Floor tile

The gift from Przemysław Szpilman, the long-time director of the cemetery at Okopowa Street in Warsaw.

It is the  rectangular, single-colour, beige ceramic floor tile. On the front in the central part there is a geometrical figure. The figure consists of a circle in which another figure with three equally long arms joined together in the central point is inscribed. The composition is symmetrical. The tile is unglazed. The central part of the surface is covered with a spatial, uneven pattern imitating cracks. On the reverse side, the surface is uneven (covered with a pattern of symmetrical squares), which enables better adhesion of the mortar.

The donor donated seven floor tiles from the Jewish cemetery at Flat 51, 49 Okopowa Street in Warsaw to the POLIN Museum collection. The tiles covered the floors of rooms in the Preburial House, which was destroyed in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising. Originally there was neither a synagogue nor a prayer room in the area of the House (still in 1871), although it had been the central part before the Second World War. According to Ignacy Schiper's plan, the building housed a mikveh for the cemetery service (on the mikveh in Jewish tradition see https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=17399, accessed 17 November 2021).

NR