt's grandpa passed away in 1995. Matt was not able to say goodbye to grandpa at that time. We spent a bit of time at his gravesite today. After paying our respects, we travelled to another cemetery. The Jewish Cemetery at 40 Bracka Street is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. We saw some very impressive family vaults (many of these families are intertwined in Łódź's textile history), but also a number that were clearly vandalized and many others that were in very poor condition.
Our next destination was the Poznanski Family Mansion which now houses the Museum of Łódź. Coincidentally, the Poznanski family vault is located at the Jewish cemetery that we had visited in the morning. Much of Łódź's history is tied with the textile industry. A number of former textile factories located behind the mansion were converted into a modern shopping area called Manufaktura. We purchased some ice cream and strolled around Manufaktura until we finished our ice cream.
We finished off our day with a meal at Ania's home.
Jewish cemetery:
Museum of Łódź:
Manufaktura shopping centre:
