Faces of a decimated community.
The Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Centre in Lublin, Poland, will host the first international reunion of Jewish inhabitants of the city and their descendants in 70 years on July 3-7, 2017.
The organization, which is run by non-Jews, is dedicated to preserving Jewish memory in Poland.
The international program will include meetings, discussions, sightseeing tours, commemorations and artistic events.
This reunion marks 700 years since Lublin’s founding and emphasizes the importance of the Jewish community’s contribution to its history over several hundred years.
Lublin has been the home of many historic Jewish institutions and personalities, including Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, the Council of Four Lands (Vaad Arba Aratzot) and Nobel-Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Before WW II, the 43,000 Jewish citizens of Lublin constituted one-third of the city’s population.
The majority of Lublin’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
The Nazi concentration camp Majdanek was on the outskirts of Lublin.
“The Lubliner Reunion is a way to build a bridge across time,” says Tomasz Pietrasiewicz, founder and director of Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Center.
“Grodzka Gate is engaged in protecting ‘the memory of the place,’” he says. “We want to preserve what is left of Lublin’s Jewish community.
“The Lubliner Reunion will allow us to share knowledge and fill the blank spaces in stories about Lublin and its inhabitants.”
Manika Tarajko, coordinator of the reunion, wants to contact and invite all Jews whose families lived in Lublin to the event.
“We already have participants coming from Israel, the US, France, Belgium and Great Britain,” she says.
Information and registration: www.lubliners2017.teatrnn.pl or Monika Tarajko, +48-606-687-367 or [email protected].
