How are Jews remembered in Poland today?

CEREV director Erica Lehrer will participate in the debate “How Do We Remember Jews?” at the 22nd annual Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków, Poland. Organized by the Polish monthly journal ZNAK to accompany their current issue bearing the same title, the aim of this discussion is to reflect on the phenomena of commemoration of pre-war Jewish communities in contemporary Poland. Interest in the pre-war Jewish community continues to grow in Poland today. In urban and rural sites, the memory of former Jewish inhabitants is invoked: on internet sites, in tourist routes, through educational programs, festivals, and the restoration of former synagogues. When do these initiatives lead to a productive working through of memory, and when to its misuse? What is the potential of commemoration for Polish Jewish relations? Who will inherit the centuries-long culture and history of Poland’s former Jewish community? Who has a right to it? Can the proliferation of memory about pre-war Jewry obscure the realities of Jews in Poland today?

The event will take place at 3 p.m. on July 7th in Kraków’s Jewish Community Center at 24 Miodowa Street.

Center for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence