In May, we had the pleasure of facilitating the visit of the representatives of the Gombin Jewish Historical & Genealogical Society to Gąbin, where they met the School of Dialogue students from the local Stanisław Staszic School Complex. This was not the first visit of the Gombin Society in the town of their ancestors. In 2012 they met students from a different School of Dialogue who took them on a walking tour of the town’s Jewish sites.

The Gombin Society was formed in 1996 and is committed to preserving the culture, history, and heritage of the Gąbin Jews. It also seeks to perpetuate the worldwide community of their descendants. Forum for Dialogue is honored to be part of this reconnection.

photos by M.Piekarska

As the semester is drawing to a close, School of Dialogue students from Pułtusk, Płońsk, and Siedlce had an amazing opportunity to meet and talk with George Elbaum, a Child Survivor of the Holocaust, born in Warsaw, who is also a great Friend of the Forum, special guest of last year’s School of Dialogue Gala. During each meeting George shared stories from his past and interacted with students interested in knowing more about his wartime and postwar life. As always, the students lined up to get an autograph on their copies of George’s “Neither Yesterdays, nor Tomorrows: Vignettes of a Holocaust Childhood,” published in Polish thanks to the Forum for Dialogue.

photos by H.Gospodarczyk, A.Mierzwa, M.Usiekniewicz

“What a wonderful visit to Israel and what wonderful people. The trip was truly ecumenical and interfaith … Despite my recent crisis regarding the church, I now feel thoroughly immersed in Christianity. A Christianity not based on dogma or clericalism, but one based on encountering and experiencing,” said one of the participants of Forum’s unique Shared Heritage program addressed to leaders of Polish Christian community. The intense study visit to Israel was a key element of a program launched in March 2019 and co-organized with the Yad Vashem. The purpose of the program is to ensure that the people who impact religious discourse in Poland are educated and sensitive to the history and heritage of Jews in Poland.

During their intense week-long stay, the participants met with Yad Vashem experts to discuss pre-war Jewish life in Poland, the history of antisemitism, and the Holocaust. These meetings led to meaningful discussions interweaving history, philosophy, and Christian theology. Importantly, these discussions took into account and exposed the different narratives about the past present in Poland and Israel.

The participants could listen to personal stories, such as the one told by professor Yoram Diamant, who talked about his Holocaust childhood, which inspired him to educate others about the atrocity. Taly Gazit, Tami Gutman, and Sara Minash reflected on what does it really mean to be part of the Second Generation. Finally, the highlight of the program occured during the Shabbat at the Kehillat Yedidya synagogue. After the service the community members invited the visit participants to share with them their evening meal. In an intimate and familial atmosphere a genuine connection could form, which paved the way for a discussion of the most painful, but also most important issues.

photos by M.Sokołowska

The week-long Forum for Dialogue Study Visit to Poland for our guests from United States has just finished. This trip, chaired by Forum’s longtime Friend Lisa Van Allsburg, was a chance for Jewish visitors from the US to learn about modern Poland and Polish/Jewish dialogue, but most importantly to meet School of Dialogue students and Leaders of Dialogue who discover, preserve, document, and share knowledge about Jewish heritage in Poland and cultivate the memory of Jewish communities once populating their towns and villages.

The study trip was opened with a dinner attended by Forum’s President Andrzej Folwarczny. Next days, participants toured Warsaw and its Jewish sites. Program’s tight schedule included meetings with experts on Jewish history and modern Poland and in-depth site visit to the POLIN Museum as well.

After leaving Warsaw the group  headed to Lesser Poland province in southern Poland. In Brzesko, they visited Nicolaus Copernicus High School, a continuing School of Dialogue. After getting to know each other during a introduction workshop run by a Forum educator, which included a performance of a song written and performed by students in memory of the Brzesko Jews, the students took our group to the local Jewish cemetery where they lid candles and shared very touching words. Afterwards some of the students joined the group on a walking tour around Jewish sites of the town, during which they provided insightful and emotional stories of the Jewish inhabitants of Brzesko. Participants of the tour expressed that they were amazed by “students’ dedication and devotion to discovering and restoring Jewish heritage in their town” and that they were “wise and learned beyond their years.”

photos by H. Gospodarczyk and M.Usiekniewicz

In Nowy Sącz, a town famous for its Art Nouveau architecture and once-vibrant Jewish life, they met with Leaders of Dialogue from Shtetl of Tsanz. Named after the Yiddish word for the town of Nowy Sącz, this grassroots organization appeared almost organically, gathering people of different professions and talents inspired by the town’s rich Jewish history, a need to preserve and educate about it, and a desire to make contact with descendants of local Jews from all over the world. After the amazing tour of the town guided by Shtetl of Tsanz’s Artur Franczak and Łukasz Połomski, the participants and Leaders together enjoyed a Shabbat dinner.

We finished the program with a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum and a tour of Jewish Krakow accompanied by another round of meetings with experts on Polish/Jewish relations and their complicated history.

photos by A.Szulc

We have recently completed the Polish/Jewish Exchange Program visit to the U.S. organized in cooperation with the AJC. Between March 31-April 7 the Polish delegation visited Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York. The intense program included meetings with representatives of the AJC and David Harris, Chief Executive Officer of the AJC, a dinner with prof. Susannah Heschel, the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, and a meeting with Izzy Arbeiter, a Holocaust Survivor.

The participants also had a special tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum preceded by a meeting with Senior Curator Jacek Nowakowski, and a guided tour of NYC Chassidic communities. The Polish delegation has also benefited from opportunities for less formal conversations during home hospitality evenings. Their stay ended with a special meeting with our Friends of the Forum in New York.

photo: Z.Radzik

Forum for Dialogue has launched another long-awaited new program in response to the challenges faced in Polish/Jewish dialogue. “Common Heritage,” which we organized this year in partnership with Yad Vashem, is an initiative addressed to representatives of lay and ordained Christian leadership in Poland who have the power to impact the way in which Polish/Jewish relations are discussed and understood in Polish churches and religious communities.

The program challenges participants to examine the complex issue of the common Judeo-Christian heritage as well as the troubled coexistence of Jews and non-Jewish Poles that has impacted Polish/Jewish relations in the past and continues to affect them now.

Given the impact of Christian leadership in Polish public life, it is important that those who participate in shaping attitudes understand and are sensitive to the history and experiences of Polish Jews and their descendants living all over the world.

This year the “Common Heritage” program involves 3 intense seminars, two in Poland and one in Israel. We opened in with a seminar in Warsaw in March, during which the participants learned about Polish and Israeli memory of the Holocaust, Polish research on the Holocaust, and how objective history transforms into personal story.

photo: M.Sokołowska

Forum’s educators continuously work on upgrading their teaching and facilitating skills, as well as on deepening their knowledge about the history and culture of Polish Jews. Last month they have participated in a seminar conducted by Renata Masna and Michał Chojak of Yahad – In Unum, a French organization founded to locate the sites of mass graves of Jewish victims of the Nazi mobile killing units in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Moldova, and Poland. It achieves this mission through archival research and research trips collecting testimonial and forensic evidence of the murders. Its publication “Holocaust by Bullets” was awarded the 2008 National Jewish Book Award by the Jewish Book Council.

Renata and Michał presented the “Holocaust by Bullets” and later shared with the educators Yahad’s unique investigative methodology. This was also an opportunity for the educators to practice their interviewing skills so important when talking to people who witnessed and experienced historical events. Interviewing is a skill useful while working with School of Dialogue students who very often include interviews with elderly members of their local communities into the research for their commemorative projects.

photos: W. Dobrogojski