Torah Scroll Hidden in Polish Monastery Returned

A Torah scroll that since 1942 has been hidden in a monastery was returned to a synagogue in Dabrowa Tarnowska in southern Poland.

The Torah had been returned earlier this month but the event was reported for the first time on Saturday.

The Torah scroll was brought to the monastery in Tuchow, Poland, some 60 miles from Krakow, by an anonymous person who asked the priests to keep it until the synagogue in Dabrowa again became a place of prayer, according to Father Kazimierz Piotrowski of the Redemptorist monastery in Warsaw.

“After the war for many years the synagogue was systematically devastated. The Torah was thus kept in a monastery in Tuchow,” Piotrowski told the Catholic News Agency.

The synagogue in Dabrowa Tarnowska was built in the second half of the 19th century. During World War II, the Germans turned it into a workshop. Over the past few years, the building was renovated and it is now called the "House of Cultures."

Following the building’s dedication, the Redemptorists decided to return the Torah scroll there. In 2010, the mayor of Dabrowa Tarnowska gave the scroll to conservationists, and today it can be seen in the prayer hall of the former synagogue.