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RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION SUPPORTED PROJECTS

AUSTRIA

THE LAUDER CHABAD SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN
Vienna, Austria

THE SEPHARDIC SYNAGOGUE AND COMMUNITY CENTER
Vienna, Austria

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION EDUCATOR'S NETWORK
Vienna, Austria

LAUDER VIENNA BUSINESS SCHOOL
Vienna, Austria

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BELARUS

THE LAUDER MINSK KINDERGARTEN
Minsk, Belarus

THE LAUDER SCHNEOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL
Minsk, Belarus

THE LAUDER LECH LECHA YOUTH CENTER
Minsk, Belarus

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BULGARIA

THE JEWISH SCHOOL IN SOFIA
Sofia, Bulgaria

THE LAUDER-ORT TECHNICAL TRAINING CENTER AT THE JEWISH SCHOOL
Sofia, Bulgaria

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

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CZECH REPUBLIC

THE LAUDER PRAGUE KINDERGARTEN
Prague, Czech Republic

THE LAUDER GUR ARYEH JEWISH COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL
Prague, Czech Republic


THE LAUDER OHR CHADASH JEWISH COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL
Prague, Czech Republic

THE LAUDER ORT TECHNICAL TRAINING CENTER AT THE JEWISH SCHOOL
Prague, Czech Republic

THE EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL CENTER AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM IN PRAGUE
Prague, Czech Republic

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ESTONIA

TALLINN JEWISH SCHOOL
Tallinn, Estonia

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

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GERMANY

THE LAUDER JUDISCHES LEHRHAUS
Berlin, Germany

THE LAUDER BEIT MIDRASH
Berlin, Germany

THE LAUDER JEWISH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Rostock, Germany

THE LAUDER SAXONY YOUTH PROJECT
Leipzig, Germany

THE RONALD S. LAUDER KINDERGARTEN OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF HAMBURG
Hamburg, Germany

THE LAUDER EDUCATIONAL CENTER FOR NORTHERN GERMANY
Hamburg, Germany

THE LAUDER MIDRASHA
Frankfurt, Germany

THE LAUDER CHOREV EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
Frankfurt, Germany

THE LAUDER CHOREV CENTER
Wüerzburg, Gustav

THE EPHRAIM HOENLEIN GENEALOGY PROJECT
Wüerzburg, Germany

THE LAUDER MORIJAH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Cologne, Germany

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HUNGARY

THE LAUDER JAVNE JEWISH COMMUNITY SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN
Budapest, Hungary

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

SZOMBAT MAGAZINE
Budapest, Hungary

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LATVIA

LAUDER LEIPAJA JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER
Leipaja, Latvia

LAUDER-ORT INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER
Riga, Latvia

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

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LITHUANIA

THE JEWISH KINDERGARTEN
Vilnius, Lithuania

THE SHOLOM ALEICHEM JEWISH DAY SCHOOL
Vilnius, Lithuania

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

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MOLDOVA

LAUDER-ORT TECHNICAL TRAINING CENTER AT THE JEWISH SCHOOL
Kishinev, Moldova

THE HEBREW ACADEMY OF MOLDOVA
Kishinev, Moldova

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POLAND

THE LAUDER MORASHA KINDERGARTEN
Warsaw, Poland

THE LAUDER MORASHA PRIMARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS
Warsaw, Poland

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION GENEALOGY PROJECT AT THE JEWISH HISTORICAL INSTITUTE
Warsaw, Poland

PARDES LAUDER (CONTINUOUS JEWISH EDUCATIONAL PROJECT)
Krakow, Poland

WEEKLY TORAH NEWSLETTER, YESHIVA KRAKOW
Krakow, Poland

SUNDAY HEBREW SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN
Krakow, Poland

LAUDER-ETZ CHAIM SCHOOL
Wroclaw, Poland

LAUDER AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM
Lodz, Poland

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION JEWISH COMMUNITY YOUTH CENTERS
Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, Wroclaw (Breslau), Gdansk, Bytom

THE LAUDER EDUCATIONAL RETREAT AND SUMMER CAMP
Ladek Zdroj, Poland

THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU PRESERVATION PROJECT
Oswieciem, Poland

MIDRASZ Magazine
Warsaw, Poland

SZTERNDLECH Magazine
Warsaw, Poland

KOSHER CANTEEN - Warsaw

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ROMANIA

THE LAUDER REUT KINDERGARTEN AND SCHOOL
Bucharest, Romania

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

RUSSIA

THE LAUDER ETZ CHAIM SCHOOL
Moscow, Russia

THE LAUDER SHALOM KINDERGARTEN AND SCHOOL
Tula, Russia

THE LAUDER KINDERGARTEN
Perm, Russia

THE LAUDER KINDERGARTEN
Kaliningrad, Russia

RUSSIAN KINDERGARTEN NETWORK
Moscow, Russia

THE LAUDER MAKABI KINDERGARTEN
Samara, Russia

THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION/AJJDC CAMP AT SZARVAS
Szarvas, Hungary

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SLOVAKIA

THE LAUDER GAN MENACHEM KINDERGARTEN
Bratislava, Slovakia

UKRAINE

GYMNASIUM ACHEINU LAUDER
Lviv, Ukraine

KIEV JEWISH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL
Kiev, Ukraine

THE LAUDER CAMP SHUVA
Kiev, Ukraine

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OFFICES:

Budapest - Headquarters
New York
Vienna
Sofia
Warsaw
Berlin
Frankfurt

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THE RONALD S. LAUDER FOUNDATION GENEALOGY PROJECT

The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation also sponsors several projects outside the sphere of Jewish education and community development, which further honor and commemorate Poland's illustrious Jewish history. These programs draw on the greatness of the past to help our youth create a Jewish future within the context of contemporary Poland.

Chief among these is The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. A Lauder Foundation archivist spends his days here sifting through a treasure trove of hundreds of thousands of fragile documents: dog-eared birth certificates, torn sepia photographs, yellowed death records, carbon copies of deportation schedules, photostats of housing records, and more.

By piecing together this remarkable record of Polish Jewry, family connections are re-established, genealogical histories unearthed, lost relatives found and identities traced or recovered. Requests pour in by post, fax and email from around the world, and individuals from around the globe often come in person to the Institute. Some are seeking family documents. Others simply want to find the date of death of a loved one murdered in the Holocaust in order to observe a proper Yahrzeit commemoration.

Still others visit and make shocking discoveries about who they really are; teenage boys in ponytails and blue jeans with vague suspicions that they have not heard the complete truth about the realities of their origins; middle-aged men and women, their eyes streaked with tears after hearing the death-bed confessions of parents who did not want to take a fifty-year secret - their child's Jewish identity - to the grave with them; and elderly Jews on crutches hoping to find the child given away over the walls of the Warsaw ghetto.

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THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ-BIRKERNAU PRESERVATION PROJECT

The Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau is the universal symbol of the destruction of European Jewry. The physical remains of this site of unspeakable horror stand as a visual reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust. Auschwitz-Birkenau is a testimony to the actuality of the crimes of the Third Reich for all succeeding generations to see and to contemplate.

Yet many of the buildings, dynamited and burned by departing Germans in 1945, have also fallen victim to time and weather. In 1989 it was obvious that without intervention, these buildings, the physical proof of this authentic reminder of Nazi brutality, would disappear.

To address this critical issue, in that same year, Ronald S. Lauder established within The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation the International Auschwitz-Birkenau Preservation Project, under the leadership of two prominent survivors Kalman Sultanik and Ernest Michel.

In order to assess the site and recommend appropriate conservation and stabilization measures, The Foundation next assembled a team of expert conservators headed by James H. Frantz, Director of the Sherman Fairchild Department of Objects Conservation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of N.Y. as well as a team of restoration architects
for the purpose of raising money from European governments of those countries who had deported their Jews.

Finally, The Foundation proposed that the project become an international undertaking with the costs to be borne by the various European nations from whose lands Jews had been deported during World War II.

The Polish government and the International Council of the Auschwitz Museum gave their full support to this project.

Early on, an important principle of conservation emerged; namely, that measures to preserve Auschwitz-Brikenau should in no way alter the original character of the site. There was to be neither refurbishment nor embellishment. Rather the conservation plan would be designed to maintain the authenticity of the site by retaining the buildings as they were when the project began in 1989.

Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the Co-Chairmen of the Project, The Foundation is proud to report that, in an unprecedented gesture of unity, to date, 11 countries have voluntarily joined together to contribute over 28 million dollars for preservation: Germany (largest giver ), Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia and Switzerland. Efforts to obtain additional financing from other governments are continuing.

It is the hope of The Foundation that this endeavor, in full consideration for the sensitivity and deep feelings for this site held by many people around the globe, will ensure that Auschwitz-Birkenau remains a memorial and a place of learning for generations to come.

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THE JEWISH HERITAGE PROGRAM OF THE WORLD MONUMENTS FUND; THE RESTORATION OF TEMPEL SYNAGOGUE, KRAKOW

Through its support of The Jewish Heritage Program of the World Monuments Fund, The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is the key sponsor of an effort to preserve historic Jewish sites worldwide.

A major project now underway is the restoration of the magnificent Tempel Synagogue in Krakow. Tempel was built in the 1860s at the edge of Kazimierz, Krakow's legendary and colorful Jewish quarter. An impressively ornate building, it is virtually the only 19th century synagogue in Poland to survive the Holocaust intact.

At the invitation of the Krakow Jewish community, The Jewish Heritage Program team has worked closely with skilled local artisans and conservators to effect a complete transformation of the building. Fully restored Tempel Synagogue will soon open its doors as a functioning house of worship and host cultural events for people of Krakow and visitors from around the world.

Tempel is but one of Ten Endangered Historic Synagogues throughout Europe identified as priority sites by The Jewish Heritage Program after lengthy and exhaustive research. In urgent need of repair, these significant structures will completely disappear from the Jewish landscape without immediate intervention and financial aid. It is The Foundation's fervent hope to help them to remain proud survivors of a Jewish past.

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THE JEWISH HERITAGE PROGRAM OF THE WORLD MONUMENTS FUND

As chairman of this program, Ronald S. Lauder presides over an effort dedicated to documenting, preserving, and restoring the many buildings and sites of historic significance to Jewish heritage worldwide.

A primary restoration project of the Jewish Heritage Program is the magnificent Tempel Synagogue in Krakow, the only 19th-century synagogue to have survived virtually intact in Poland, and one of the few remaining of the thousands that existed in Poland before the Holocaust. At the invitation of the Krakow Jewish Community, the Jewish Heritage Council of the World Monuments Fund began restoration often building in 1994.

Tempel is but one of Ten Endangered Historic Synagogues throughout Europe identified after lengthy and exhaustive research as priority sites by The Jewish Heritage Program Without intervention and financial aid, these significant structures would completely disappear from the Jewish landscape.

The Foundation is pleased to report that Tempel Synagogue is the fifth of the original sites to be restored. The others are: Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Danan Synagogue in Fez, Morocco; Pfaffenhoffen Synagogue in France; Paradesi Synagogue in Cochin, India; and Etz Hayim Synagogue in Hania, Crete, Greece.
It is our fervent hope that we will garner assistance needed to complete the remaining restorations; Great Synagogue of Boskovice, Czech Republic; Pinczow Synagogue in Poland; Subotica Synagogue in the former Yugoslavia, Mad Synagogue in Hungary; and Slonim Synagogue in Belarus.

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