Marek Rekucki

I attended a training course organized by the Academy of Guardians of Memory at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków in the fall of 2021. Its outcome was our original project of familiarizing the local community with Stefania and Józef Wacławik, the Righteous Among the Nations of Mszana. We told the story of their rescuing of Maurice/Moshe Jered, a Holocaust refugee, in the form of a multimedia presentation based on the life and death of the Mszana Jews. We reached the students of two schools in our town with the project, and we also held a meeting with residents of the town which enjoyed the patronage of the mayor at the town hall in November 2021. In total, over 250 people attended these meetings, most of them were youth. The presentations were accompanied by challah and hummus tasting, the participants received information brochures and keepsakes.

Feedback shows that the meetings reverberated in the local community and were also covered by the media. We received a lot of positive feedback on our work during the meeting at the town hall and for the first time we heard the residents say that what we do for the sake of remembrance is vital and important, and that it is not a story “about some Jews” but a part of our history.