Handprints reminiscent of the “Hamsa” – an ancient Jewish Charm symbol – were found at the coast built in 1930s.
This year’s summer in Hrodna everyone wrote about the shallowing Nieman and various constructions that began to appear from under the water. Just under the hill on which stands the Kalozha church of XII century were found handprints and mysterious signs. The first signs of prints were reported by one of the local media outlets.
The Nieman was dressed in the stone and concrete in the 1930s, thanks to the efforts of the local museum worker Joseph Yadkovsky, that’s why the concrete must come from the prewar times. It is on this concrete that fingerprints of several palms are clearly visible, and a sign is sketched inside each of them.
The most interesting thing here are symbols inside the palms. To the ignorant viewer they resemble the Cyrillic letter “П”. If we turn to the Jewish tradition for explanation, it turns out that the palm with a similar sign is a “Hamsa” – a symbolic sign of a hand with the letter «ה» (the first letter of the word “Hamsa” – five). As a talisman “Hamsa” is used both by Jews and Muslims, who until today have been wearing a symbolic hand as pendants or amulets.
Chairman of the board of the Jewish community in Hrodna, Boris Kviatkouski adds that the palms in Judaism – is also a blessing gesture from Cohens, representatives of the priestly caste of the Aaron family descendants. For this reason, at the Jewish cemetery it is very common to find tombstones with the image of two hands.
If the prints on the concrete really belong to the Jews, then where did they come from? Everything is explained very simply. Since there were plenty of Jews in the the pre-war Hrodna, it might well have been that they worked as builders strengthening the coast. Prints were left as a memory, instead of autographs, but also as a talisman: so that the construction lasted long.
There is, however, another version, a more tragic one. Since during the war the Hrodna ghetto was very close – in the area between the Castle and the Great Trinity – its inhabitants were often driven to work in the city by the Germans. For example, there was a stone staircase and a bridge across the Haradnichanka. The Jews could have been driven to the repair and strengthening of the coast near Kalosha located here. In this case, anonymous builders could leave a mark of their culture as the last reminder…
