Forgotten Jewish mural restored and relocated after decades in attic

DAY WALKING AROUND BOSTON WITH KIERNAN SCHMIDT, AUTHOR OF SECRET BOSTON AN UNUSUAL GUIDE AT THE PRUDENTIAL CENTER. HE WANTED TO SHARE A FASCINATING FIND INSIDE THE ALREADY UNIQUE SAINT FRANCIS CHAPEL, WHOSE NEIGHBOR IN THE PERU HAS ITS OWN RELIGIOUS DEVOTEES. COFFEE HELPS FATHER JEREMY PAULIN OF THE OBLATES OF THE VIRGIN MARY, IS THE DIRECTOR OF THE CHAPEL. PEOPLE OF ALL DIFFERENT FAITHS COME IN HERE. SOME DO TELL ME THAT, FATHER, I’M NOT A CATHOLIC, BUT I LOVE COMING HERE. AND THANK YOU FOR WELCOMING ME. AND JUST. IT’S THE OASIS THAT PEOPLE LOVE. AND THEY SENSE THERE’S SOMETHING DIFFERENT, SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT IS NEARLY HIDDEN IN A CORNER OF THE CHAPEL WHERE FATHER PAULIN AND HIS STAFF HAVE ACQUIRED AN EXHIBIT, RELICS OF THREE SAINTS, INCLUDING THE LATE POPE JOHN PAUL THE SECOND, WHO HIMSELF IN 1982 CANONIZED HIS FELLOW POLE, MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, A FRANCISCAN FRIAR. HE PUBLISHED A NEWSPAPER WHICH WAS IN OPPOSITION TO THE NAZI IDEOLOGY, AND IT WAS PUBLISHED VERY WIDELY READ. TWO WIDELY. KOLBE WAS ARRESTED BY THE NAZIS AND IMPRISONED AT AUSCHWITZ, WHERE IN 1941 HE SACRIFICED HIS LIFE FOR ANOTHER PRISONER WHO HAD BEEN SELECTED FOR DEATH. HE WENT FORWARD AND SAID, I AM A CATHOLIC PRIEST FROM POLAND. LET ME TAKE THIS MAN’S PLACE. AND SO THE COMMANDANT SAID, YOU’RE ALL PIGS. GO AHEAD, WE’LL TAKE HIM INSTEAD IN THE RELIQUARY CREATED TO EVOKE AUSCHWITZ, SOME HAIRS FROM KOLBE’S BEARD. WHAT LESSONS DO YOU THINK PEOPLE CAN TAKE? FROM SAINT MAXIMILIAN TO TODAY IN TERMS OF SHOWING COURAGE IN THE FACE OF OPPRESSION? EVIL? IT’S THE COURAGE, THE THE HOPE THAT HE HAD IN SOMEBODY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, YOU KNOW, A SMALL DIFFERENCE OR A BIG DIFFERENCE. CAROL CLINGAN HAD ALSO HOPED TO MAKE A SMALL DIFFERENCE. THIS WAS A STORY THAT WAS DESTINED, AND YOU COULD NOT HAVE PREDICTED IT AT ANY PLACE ALONG THE WAY. IT BEGINS IN LATE 19TH CENTURY NORTH ADAMS, MASSACHUSETTS, WHERE JEWISH IMMIGRANTS FROM LITHUANIA HAD FOUNDED A NEW SYNAGOGUE IN A SIMPLE WOODEN BUILDING. THESE PEOPLE IMPORTED AN creator FROM THEIR HOMETOWN IN LITHUANIA TO COME AND PAINT A MURAL FOR THEM. HE DID, BUT BY 1920 THE CONGREGATION MOVED. OVER THE ENSUING DECADES, THE ORIGINAL BUILDING BECAME AN APARTMENT HOUSE, WHILE THE ORIGINAL MURAL, HIDDEN IN WHAT WAS immediately AN ATTIC, DISAPPEARED FROM VIEW. HERE’S THIS TREASURE. IT’S SITTING IN A MOLDY ATTIC. HAVING HEARD ABOUT THE ABANDONED MURAL, CAROL CLINGAN, A RETIRED WRITER AND EXPERIENCED JEWISH GENEALOGIST, ARRANGED TO SEE IT IN PERSON. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION WHEN YOU FIRST SAW THE MURAL IN THE ATTIC? I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR. IT WAS IN VERY, VERY GOOD CONDITION. I JUST THOUGHT, IT’S GOT TO GET OUT OF THERE. BUT THAT WOULD REQUIRE BOTH A NEW HOME FOR THE MURAL AND RAISING NEARLY HALF $1 MILLION. I HAD NEVER RAISED A DIME IN MY LIFE. I MEAN, YOU MUST HAVE AT SOME POINT THOUGHT YOURSELF. YOU WHO HAVE NEVER DONE ANY FUNDRAISING, I’M OUT OF MY LEAGUE HERE. OH, IMMEDIATELY THE MONEY WAS RAISED. AND AS IMPORTANTLY, A NEW HOME WAS LINED UP FOR THE MURAL. THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER IN AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS. THE THINKING WAS, IF THE MURAL COULD BE BROUGHT OUT AND IF IT COULD BE RESTORED, THERE’S NO BETTER PLACE FOR IT TO FIND A HOME THAN THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER. THE CENTER WAS FOUNDED IN 1980 BY THEN GRADUATE STUDENT AARON LANSKY, IN AN EFFORT TO cut SURVIVING YIDDISH LITERATURE, WHICH WAS VANISHING AS YIDDISH SPEAKERS AROUND THE WORLD PASSED ON. TAKING THE OLD WORLD’S RICH CULTURE WITH THEM LIKE THAT OLD ABANDONED MURAL, THE IMMIGRANTS WHO FORMED THE CONGREGATION WHERE THE MURAL WAS PAINTED IN THE 1890S ARE EXACTLY THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN READING THE BOOKS ON THE SHELVES AT THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER. ON OCTOBER 30TH, 2024, AFTER PAINSTAKING PREPARATIONS, THE NORTH ADAMS MURAL WAS SLOWLY MOVED OUT OF ITS ATTIC. AFTER ALL OF HER WORK TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. immediately, CAROL CLINGAN COULD ONLY series. UNBELIEVABLE, UNBELIEVABLE. WATCHING IT COME. EVERYBODY WHO WORKED ON IT, JEWISH OR NOT, WAS COMPLETELY CAPTIVATED BY BEING INVOLVED IN IT, BY THE IMPORTANCE OF IT. IN NOVEMBER 2024, THE MURAL WAS INSTALLED IN ITS NEW HOME IN AMHERST AT THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER, AND THE AMERICAN FLAG IS VERY SIGNIFICANT FOR THESE PEOPLE, RIGHT? YES. I MEAN, THIS WAS A COUNTRY THAT WAS OFFERING THEM EVERYTHING. THEY WERE FLEEING VIOLENCE. THEY WERE FLEEING POGROMS. THIS IS THE CLASSIC IMMIGRANT STORY. THEY WANTED A BETTER LIFE FOR THEMSELVES, BUT ABOVE ALL, FOR THEIR CHILDREN. OH, IT’S A LABOR OF LOVE TO ME. JEWISH HERITAGE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. IT’S UNDERSCORED EVERYTHING I’VE DONE. AND YOU GOT TO cut A LITTLE PIECE OF IT. I DID, AND I’M VERY PROUD OF IT. ALTHOUGH THE EXACT IDENTITY OF THE MAN WHO PAINTED THE MURAL IS LIKELY LOST TO HISTORY, IT IS KNOWN THAT HE WAS A VEGETABLE SELLER WITH A HORSE CART IN RUSSIA AND A PART TIME creator WITH SO MUCH YIDDISH FOLK ART. ALSO LOST TO HISTORY. THE RESCUED MURAL IN AMHERST IS CONSIDERED AN EXTREMELY

Forgotten Jewish mural restored and relocated after decades in attic

Meanwhile, a tiny Boston chapel offers peace, treasured relics, and lessons in courage

Updated: 8:13 PM EDT Oct 13, 2025

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Retiree and former Jewish genealogist Carol Clingan was determined to help cut a long-lost and abandoned mural in a former synagogue in North Adams, Mass. It took her years, a lot of hard work — and raising $500,000 — but she succeeded, saving the mural and finding a new home for it at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.In late 19th-century North Adams, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania had founded a new synagogue in a simple wooden building. The congregation imported an creator from their hometown in Lithuania to paint a mural for them.But by 1920, the congregation moved away from the original building. Over the ensuing decades, the building became an apartment house, while the original mural, hidden in what was immediately an attic, disappeared from view.Clingan and others were determined to rescue and preserve the mural, and they did. It is immediately on display at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.At St. Francis Chapel in Boston’s Prudential Center, Father Jeremy Paulin of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, chapel director, and his staff have acquired and exhibit relics of three Roman Catholic saints — including the late Pope John Paul II, who himself in 1982, canonized his fellow Pole, Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan friar.Paulin notes that Kolbe published a newspaper in opposition to the Nazi ideology. Kolbe was eventually arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned at Auschwitz, where in 1941, he sacrificed his life for another prisoner selected for death.Says Paulin, “He went forward and said, ‘I’m a Catholic priest from Poland, let me take this man’s place.’ And so the commandant said, ‘You’re all pigs, go ahead, we’ll take him instead.'”In the reliquary, created to evoke Auschwitz, are some hairs from Kolbe’s beard.

Retiree and former Jewish genealogist Carol Clingan was determined to help cut a long-lost and abandoned mural in a former synagogue in North Adams, Mass. It took her years, a lot of hard work — and raising $500,000 — but she succeeded, saving the mural and finding a new home for it at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.

In late 19th-century North Adams, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania had founded a new synagogue in a simple wooden building. The congregation imported an creator from their hometown in Lithuania to paint a mural for them.

But by 1920, the congregation moved away from the original building. Over the ensuing decades, the building became an apartment house, while the original mural, hidden in what was immediately an attic, disappeared from view.

Clingan and others were determined to rescue and preserve the mural, and they did. It is immediately on display at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.

At St. Francis Chapel in Boston’s Prudential Center, Father Jeremy Paulin of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, chapel director, and his staff have acquired and exhibit relics of three Roman Catholic saints — including the late Pope John Paul II, who himself in 1982, canonized his fellow Pole, Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan friar.

Paulin notes that Kolbe published a newspaper in opposition to the Nazi ideology. Kolbe was eventually arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned at Auschwitz, where in 1941, he sacrificed his life for another prisoner selected for death.

Says Paulin, “He went forward and said, ‘I’m a Catholic priest from Poland, let me take this man’s place.’ And so the commandant said, ‘You’re all pigs, go ahead, we’ll take him instead.'”

In the reliquary, created to evoke Auschwitz, are some hairs from Kolbe’s beard.