Through cooperation with Jewish Motifs Association that lent us a copy of the film, during the meeting at Chłodna25 café club held on March 15, 2012 we were able to screen “Hiding and Seeking” by Menachem Daum. A conversation with Helise Lieberman, director of Taube Centre for Jewish Cultural Revival, followed the screening. Both the film and the discussion pertained to the attitudes of American Jewish diaspora towards Poland and the Poles – a topic that is often a source of controversies and discussions in the media among politicians and those involved in Polish-Jewish dialogue. The terms used by American media about contemporary Poland and Polish history (such as the infamous “Polish concentration camps”) raise bewilderment and strong opposition from the Poles, Polish Americans as well as Jewish communities.

On the other hand, Poland attracts more and more Jewish American visitors, as the thousands of participants in March of the Living or many Americans visiting their families’ hometowns demonstrate. More and more often, English can be heard at Jewish Culture Festivals, more and more American Jews decide to settle in Poland – running their businesses, conducting research or working in culture. We discussed whether it is likely that the image of Poland among American Jews will change with Helise Lieberman, a Jewish American who has been living in Poland for over twenty years.

The second meeting in the “Forum at Chłodna” series was held on May 21, 2012 under the title “A Neighborhood or a Cemetery? Do and How Varsovians Remember About the Ghetto” and proved to be a big success. Over sixty people visited Chłodna25 café to listen to guest speakers invited by the Forum. Discussion panelists included Elżbieta Janicka – literature scholar, author of “Festung Warschau”; Maria Lewicka – psychology professor at University of Warsaw; and Jacek Leociak – literature scholar, member of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research. The discussion was led by Michał Bilewicz – vice president of Forum for Dialogue, head of Prejudice Studies Center at the University of Warsaw.

“I couldn’t have done otherwise” says Józef Kalina in the film “Aftermath” (Pokłosie). He couldn’t have done otherwise, although his neighbors deemed him a lunatic, his wife left him and as time went on, he had to pay an increasingly higher price for his deeds. “I couldn’t have done otherwise” is a statement that could be uttered by many individuals who became involved in remembering about local Jews, caring for the Jewish cemeteries, addressing the painful past, taking on the responsibility to remember.

We wanted to talk to individuals who stumbled upon this subject matter and have not been able to not do something about it ever since: they maintain Jewish cemeteries not caring what others will say; they run cultural institutions, although this is not always a walk in the park and everyone considers them to be crazy. They force themselves and others to remember about the tragic events, even when they are intimidated or shunned. But their work also brings satisfaction, words of gratitude and a sense of fulfillment. For all these reasons, a special screening of “Aftermath” was organized on February 21, 2013 in Państwomiasto café club. It was followed by panel discussion with Bogdan Białek (chair of Jan Karski Society from Kielce), Witold Dąbrowski (deputy director of Grodzka Gate Center – NN Theater in Lublin) and Grzegorz Kamiński (teacher from Toszek in Gliwice region).

Already in the 1980s, Bogdan Białek started discussing the Kielce pogrom. In 1981, he resigned from his post as delegate to the regional “Solidarity” convention to protest against anti-Semitic remarks of some of the other delegates.

Thanks to his intervention, local authorities were responsible for commemorative ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom. The society Białek established works to have Kielce citizens actively engage in the Polish-Jewish dialogue. For Witold Dąbrowski the story began in 1992, when NN Theater (established in 1990) obtained new headquarters in the ruined building of Grodzka Gate. Beyond the gate extends the empty space of the destroyed Jewish district. NN theater founders realized that it is their duty to care for the non-existent Jewish Lublin. Today, through unique exhibitions as well as education and artistic initiatives Grodzka Gate – NN Theater tries to remind the local population of Lublin’s Jewish inhabitants. Ten years ago, Toszek teacher Grzegorz Kamiński and a group of students from the local elementary school cleaned the Jewish cemetery in Wielowieś, where Kamiński worked. Since that time, Kamiński and local youth (school students, archers and scouts) maintain all Jewish cemeteries in Wielowieś, Toszek, Pyskowice, Sośniowice – in all of the Gliwice country. On November 9, 2012, Kamiński unveiled a plaque commemorating the Toszek synagogue.

In reference to the film, but first and foremost to our guests’ work, we asked where this sense of responsibility comes from. What is the price to pay, what are the gains? What are the joys and sorrows connected to activism in the “J-letter topic”?

What do pergolas in Forester’s Park (Park Leśnika) in Warsaw’s Praga district have in common with the Jewish cemetery in Bródno district? And what does the wall around the Catholic cemetery in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski share with a local Jewish cemetery? Why are there bones sticking out of the ground next to the local high school soccer pitch? What happened to the Jewish graves? What have we done with them?
There are around 1200 Jewish cemeteries in Poland today, 400 of them did not survive the war. Only 150 can boast more than one hundred headstones. Destroyed by Germans in the course of World War II, it was not uncommon for these cemeteries to be turned into sandboxes, school sports fields or municipal parks in later years. Forgotten, they would overgrow.

Headstones were used by Nazis to pave roads and courtyards or to stabilize riverbanks. Soon after the war, Poles would use them to make whetstones, build cowsheds, pavements, sandboxes and even outhouses. Even today, matzevot can be found in foundations, walls and workshops with the Hebrew inscriptions and names of persons whose graves they adorned still visible.

On January 24, 2013, Łukasz Baksik, author of the “Matzevot of Everyday Use” photo album and exhibition and Agnieszka Nieradko from the Rabbinical Commission on the Jewish Cemeteries in Poland discussed what we have done to the Jewish graves and why matzevot are still embedded in the infrastructure of our cities. The meeting was held in Państwomiasto club-café.

A film recording of the meeting is available in the following website 

In a center of a small town, right next to the church and police and fire stations, I find a farmhouse with a cowshed built from matzevot. I encounter Catholic tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions that someone forgot to remove. I talk to people who – aware of what you can find in their backyards – see nothing wrong in the situation.

Łukasz Baksik

Flags sporting fascist symbols, anti-Semitic songs, slurs against rival teams, graffiti on the walls of Łódź, Kraków and many other cities. In 2011 we saw the infamous banner “Jihad Legia” during the match with Hapoel Tel Aviv. Resovia hooligans painted a graffiti in Rzeszów that read “Being a Jew is a shame” against their rival team, Stal Rzeszów fans called Resovia fans “f***ing Jews”. The soccer chant „Hamas, Hamas, Jude auf dem Gas!” („Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”) sung by Legia hooligans during a match against Widzew Łódź. „Jude, Jude Cracovia” chanted by fans Ruch Chorzów, the match’s hosting team. Why being a soccer fan involves anti-Semitism, racism and violence and does it have to be this way?

This topic was discussed in one of the meetings of “Forum at Chłodna” series by Michał Okoński (deputy editor-in-chief of “Tygodnik Powszechny”, creator and blogger at “Futbol jest okrutny”– Soccer is Cruel), Rafał Pankowski (cultural sociologist, scholar of the far right movement, coordinator at the Center for Monitoring Racism in Eastern Europe, deputy editor-in-chief of Nigdy Więcej – Never Again magazine) and gen.Adam Rapacki (general of the police, former undersecretary of state of Polish Ministry of Interior who was chaired the Sports Events Security Council). The meeting was hosted by Zuzanna Radzik, Forum for Dialogue board member.