Archcathedral in Łódź | 265. Piotrkowska St.
„And i still see their faces…” – exhibition of the Shalom Foundation in Warsaw (opening on August 25 at 1.30pm)
When in 1994 Gołda Tencer, the General Director of the Foundation, called for the photographs of Polish Jews to be sent in, she never expected that the response would be as big. The photographs, aged, a bit damaged, kept on the attics and dug out of the ruins, hundreds of them kept coming from big cities, small towns and villages.
Her name was Taube or Tauber or maybe Tauberg. I remember the name from my mother’s stories – wrote the citizen of Lublin. The sepia photograph features young woman, smiling. She holds a sleeping baby, wrapped in a scarf, and holds the hand of a small girl wearing white dress and corals. She is also accompanied by four, a bit older children wearing simple clothes. The family poses in front of the house. The photograph was most probably taken right after the birth of the youngest child (between 1934 and 1937), by the happy father. We don’t know what happened to them…
50 years after the Holocaust, thanks to the involvement of Polish families and Jews, it was possible to bring back the memory of the absent. From among 9000 photographs, several hundred photos were selected for the exhibition “And I Still See Their Faces…” Ever since, the exhibition has been visiting various places around the world. It was presented by nearly 50 museums in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Jerusalem, San Jose, St. Petersburg, Hamburg, Paris, London, Madrid, Vilnius, Buenos Aires, Porto, Grenoble, Lyon and Toronto. Everywhere it is received with a warm welcome; it brings back the forgotten world and the history of Polish Jews. Its importance is proved by the enthusiastic reviews of the New York’s edition published twice by The New York Times and the exhibition was extended six times (instead of one month, the exhibition was open for half a year).
The exhibition is exceptional because of its universal character. Photographs of Polish Jews are seen not only by the people who visit the museums of the European cities but also citizens of small towns such as Tykocin or Szamotuły. It happens because we all keep seeing Their faces and keep hearing Their voices…