| This is a lament
for a lost world which nowadays returns only in
old photographs. Bringing to life those who were
changed into the Great Statistic, making them
present amongst us, asking: How was it possible?,
waiting for an answer under the heavens that shine
through the shingles of the roof. In this heaven
there are motionless clouds. The wind, since it
has also been photographed, brings with it the
echo of voices. Voices that were silenced long,
long ago.
In a poem by the Polish
poetess Wislawa Szymborska, Jewish names travel
in a cattle car through the night of the occupation,
names no one will ever remember. They, too, have
been doomed to perish. Together with those that
bore them.
"The photographs sent after
the 1994 appeal to save the memory of the Polish
Jews recall the names; the names of those burnt
in the ruins of the Ghetto, shot in the streets,
sent to the death camps, turned in for profit,
those who chose to commit suicide when people
turned out to be weak and Heaven let them down.
"In the photographs - at
least in the majority of them (more than seven
thousand have been sent) - the light falls on
faces still free of terror and fear. We can see
on them quiet reflection, the joy of family life,
a smile that manifests belief in a friendly world.
Everyday routine, ceremonial poses, glimpses of
genre scenes - they all form a half- sentimental,
half-dramatic story of past life, frozen in forms
determined by tradition, the eternal rhythm of
nature, the wisdom of the Book which says that
"it is on the breath of our children going to
school that our world is founded"; the planet
grating among other planets on the outskirts of
the Universe.
Those in the photographs
do not know yet that soon their houses will be
deserted, the streets of their towns covered with
the black snow of fluff from slit eiderdowns,
that the wisdom of the Book will be able to save
no one. All that will remain after them, when
the biblical names have left in cattle cars -
could be put in a drawer, hidden in the attic,
buried in junk.
In this way photographs,
intended to seize the moment, are the evidence
of the era. Apart from photographs, the Foundation
has also received messages smuggled from the Ghetto,
postcards issued on the occasion of religious
holidays by Jewish printers, poems, diaries, and
what is more - even glass plates sought by collectors
of early photographic art. We also received a
priceless color slide - the burning Warsaw Ghetto.
From all over Poland, the smallest villages and
towns, as well as from abroad: Israel, Canada,
Italy, USA, Argentina, these gifts of the heart
have been flowing in; hearts which could not accept
that there are no longer Jewish neighbors, acquaintances
and strangers. And even the most imaginative writer
would not nowadays risk saying that "the Vistula
river murmurs in Yiddish."
The oldest donor of photographs
is ninety years old. The youngest - twelve: at
this age rummaging the nooks and crannies of the
house is a child's adventure. The motive of those
who responded to our appeal?
The attached letters may
provide some ideas: "I thought:
Let more people see those photographs. Maybe in
Israel there is someone from Lezajsk? And these
photographs will awaken good and tender memories
from the times before 1939. Another reason I am
sending these photographs is that I thought »one
ought to« and »you should«"- Maria Fijalkowska.
"My mother and this family were friends. When the Germans
were about to take them away from Opatów, they
gave my mother these photographs for her to keep,
perhaps someone will survive and this will be
a keepsake" - Józef Kaczmarczyk.
"let the young Jewish generations see what a street in Lubartów
looked like before 1939" - Renata Zaykowska.
"I wish to inform you that I am in possession of several photographs
found in the ruins of the former Jewish Ghetto"
- Czeslaw Zygmunt Wunsch.
"I am in possession of a photograph of a woman of Jewish nationality
with a small child. They both fled from the Ghetto
in Lowicz, she stayed for the night with us and
she left me this photograph" - Anna Maj. "Please
accept from me memories from the past, from the
world of my youth - to commemorate the Jews I
knew in Bogucice in the former province of Kraków"
- Janina Walaszek.
I cannot help looking at these photographs. I cannot
forget about their fate. The righteous are not
only those who save a single life. This name is
also deserved by those who save memory. The remembrance
of those who cannot talk, turned into ashes, drowned
by the turmoil of contemporary events.
And this is what
makes me wish, personally and on behalf of the
Foundation, to express my sincere thanks for this
invaluable gift. The publication of this album
and the opening of the exhibition does not end
anything: we are still receiving and undoubtedly
will be receiving letters from the other side
of the years. What was written long ago comes
true: "The light of remembrance brings life back."
Today it is we who are responsible for keeping
this light shining.
Golda Tencer
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