And I still See Their Faces
I ciągle widzę ich twarze

AMERICAN - POLISH - ISRAELI
“SHALOM FOUNDATION”

Pl. Grzybowski 12/16, Warszawa, Poland
Tel. 620 30 36 Fax 620-95-59

In 1994 Foundation made an appeal asking the public to send photographs of Polish Jews. I remember the day I spoke about that project for the first time, showing a few pictures from my mother's family album. Many people did not believe that 50 years after the Holocaust anybody would response to our appeal. To date, over eight thousand photos have been collected.

It often happens that the only moment of a person's life that remains for posterity after his or her passing is the single moment captured in a photograph. This is true of individuals. But what can one say when all that remains of an entrie people, a people that once numbered in the millions, is that which survives in snapshots - the outline of a figure, the shadow of homes, a trace of laughter silenced long ago. And faces - a wealth of faces. The photos we gathered were not from the first page of newspapers. They were hidden in attics, stored in cellars. They began to pour in from the furthest reaches of the planet, form large cities and from God-forsaken little villages in which today only the wind remembers the names of those who have gone forever. Most were sent by Polish families, neighbours, friends. Many photos were also sent by Polish Jews now living through out the world, but in whose new homes some traces of their former lives have been preserved. The photos were sent and still are being sent by surviving relatives - from Israel, Venezuela, Brazil, the USA, Italy, Argetina and Canada. "Each preson has a name", we owe this commemoration to our brothers and sisters.

The eldest contributor of the photographs is ninety years old. The youngest, twelve. "Not only those who save a life should be deemed righteous. Those who save memory also deserve such a life. Lookin at these old photos, we suddenly see ourselves. We rediscover our own history, torn from within us like a scream. What are these photo really ? They are none other than the words of a Kaddish, a memorial prayer recital by the living to honour our dead who follow along beside us still as we make our way through the world.

The publishing of the album and the exhibition convince me that all those photos will find its permanent home in the Jewish Cultural Centre, which the Foundation hopes to build , adjoining Grzybowski Square.

The creation of the Centre is the greatest challange before us today. We are inspired by the hope that the past and the present will find home this place. We invited all those with a similar vision to join us in building this house, a house to be built upon this foundations of the past, but whose windows will look out upon the future.

Gołda Tencer - author of the project

Co-authors of the projects :

Tomasz Tomaszewski - commisair of the exhibition, Anna Bikont, Krystyna Bratkowska, Krzysztof Burnatowicz, Tadeusz Grabowski, Ryszard Marek Groński, Jan Jagielski, Alina Jankowska, Marcel Łoziński, Lech Majewski, Małgorzata Niezabitowska, Irene E.Pipes, Szymon Szurmiej.

The exhibition "And I still See Their Faces" was shown by the Shalom Foundation in Warsaw, Kraków, Łódź, Frankfurt, Los Angeles. In the near future we are going to present it in Israel, France, Brazil, Argentina.