The Great Warsaw Synagogue will symbolically return to the Bankowy Square. Join us for a stunning light and sound show.

The Open Republic Association will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with a multimedia event created by the artist Gabi von Seltmann.

On the night of 19th April, of the anniversary of the Uprising, the image of the synagogue rising from the rubble will appear on the wall of the Blue Skyscraper which was constructed on its site.The Great Synagogue,destroyed by the Germans after the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, will be symbolically reconstructed through image, sound and emotion.

„May rememberance and ליבע (love) overcome destruction and death”

Archival recordings of the cantor of the Great Synagogue, Gerszon Sirota, who died in the Warsaw ghetto, and fragments of the poem “Bashert”, read by its author, Irena Klepfisz, daughter of Michał, Bund activist, a soldier of the Jewish Combat Association, will be played during the ceremony.

The performance will last six minutes (the sequence will be repeated from 9:00 to11:00 pm CET.)

The event will be broadcast live at www.otwarta.org.

Invitation
Description of project
More details on event on Facebook.

JCC Warsaw Foundation in partnership with Festivalt, Fundacja Urban Memory, Fundacja Zapomniane, Hochschule Fur Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, Ceji, Fundacja Dokumentacji Cmentarzy Żydowskich, Fundacja Formy Wspólne, Otwarta Rzeczpospolita, Wydawnictwo Czarne, Makabi Warszawa invite you to the series of events “MultiMemo. Inclusive Memory of Warsaw”, which will take place on April 16-23, 2023, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

• April 16, 2023, 5:00 PM, Shucked memory:

Meeting about Warsaw Ghetto Uprising heroins around the book “A Question of Character. Women fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto” (Czarne).

Shana Penn, Taube Foundation, Network of East-West Women in conversation with Sylwia Chutnik (editor) and Patrycja Dołowy, Zuzanna Hertzberg, Natalia Judzińska, Karolina Sulej (authors). With an introduction by Monika Sznajderman (editor and publisher). || Location: JCC Warsaw, Chmielna 9A st

• April 18, 2023, 7:00 PM, Sound memory:

Michał Michalski, piano concert tribute to inhabitants of Warsaw Ghetto. The program includes Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor and Moscheles’s Sonata Melancholique, among others. || Location: JCC Warsaw, Chmielna 9A st

• April 19, 2023, 12:00 PM, Grassroot VI Independent Commemoration of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Anniversary.

Our memory must continue despite the difficulties of our times. This year, we gather again beacause we remember. We remember what happened. We remember those that fought. We remember those that died. And we remember those that kept that memory alive. For us, as for Marek Edelman, the commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a matter of memory. We do not want to take part in official commemorations, appropriated by politicians. We believe that memory should be a common good, created from the bottom up. || Location: Monument on Szmul Zygielbojm square

• April 19, 2023, 9:00 PM, Local memory:

The Great Synagogue Restores Memory, a projection by Gabi von Seltmann organised with Open Republic. || Location: Bankowy Square

• April 20, 2023, 12:00 PM

A guided walk with Paula Sawicka, following the traces of Marek Edelman and Michał Klepfisz. Organized by Open Republic.

Registration is required via the form

• April 20, 2023, 2:00 PM, Personal memory:

Zikaron BaSalon with Józef Hen, the oldest Holocaust survivor from Warsaw. || Location: JCC Warsaw, Chmielna 9A st

• April 21, 2023, 12:00 PM, Marginalised memory: 

A guided walk with Paula Sawicka, following the traces of Marek Edelman and Michał Klepfisz. With Open Republic and Makabi Warsaw

II Location: Franciszkańska 14 (corner of Bonifraterska)

• April 21, 2023, 8:00 PM, Marginalised memory:

Shabbat with Irena Klepfisz. lesbian poet, child Holocaust survivor from Warsaw Ghetto and political activist  and with her poems searching for diverse memories and identities, read by actors, translators and invited guests || Location: JCC Warsaw, Chmielna 9A st

• April 23, 2023, 12:00 PM , Entangled memory:

Women’s Civic Disobedience – a guided walk with Jagna Kofta. || Location: Palace of Culture in the front of Studio Theatre

• April 23, 2023, 4:00 PM, Entangled memory:

Patrycja Dołowy in conversation with the children of Holocaust: Inka Sobolewska-Pyz, Matti Greenberg and Anna Liro. || Location: JCC Warsaw, Chmielna 9A st

The events will be held in English and Polish. Participation is free, but due to limited seating, registration is required via the form: https://bit.ly/polifonie-form

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released the 47^th annual Human Rights Report.

The entire report can be found on the U.S. Department of State’s website: https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/.

The Poland chapter is available on the U.S. Embassy website: https://pl.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/poland_hrr_2022.pdf.

The Open Republic Association against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia and a private person sued Wojciech Olszański and Marcin Osadowski – the organizers of the anti-Semitic, hate-provoking assembly, which culminated in the burning of a copy of the Kalisz Statute on November 11, 2021 on the market square in Kalisz.

The Plaintiffs indicate that the Defendants, by burning a copy of the Kalisz Statute, preaching anti-Semitism and using hate speech against the Jewish national minority – which has been an integral part of the Polish Nation for centuries – unlawfully jeopardized the good name of the Polish Nation, as well as Plaintiffs’ personal rights, such as national dignity.

The actions of the Defendants and the slogans proclaimed by them put the Polish Nation in a false, extremely negative light and create a false image of the Republic of Poland. Slandering national minorities, calling for physical persecution of members of these minorities, calling for revenge on Jews and expulsion of them from Poland, as well as referring to them as “enemies of the homeland” – are in blatant contradiction with the fundamental values of the Republic of Poland. The statements and actions of the Defendants presented in the public forum humiliate not the Jews themselves, but the entire Polish Nation. Preaching anti-Semitic and xenophobic content violates the ideals of a democratic and multicultural society, and burning a copy of the Kalisz Statute is a kind of act of profanation of our national history.

88th PEN International Congress
Uppsala, September 27 – October 1, 2022

RESOLUTION ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Proposed by the Writers for Peace Committee
Seconded by PEN Ukraine

Three years since Russia’s unrecognised ‘annexation’ of Crimea in violation of international law and the de facto control by pro–Russian armed groups of the self–proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’, the human rights situation in Ukraine continues to raise serious concerns. Over 10,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands displaced and more than 23,000 injured on all sides of the conflict since the beginning of the conflict in 20141 . In the course of the crisis, dozens of journalists have been detained, kidnapped, tortured or otherwise harassed solely for carrying out their work. At least five journalists and two media workers have been killed.

In Crimea, independent journalists are unable to work openly while journalists from mainland Ukraine have been denied access and turned away at the de facto border. Access to independent media from mainland Ukraine has been blocked. Journalists and bloggers critical of Russia’s occupation and ‘annexation’ of Crimea face prosecution and prison sentences. The persecution and harassment of Crimean Tatars, who bear the brunt of the repression, has intensified. Many have been subjected to enforced disappearances and the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, an elected representative body, has been arbitrarily banned as ‘extremist’.

On July 22, 1942, the Germans began deporting the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. The brutal liquidation action that lasted nearly two months resulted in the death of over 300,000 Jews. During the ninth March of Remembrance we will especially commemorate Adam Czerniaków – the educator, social activist and journalist, city councilor of Warsaw, senator of the Second Polish Republic. In the Warsaw ghetto, he was the president of the Judenrat (Jewish Council). On July 23, the day after the ‘resettlement’ began, Adam Czerniaków committed suicide, which was an expression of protest and helplessness against the deportation of the ghetto inhabitants, especially small orphans.

22 July marks the European Day for Victims of Hate Crime. Established by the Council of Europe’s “No Hate Speech Movement” it commemorates the 77 young victims of Anders Breivik’s 2011 attack on Utøya island near Oslo.