![Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Jewish Museum Frankfufrt | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Germany](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Hideouts-exhibit-Frankfurt--480x445.jpg)
A multimedia exhibition by the artist, architect and historian Natalia Romik dedicated to the creativity of Polish Jews seeking to survive the Shoah in hiding.
In Poland and Ukraine during World War II, approximately 50,000 people survived persecution by the German occupying forces in hiding. The majority of them were Jewish. They found refuge in tree hollows, closets, basements, sewers, empty graves, and other precarious locations. Natalia Romik’s exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” pays tribute to these fragile places of refuge and explores their physicality. The show poses basic questions about the relationship between architecture, private life, and the public sphere: it addresses the protective function of spaces and emphasizes the creativity those in hiding brought to bear in their attempt to survive.
In a research project extending over several years, Natalia Romik and an interdisciplinary team of researchers consulted oral histories to identify several hiding places, which they explored using forensic methods. The multimedia exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” presents the results of this research. It consists of sculptures bearing a direct connection to the sites and includes documentary films, forensic recordings, photos, documents, and objects found in the hiding places.
“Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival” is presented in cooperation with the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin. On the occasion of the show at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, a catalogue will be published in German and English editions by Hatje Cantz Verlag.
The exhibition was curated by Kuba Szreder and Stanisław Ruksza with the help of Aleksandra Janus (scientific collaboration). For the presentation in Frankfurt, Katja Janitschek, curator of the Judengasse Museum, was responsible for the curatorial project management. We would like to thank the Evonik Foundation for their generous support.
![Houses of Eternity - Domy wieczności @ Płońsk Memorial House | Płońsk | Mazowieckie | Poland](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Biala-18-wm7-480x360.jpg)
An exhibition about Jewish cemeteries, prepared by the Galicia Jewish Museum.
In many places throughout Poland, Jewish cemeteries or what remains of them are the only visible sign of the centuries-long presence of Jewish communities in a given area. The exhibition “Houses of Eternity” is a reflection on what Jewish cemeteries mean to us today and an attempt to find an answer to the question of what we can learn from them. Its aim is to introduce the topic of Jewish cemeteries to the widest possible audience, help understand how important an element of cultural heritage the preserved Jewish cemeteries are and answer a number of questions related to cemeteries in the context of Jewish history and tradition.
The opening is at 1 p.m., April 2
![(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt @ POLIN Museum, Warsaw | Warszawa | Województwo mazowieckie | Poland](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/POLIN-post-Jewish-480x360.jpg)
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.
![POLIN "(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt" exhibit special guided tour](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/POLIN-post-Jewish-480x360.jpg)
Special guided tour of the temporary exhibition “(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt” by curators Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Natalia Romik.
- 18 May (Saturday), 12 noon, BUY TICKET →
- Temporary exhibition “(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Throught the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt”
- Tickets: regular 30PLN, reduced 25PLN
- Guided tour in English
As Mayer Kirshenblatt’s daughter, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett will talk about the history of pre-war Jewish towns, about their typical features and the role they played in the Jewish community. While analysing Mayer’s paintings, we will learn about the functions of the selected buildings, about old rituals and Polish-Jewish cohabitation. Natalia Romik, on the other hand, will talk about these towns’ postwar fate. While drawing our attention to the exhibition design and the selected artefacts, she will raise the issue of Jewish property and tell us what happened to it after the Holocaust.
![Brest Holocaust Memorial crowd-funder](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Brest-Litovsk-memorial-credit-Brad-J.-Goldberg-480x309.jpg)
The Together Plan is running a 36-hour crowd-funding campaign May 19-20 to finance the co structure of a Holocaust memorial at the Jewish cemetery in Brest, Belarus.
Click on the link to sign up : https://www.charityextra.com/thetogetherplan/signup
![From Shtetl to Post-Jewish Town @ POLIN Museum, Warsaw | Warszawa | Województwo mazowieckie | Poland](https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Dorohoi-street-2006-wm3-480x360.jpg)
While the historical shtetl has been studied extensively, the post-Jewish town, as a historical phenomenon and evolving site of contested memory, has received less attention. After the Holocaust, the many towns where Jewish communities had lived for centuries and where they had created a distinctive way of life became places without Jews. We want to explore this process of transforming shtetls into post-Jewish space.
The conference is organized as part of the events accompanying the new temporary exhibition of POLIN Museum “(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt” opening on May 17, 2024. The exhibition will juxtapose postwar memories of prewar Jewish life in Polish Opatów, as recorded in words and paintings by a self-taught artist – Mayer Kirshenblatt, with the postwar post-Jewish town.
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