There were more than a thousand shtetls in today’s territories of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. The Second World War and the Holocaust obliterated the world of shtetls completely. Today, in Opatów—as well as in tens of other Polish towns—there are no more Jews left.
The OPOLIN Museum’s new temporary exhibition titled (post) JEWISH… demonstrates that Polish towns hide two parallel histories. The history of their Polish inhabitants is well known and remembered. The one of their Jewish neighbours who are no more is forgotten or left unsaid.
Guide in the exhibition will be the late Mayer Kirshenblatt, a painter who emigrated to Canada with his mother and brothers as a teenager, in 1934. Mayer recalls the shtetl of his youth, restoring vivid memories of the people, events, daily life and customs. His paintings—full of color, imagination and humor—show us a world that is no more. Looking at them, we learn about our shared Polish-Jewish history.
The exhibition also features a documentation of artistic interventions carried out in today’s Opatów, aimed at discovering and restoring the vestiges of the pre-war Jewish life.
Exhibition of art work by the British artist Beverley Jane Stewart.
“Documenting synagogues, mountain villages and landscapes in Romania, including ancient structures next to modern buildings, connecting events from secular and religious Jewish history with the present, her works tell a timeless story of Jewish life and reflect the artist’s Eastern European roots, creating a cultural mosaic full of nostalgia and contemporary spirit.”
The exhibition is curated by Vera Pilpoul, an art consultant from Israel, and Cleopatra Lorintiu, a poet and author from Romania.
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