School of Dialogue at 100 Years of Polish Independence Primary School

| 2018 |

Kalinówka is a village located in the outskirts of Lublin. For many years, students of the local Primary School have been maintaining the tomb in the Krępiecki forest, which marks the site of mass shootings of Jews brought from the Lublin ghetto and prisoners from the nearby Majdanek concentration camp. The School of Dialogue project participants were eighth graders from the primary school, who were about to pass on the ‘memory relay’ to their younger fellow students. They prepared for them a walking tour in the footsteps of the Jewish community. It was intended as an outdoor event, but because of bad weather conditions on December 8, 2018, it was held in the school building, and the tomb in the Krępiecki forest was visited by a small delegation of students.

The tour was organized not only for the students of the primary school, but also for their parents, teachers and the staff of the State Museum at Majdanek.

Each stop of the tour featured a short workshop on, respectively, the town’s Jewish history, the fate of the Weissberger family from Kalinówka, the Jewish cemetery and Jewish religious holidays. The group of students participating in the project made presentations, props and maquettes, and organized lectures by guest speakers. The event involved a lot of preparation, including carrying out a questionnaire among students on Jewish history and culture and holding a poster design competition entitled ‘We remember’. The project was endorsed by the Parents’ Association, which covered the necessary spendings and prepared refreshments for the participants of the event.

Photos: K. Andrzejewska, P. Kowalczyk

Kalinówka

School: 100 Years of Polish Independence Primary School
Students: 7th year
Teacher: Joanna Felke
Educators: Kasia Andrzejewska, Paulina Kowalczyk

Contributors

Project cofinanced thanks to the generosity of Friends of the Forum, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and individual donors and institutions from Poland and abroad supporting Forum for Dialogue.