Grants and Scholarships Competitions

Awardees in the Grant Competition:

Robert Augustyniak

and the Local Special Action Foundation

Grodzisk Mazowiecki

The “Bejt chajim – Grodzisk Mazowiecki” Project

As part of the project, a website about the Jewish cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki will be created. It will contain information about the history of the cemetery, an index of tombstones, current photos, a map indicating the preserved and recovered matzevot, as well as articles about the history of the local Jewish community. The tombstones, both those preserved and destroyed, will serve as starting points for stories of specific individuals, former Jewish residents of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, including the Survivors. The project also includes a documentation of tombstones and translation of the preserved inscriptions.

Anna Brzyska

and the “Memory and Dialogue. Common History” Association

Brzesko

The “We Remember: An Exhibition Dedicated to Jewish Families of Pre-War Brzesko” Project

The project includes the preparation of an exhibition devoted to Jewish families who lived in Brzesko before the war. The exhibition will present archival documents and photographs that were collected during 8 years of genealogical research, interviews with witnesses, and visits to Brzesko’s Jewish cemetery. Some of the materials were obtained from descendants of local Jewish families. Scheduled for September 14, 2024, the opening of the exhibition will take place as part of the celebration of the 82nd Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Brzesko ghetto. After the ceremony, the exhibition will be on loan to schools and libraries, making it available to young people.

Olga Ickiewicz

and Nasielsk Public Library

Nasielsk

The “Memory is the Person and the Place” Project

The project involves installing informative plaques in locations related to the Nasielsk’s Jewish community. First one will be located at the site of the former Jewish school (at Starzyńskiego street, formerly Berka Joselewicza street), since 1945 home to the local High School. The second plaque will indetify where the synagogue building stood until the 1950s. Currently, there is a residential block there. The plaques will feature QR codes for a Polish and English-language website with information on the sites commemorated. The unveiling ceremony will be followed with a series of publicly available classes offered by teachers and their students, who will use the plaques as educational materials. Among the invited guests of the official ceremony there will be descendants of Nasielsks’s Jewish families, representatives of local authorities and cultural institutions, as well as students of the Seniors’ College.

Teresa Jabłońska

and Children of Września Foundation

Września

The “History and Culture of Jewish Września. Young People in Sites of Memory” Project

The project continues three years of educational activities where students from five elementary schools and as well as a special needs school take part in workshops on Jewish culture and tradition. Student representations from each school participate in a scavenger hunt, during which they learn about places related to the history of the Jewish community of Wrzesnia. This year the theme will be symbols of Jewish culture. In addition, students from 4 high schools will have classes on Jewish holiday traditions. The project also includes a visit to memorial sites: Fort VII in Poznań, the Martyrological Museum in Żabików, and the extermination camp in Chelmno nad Nerem for a group of 50 students.

Ewa Krychniak

and the “Sokółka Four Cultures” Association

Sokółka

The „They were among us…” Project

A commemorative plaque will be installed in Sokolka to honor the memory of the Stoler family. The guests attending the unvaling ceremony will include, among others the descendants of the family, students of the Elementary School no. 1, as well as local scout troops. The ceremony will include a walk commemorating important places in the Stler family history, and the descendants will be invited to a concert by the students of the Sokolka Music School. Prior to the ceremony, scouts and other members of the public will do necessary cleaning and maintenance works at the site of the local Jewish cemetery. For the seniors of the community there will be workshops dedicated to paper cutouts and Jewish cooking. Dishes prepared will be served during an exhibition of the cutouts prepared.

Katarzyna Łaziuk

and the Friends of Mińsk Mazowiecki Association

Mińsk Mazowiecki

The “Shtetl on the Road” Project

The project includes a travelling exhibition in the form of a fabric screen covered in photos of the Jewish shtetl. Visitors will be able to use headphones and a tablet with sources related to the Jewish heritage of Mińsk Mazowiecki.

The exhibition is accompanied by workshops addressed to participants of various ages conducted on the basis of six different scripts. The exhibition will include a rack with interchangeable photos and a suitcase with artifacts, which will be used during the workshops. The project will be inaugurated during the 10th Days of Jewish Culture in Mińsk Mazowiecki.

Wojciech Mazan

and the Out of this World Cultural Association

Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski

The “Ostrowce” Project

The project entails the creation of paper and electronic maps showing the Jewish past of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, made available in Polish and English. The publication requires the compilation of a list of at least one hundred places and thematic entries related to the history of the Jewish community from the founding of the city to the present day. These will include both places still visible in Ostrowiec, such as the cemetery, and those that have vanished, such as the synagogue building. It will feature well known and obscure places, some associated with specific people who have made an impression on the town. The project includes a public walking tour of the sites combined with a map presentation at the Wielopolski Palace in Częstocice. The Museum in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski is a partnet in the project.

Paweł Mazanka

and the Szydłów Cultural Center

Szydłów

Preservation and Commemoration of the Szydłów Jewish Cemetery

The project involves installation of commemorative plaques listing the names of those buried at the Jewish cemetery in Szydłów. The 556 names were gathered from a list of people buried at the cemetery in 1886-1914, which was translated from Russian, as well as a list of burials from 1918-1939. The unveiling of the plaques will be preceded by a lesson on the history of Szydlów Jews for local students. The guests of the ceremony scheduled for September 15, 2024 will include the descendants of Szydlów Jewish families from several countries. After the ceremony, the visitors will have a chance to meet with local residents in the local synagogue building. The event will also feature a book launch of Żydzi Szydłowa [eng. Jews of Szydłów]and screening of the film Jews of Szydłów in Neighbors’ Memory. The event will conclude a tasting of Jewish dishes.

Urszula Mróz

and the Zofia Urbanowska Public Library in Konin

Konin

The “Echos of a Former World – Our History” Project

The Konin Museum will host workshops for seniors inspired by their Judaica collection, while a visit to the Konin Old Town will be an opportunity for the senior citizens to learn about places connected to Konin’s Jewish history, with special attention paid to the figure of Rabbi Jacob Liebschütz. Additionally, the project includes the creation and performance of a play based on I’m All Made of That Past World by Maria Leszczyńska-Ejzen, Four Days on Atlantis by Józef Lewandowski, and Konin: A Quest by Theo Richmond. The director, a drama educator, will hold a casting call for amateur actors from different age groups. The actors takle part in workshops about the history of the Jewish community. The performance will feature Dorota and Hanna Merlak, who will talk about their ancestors who once lived in Konin, and will be presented at the Center for Culture and Art in Konin. Hanna Merlak will also present her book Jews by Way of the Kitchen, while the Konin Municipal Public Library will hold an accompanying exhibition.

Mariusz Sokołowski

and the Open Education Foundation

Białystok

The “My Star – Our Star” Project

As part of the project, six memorial stones [Stolpersteine] will be installed at 31 Lipowa Street in Bialystok. Dedicated to Felicia Raszkin-Nowak, author of My Star, and her parents, grandparents, and uncle follow the memorial stones installed in memory of the Pisar family in 2023. The ceremony to unveil the memorial stones will be open to the public. It will be accompanied by an educational walk for local residents and tourists entitled “In the Footsteps of Felicia Raszkin-Nowak,” and based on the memories described in her publication. The project will also include on site workshops for teachers interested using the book and Felicia Raszkin-Nowak’s testimony.

Dawid Stępniewski

and the Pabianice Shtetl Association

Pabianice

The “Virtual Map of Jewish Pabianice” Project

The virtual map created as part of the project will present places related to Pabianice’s Jewish community, including the synagogue, cemetery, religious community headquarters, the rabbi’s house, the Zarskis’ villa, the Baruch factory and tenement houses inhabited the Horovitz, Federman, Szapocznik, Adler and other families. The map will allows its viewers to learn about the history of each place. Texts in Polish and English will be illustrated with contemporary and archival photographs. In addition, two thematic walks will be organized as part of the project: one open to all residents of Pabianice, and the other – for teachers from local schools.

Katarzyna Sudaj

and the ATUT Foundation

Trzemeszno

The “Sarah, a film” Project

Sarah is a film based on Jolanta Sroczynska-Pietz’s novel Shadow of the Sundial that will feature appearances by the young performers of the Seventh Day Theater in Trzemeszno. The filming will be done in Trzemeszno’s historic locations and in a 19th century classroom. The film, with English subtitles, will be posted on YouTube, Facebook, and www.zydzi-trzemeszno.pl, as well as sent directly to descendants of Jewish families from Trzemeszno. The descendants will also be invited to the film’s official premiere, while students of the General and Vocational School Complex will have an opportunity to watch the film as part of educational activities organized during school hours.

Awardees in the Local Activism Scholarship Competition:

Jakub Niewiński

Murowana Goślina

The “Educational Power of the Goślina Kehilla History” Project

The project consists of a translation of a 30-page manuscript from 1833, discovered recently in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. Among other things, the document contains records of the history of the Jewish community in Murowana Goślina. The translated manuscript will be published online. In addition, Jakub Niewiński will organize an educational conference for the local community of Murowana Goślina, featuring a public reading of the translation. Other source materials will also be presented, including the account of Michael Simon Levy’s story, who is believed to have brought the manuscript to the United States, and his family. The conference will also include a workshop for teachers from local schools aimed at using archival sources in education.

Ireneusz Socha

Dębica

The “Life Music 2024” Project

As part of the project, Ireneusz Socha will organize a concert “Life Music 2024” on the stage of the Śnieżka Municipal Cultural Center in Dębica. It will take place during the Dębica Jewish Community Remembrance Day, on the 82nd Anniversary of the first extermination action in the Dębica ghetto. The concert will feature original music inspired by the life of Israel Goldberg, the last Jewish resident of Dębica, whose memoirs were recorded a year before his death. Among those invited to the event will be residents of Dębica, as well as descendants of Dębica Jews from Israel and the United States.

Awardees in the Personal Development Scholarship Competition:

Paweł Bajerlein

Koźmin Wielkopolski

Pawel Bajerlein will spend the scholarship on an English language course and visits to foreign archives and museums that contain in their collections documents of the Jewish community of Kożmin Wielkopolski. The skills and knowledge he will acquire will help him strengthen ties between the local community of Koźmin and descendants of local Jewish families. They will also be useful in educational activities and in the preparation of a manuscript about the history of Jews in Koźmin.

Jolanta Drab

Krzepice

Jolanta Drab will use the scholarship to cover the cost of an English language course. She aims to use these language skills to further her connection with descendants of Krzepice Jews who know reside in the United States.

Teresa Klimowicz

Lublin

Teresa Klimowicz will use the scholarship to cover the cost of an online individual Yiddish-language course. The course materials will be suited to the specific language needs of someone working with historical documents, most importantly it will help Teresa decipher handwriting in Yiddish. This, in turn, she will be able to use in her educational activities in Lublin.

Dariusz Kubalski

Staszów

Dariusz Kubalski will cover an English language course with the scholarship money. He plans to use English to connect with families of Staszów Jews, as well us to research historical and current materials in his research and publications on the Jewish history of Staszów.

Jakub Niewiński

Murowana Goślina

Jakub Niewiński will use to scholarship on an English language course, which will help him prepare for a language certificate exam (also covered by the scholarship allocation). The e-learning course will be completed on a tablet also bought with scholarship money. He will use his language skills also in his capacity as a guide.

Radosław Ptaszyński

Przysucha

Radosław Ptaszyński plans to buy lawn mowing equipment used to maintain the greenery in and around the Jewish cemetery in Przysucha. He is part of a group that has been taking care of the local cemetery for the past two years. Their last effort was to place an informative plaque featuring a QR code, fixed and painted the fence, and cut down dead trees.

In 2024, the program for activists in the Forum for Dialogue Network, including grants and scholarships, is financed thanks to the generosity of Friends of the Forum, LEDOR WADOR Foundation, United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, and individual donors and institutions from Poland and abroad supporting Forum for Dialogue. Scholarships for personal development are possible thanks to The David and Anna Dlugie Kliger Scholarship Fund.

At an intersection of global and local activism, Łukasz Połomski and Edyta Danielska, activists of the Shtetl of Tsanz and members of our network, hosted Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice-President Kamala Harris, during his visit in Gorlice. They showed him, and a delegation from U.S. Consulate General in Krakow, around the Jewish sites of the town of his ancestors.

The visit was part of Emhoff’s European tour promoting the efforts of the Biden-Harris administration in fighting antisemitism worldwide.

For the past months, we have been working on new strategies for the Forum, which will come into full effect in 2023. As a part of those changes, we are currently developing the new School of Dialogue program. We aim to build even closer co-operation with teachers to increase the program’s sustainability and long-term impact. We are lucky that we can rely on the help of people best suited for such a challenge: members of our activist network working as teachers. In January, we invited a group of them to Warsaw for a workshop and discussion that will ensure School of Dialogue’s update inspires even wider audiences to rediscover and return Jewish past into the history of towns all over Poland.

In May, Forum was invited to join Glenn Kurtz, a longtime Friend of the Forum and author of “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film”, Bianca Stigter, director of “Three Minutes – A Lengthening,” and a group of Jewish descendants from Nasielsk in what was the culmination of over a decade of efforts to preserve and commemorate the Jewish history of Nasielsk. Starting with the Polish premiere of “Three Minutes – A Lengthening” at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the visit continued with the official unveiling ceremony of the ‘Gate of Memory’ at the Jewish cemetery in Nasielsk, and artistic and educational program prepared by Nasielsk students, including participants of the School of Dialogue program, and their teachers.

Bianca Stigter’s documentary transforms a 3 minute color film found by Glenn in his family home, which was shot in 1938 Nasielsk in Poland by David Kurtz, Glenn’s grandfather, into a moving homage to Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust.

David Kurtz, who was born in Nasielsk, emigrated to the U.S., and returned to visit his birthplace where he captured three minutes of life of Nasielsk Jewish community. The footage, which had almost rotten just before it was discovered and restored, is the only remaining moving image of the once vibrant community. The finding of the footage and the process of reconstructing the stories of Nasielskiers seen in it are the subject of an acclaimed book published by Glenn Kurtz in 2014.

photos by Forum for Dialogue, P. Stankiewicz

After the film’s official premiere at the POLIN Museum, Glenn, Bianca, and descendants of Nasielsk Jewish families traveled to Nasielsk to witness the unveiling of the ‘Gate of Memory’ monument at the local Jewish cemetery. This moving ceremony, crowning ten years of efforts to bring back the memory of town’s Jewish community, gathered representatives of local authorities, members of Polish/Jewish organizations, and residents of Nasielsk, School of Dialogue students among them.

The ceremony was followed by “Three Minutes – A Lengthening” screening at the “Niwa,” a cinema that dates back to the pre-war times. After the screening and a Q&A session with Glenn and Bianca, School of Dialogue students took their guests on a guided tour of town’s Jewish heritage and shared the findings of their research. The visit ended with a hospitality evening hosted by Polish Friends of the Forum.

photos by K. Pietrzak-Kret, M. Usiekniewicz

The first workshops of the new semester of the School of Dialogue program started in March. Forum educators are conducting in-person workshops at the participating schools, and facilitating the educational process helping students overcome any challenges that may arise. The commemorative projects created by the students should be ready by mid-June, but we can already share a few highlights:

Students from Kudowa-Zdrój plan to enhance their Jewish heritage tour with culinary workshops for participants. They also want to prepare a guidebook featuring descriptions of noteworthy places of Jewish heritage in Kudowa-Zdrój, as well as biographies of important figures of local Jewish community. The group from Adam Mickiewicz High School in Opole Lubelskie base their historical research on an oral history methodology: they will be interviewing history witnesses for testimonies of pre-war town and events during the World War II. Students of the St. Urszula Ledóchowska Congregation of the Ursulines High School in Pniewy are especially interested in Judaism and the history of Orthodox Jewish communities, so it will be interesting to see how will this specialized focus shape their commemorative project.

The groups from Opole Lubelskie, Nicolaus Copernicus High School No 1 in Będzin, and Maria Montessori Bilingual High School in Radom, which host refugee students from Ukraine, plan to make the projects accessible to them. Despite the language barrier, School of Dialogue emphasis on workshops fostering cooperation is proving to have a very positive outcome in this sometimes difficult situation.

Each year, the participants of previous editions of the School of Dialogue decide to continue their involvement in efforts to remember the Jewish communities of their towns and cities. This April, students from Juliusz Słowacki High School No 1 in Częstochowa decided to mark the Yom HaShoah with a virtual commemorative ceremony organized and conducted together with fellow Israeli students from Modi’in. Students of Janusz Korczak High School No 2 in Wieluń took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Campaign – Daffodils Social-Educational Campaign organized by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. They also plan to mark the 80^th anniversary of the liquidation of Wieluń ghetto with a visit to Kulmhof Nazi extermination camp, where they will honor the memory of their town’s Jewish community. The group from the Academic High School in Biała Podlaska organized the “World That No Longer Exists – The History of Biała Podlaska’s Jews” conference, during which they shared the effects of their School of Dialogue historical research. Among the invited conference guests were local historians and regionalists, who presented their own research.

In 2021, the School of Dialogue was financed from two sources.

Project financed by the Active Citizens Fund – National financed by the Norwegian and EEA funds.

Project co-financed by Friends of the Forum, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and individual and institutional donors from Poland and abroad.

After two-year hiatus in study visits and conferences caused by the Covid-19 pandemic the time has finally come for return to face-to-face meetings. In late April, and early May 2022, together with the Yad Vashem Institute, Forum co-organized a seminar devoted to the issues of Holocaust memory. Nineteen Poles active in Polish/Jewish dialogue and commemorative efforts joined us in Jerusalem for an intense week of lectures, discussions, and site visits.

The seminar’s program was focused on the place of Holocaust in contemporary Israel’s consciousness and the forthcoming 80^th anniversary of the Aktion Reinhardt. The participants had a unique opportunity to listen to the leading authorities in the field of Holocaust research like Professor Yehuda Bauer and Ophir Yarden. They also met Holocaust Survivors Alona Frankel and Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel, as well as representatives of the second generation. An analysis of the characteristics of Israeli Holocaust discourse, especially how it is visible in public spaces, was a key topic of the seminar. To experience that, the participants took part in guided tours of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Yad Vashem campus focused on this aspect. They have also joined the official ceremonies of Yom HaShoah held at Yad Vashem.

When asked about their impressions of the seminar, the participants stressed not only the value of learning about the Israeli perspective: “It was a time for discovering previously unknown fields of Holocaust research and confronting myself with the Israeli narration. Time of amazing meetings with people who deeply care for the heritage of Polish Jews,” shared one participant. The possibility of meeting fellow Polish activists was also a big asset of the program, as expressed by another participant: “This seminar reassured me that what I am doing is important. The feeling that every, even small local project contributes to Poland’s great map of dialogue gives you energy to keep going.”

In 2022, the program is co-financed by the Dutch Humanitarian Fund and the Orange Foundation.