Opoczno
Reconnecting Ties
Reconnecting Ties
November 2015
Participants of Forum’s study trip from the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom visited Opoczno in November 2015. There, they met with local high school students, participants of Forum’s School of Dialogue program. After getting to know each other, the students took our group on a walking tour around Jewish sites of the town.
One of the participants – Susan Wolf Turnbull – wrote a thank you note to the students after the meeting: “Thank you for your wonderful hospitality during our visit to Opoczno with the Forum for Dialogue. We were so fortunate to be able to see your town through your descriptions of the Jewish sights that no longer exists as they were.
For centuries our families lived side by side in all of Poland. Your work today and your knowledge of the Jewish community continues this historic relationship. We have faith in your sharing this knowledge with your friends and families to help combat the misinformation and myths about Jews…
Be well and reach high and continue to learn!”
Jagoda Szkarłat March 24th, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
August 2014
In the end of August 2014 we organised a unique meeting. Despite the rain, fog and the fact that the summer holidays were not over, students from Seweryn Goszczyński High School No. 1 in Nowy Targ guided the participants of a study visit from Israel around the sites connected to the local Jewish history of their town. The group hosted by the students included the vice-president of Tel Aviv, town officials, cultural workers, film directors and journalists.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 23rd, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
June 2015
On Friday, 19th June, a group of Australian Jews, all of whom have Polish origins, had a chance to visit the winning school from 2014 School of Dialogue program. During the trip, which was organized by the Jewish Museum of Australia, the group visited a junior high school in the town of Mława, where the students presented their project commemorating the Jewish past of their town.
After seeing the students’ work, the visitors said it was no surprise that the project was awarded first place. The most significant part of the day, however, was when the students led the visitors on a walking tour of Mława, which made stops at historically Jewish sites and provided insightful and emotional stories and information. The day was a huge success. In fact, the students were so thrilled to have Jewish guests see their project that they said it was the “real award” for participating in the program.
One of the trip participants, Paul Forgasz, gave his comment about the day with the students of Mława:
“Who in their wildest dreams would ever imagine that in Poland, kids would be doing this sort of thing today? I had come to Poland with all the baggage and stereotypes that Jews bring to Poland. And it was simply seeing the [students’] presentation that opened up my eyes… But to actually see this on the ground and in reality… those kids were just inspirational.
Who would have really thought that what we saw today was possible? And for an organization in this country to facilitate that sort of progress is just amazing work!”
May 2014
Brandeis University President Dr. Frederick Lawrence and his wife, Kathy Lawrence, visited the town of Mława, the birthplace of Ms. Lawrence’s father. Kathy Lawrence’s family had been industrialists who owned a leather factory and were active in the local Jewish community. During the visit, junior high school students from the Józef Ostaszewski Junior High School, a host of the School of Dialogue program, gave Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence a tour of the town, including a graveyard, as well as the sites where Mława’s synagogue and mikveh (ritual bath) once stood.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 23rd, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
May 2016
On May 14, 2016 the alumni of Polish/Jewish Exchange Program visited Mińsk Mazowiecki, where they met with students from a junior high school, participants in the School of Dialogue program. The students shared their project with guests and took the guests on a walking tour following the footsteps of the Jewish community of the town.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 22nd, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
June 2015
Twelve members of the Geluda/Gildar family from USA visited Makow Mazowiecki on June 22nd, 2015. The family’s ancestors came from this town and for many of the cousins, this was their first visit to to Makow. Students from the junior high participating in the School of Dialogue program prepared an English tour for the family, which retraced the Jewish history of the town.
The school’s headmaster, teachers and other town officials also took part. Richard Weintraub, the family member who organized the trip, gave a thank-you speech in Polish to the students at the end of the tour and praised them for their efforts. He practiced his Polish pronunciation for months beforehand so that he could address the students in their native language.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 22nd, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
August 2015
In August 2015, Forum for Dialogue for the third time hosted representatives of the Facing History and Ourselves organization. Thanks to support from the Polish Embassy in Washington, our guests visited Warsaw, Kraków and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial. They also met School of Dialogue students in Końskie that showed them Jewish past of the town. After the meeting guests expressed their deep admiration for the students’ work:
“Thank you for taking a risk, the risk to learn not just from the triumphs of history but from its troubles, and the risk to teach it to us. We appreciated learning the facts form you but more importantly, we loved that you care to make a difference. (…) From what we learned, we know you will continue to make your community proud of you and Poland proud of you”- Jack Fidler.
“I know that the things you learned about were not all pleasant, and you were courageous to confront the difficult memories as well as the happier ones. I was especially impressed with your research skills in discovering the photo of Leni Riefenstahl, and also discovering the traces of the mezuzah at the old Talmud Torah. You and your classmates should all feel really proud of how much you have learned, and how many people you have affected by sharing your knowledge” – Ellen Friedman.
May 2015
On May 7, 2015 a group of representatives of Jewish community from the United Kingdom, who were invited to visit Poland by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met the participants of the School of Dialogue from the High School in Końskie. After a short workshop during which the whole group could find out about each other and about their common passions the students guided a tour around Jewish sites of Końskie.
Despite the fact that the official presentation of their project in the form of an urban game is still a few weeks away the students impressed their guests with their knowledge about the Jewish everyday-life in Końskie, some war-time events such as the visit of Leni Riefenstahl, their discoveries such as the mezuzah trace in the former building of Talmud-Torah school and many, many more. This meeting was also an opportunity to learn about Judaism and the Jewish culture from experts who were among the guests.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 21st, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
August 2015
In early August 2015 a visit of educators from the ADAM le’ ADAM group, an Israeli initiative that aims to raise awareness of the importance of education and encounter between Israeli and Polish people and its impact on both nations’ current discourse and identity. For the first time the trip was organized through a co-operation of Polish Institute in Tel Aviv, ADAM le’ ADAM and the Forum. During the week-long trip, participants explored Warsaw, Łódź, Kielce and Krakow. They also had a chance to spend a day with the students from Kłobuck to witness their work in the School of Dialogue program.
Although the meeting took place on a very hot day in the middle of summer vacation, the most active group of students showed up and led a walking tour following the footsteps of Jewish residents of their town. After icebreaker activities, the ADAM le’ADAM educators went to the market square and guided by the stories told by the students, walked the streets where the Jewish residents once lived. The last stop of the tour was the Jewish cemetery with only one matzevah preserved. The guests from Israel recited the Kaddisd honoring the dead. It was a special moment for the students. Thanks to their actions, the words of the Hebrew prayer were recited in Kłobuck for the first time in many years.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 20th, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
June 2015
The meetings of the School of Dialogue with the descendents of Polish Jews are the moments of real dialogue. One of such meetings between the School of Dialogue students from Kalisz and Irv Kempner, whose father was from Kalisz, was held on June 2015. The students took him on a walking tour around the town, showed him where the Jewish quarter once was, they even found out where his father lived.
At the end of the meeting they gave him a gift – copies of his father’s birth certificates in two languages. The meeting was very moving and this is how Irv Kempner, a friend of the Forum, recalls it:
“I’ve always heard of my father’s town, of Kalisz, and this year for the first time I’ve had a chance to be escorted to Kalisz.
With just little to go on other than names the kids not only took us on incredible tour of Kalisz and the Jewish section of Kalisz, but they found where my father lived, which I didn’t know about. We saw the neighborhood he lived in and then they presented me at the conclusion of the day with paperwork that included my father’s birth certificate… So I was really quite moved by having this kind of documentation, connection and understanding of the history of the town.
It’s so heartwarming to see people who are not Jewish go out of their way to preserve the history and understand the value of that history, and even though it might not be their direct history, there is an impact. Thank you to the students of dialog of Kalisz for an amazing tour of my father’s home town. I am forever in your debt for connecting me to my father’s family and their Polish Jewish heritage.”
Jagoda Szkarłat March 17th, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
June 2015
On Wednesday, June 10, 2015, a delegation of the Jewish community leaders from USA and Australia met with the students of School of Dialogue in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Junior high students, who conducted their project – a film and a tour – about Jewish citizens of the town, introduced their guests to the history of the Jewish community in pre-war Grodzisk Mazowiecki. The group was deeply impressed with students’ efforts and involvement in the project.
Rabin Wayne Franklin, one of the trip’s participants, describes the day spent in Grodzisk: “The large graffiti letters on a wall near the center of Grodzisk Mazowiecki had been scrawled by an artist. The Polish words, not defaced, said: “I miss you Jew…” This sign was not the first stop on our visit to Grodzisk, but it became a backdrop for our whole visit to Poland. It was stunning to see such a public admission that a once–important group no longer lived in Grodzisk, and that it mattered.
After meeting the students at their school, the young people guided us through their town, showing us traces of what had been Jewish life in their community. The students were proud to begin our tour at the Jewish cemetery, which they had recently repaired. While they painted the fence and gate and cleaned around many of the tombstones, they learned the meaning of many of the symbols that proliferated on the monuments. They shared what they had learned with us, and some of us then read and translated the Hebrew inscriptions to them. Our mutual sharing helped us create strong bonds.
Our tour included a walk on a bridge over the railroad tracks. From there, we could see the train station from which the Jews of Grodzisk were taken away to the Warsaw ghetto, never to return home. We stood in the doorway of an apartment where a Jewish family once lived. The slanted mark on the doorpost was a clear sign that a mezuzah once covered the spot. We saw the last remaining sukkah on a second floor balcony, where a Jewish family once celebrated the bounties of the harvest. Amidst the stores in the central shopping area, we stopped at the place where the synagogue once stood.
The students in Grodzisk had learned about the Jews who used to live there and what happened to them. They learned the meaning of the traces of Jewish life that remain all around their town, minus the Jews who enlivened the places. Some of them did not understand that we, their guests, were Jews, because we did not look like the stereotypical prewar Jews, whose pictures adorned their classroom. Our presence was another step in their learning that the Jewish people are alive.
It was clear to us that these young people had developed an affectionate appreciation for the ghosts in their town, and for Jewish traditions, which had recently come to life for them. Their enthusiasm and pride in their newly acquired familiarity with the Jewish background of their town endeared them to us. The visit was illuminating for all of us visitors, as it brought to life a fuller understanding of the work the Forum for Dialogue is conducting all across Poland. With young people knowing enough to miss the Jews who are no longer there, the prospects for a positive relationship between Poles and Jews in the future increases exponentially.”
Jagoda Szkarłat March 16th, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
July 2012
In July 2012 high-school students from Głowno who participated in the School of Dialogue workshops in spring that year, had a unique opportunity to meet with the descendants of Jews from their town. They hosted the Pratt family from Australia in their school and gave them a tour of Jewish sites of their town, including what was most probably family house of their ancestors. For most students it was their first contact with present-day Jewish community. Their guests were under a great impression of the knowledge and involvement of young people in commemorating the pre-war Jewish history of their hometown.
Jagoda Szkarłat March 9th, 2017
Posted In: EN Meetings
