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.
Photographer Marcel Th. Jacobs documented the ten Jewish cemeteries belonging to the nine communities along the Jewish Cultural Trail of Hohenlohe-Tauber using his analog Leica camera. For the first time, the Jewish Museum of Creglingen is presenting 40 selected photographs from this collection. The images are accompanied by detailed information on the local context and the history of the cemeteries featured in the exhibition.
This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Jewish Museum of Creglingen and the Friends of Jewish Cemeteries in Central European Culture in Berlin.
Exhibition dates: September 26 to November 10, 2024.
Opening hours: Sundays, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
(Other times available for groups upon request)
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