It was last October that I went to see an exhibit that one
wouldn’t expect to find here. In fact I
wouldn’t have known about it at all if my Polish friends who vacation nearby
hadn’t told me. They are Polish
Catholics and knew about the exhibit because it was housed in the church that
they attend when they’re here.
Titled “And I Continue to See Their Faces: Photographs of
Polish Jews” the exhibit was the work of a Polish organization called The
Shalom Foundation that in 1994 started a campaign asking for people to send
them photographs. So far they have
received 9,000 images from people in Poland as well as many other countries
such as Israel, Venezuela, Brazil, the U.S.A., Italy, Argentina, or Canada. Some of the contributors were relatives, some
friends or neighbors; all of them had kept the photos for over 50 years. The oldest contributor was 90 and the
youngest was 12 years old.
The organizers say that those who helped to save someone
from the Holocaust are called “The Just.”
But they believe that The Just also includes those who have done
something to preserve someone’s memory.
This beautiful collection of photographs was first exhibited
in 1996 in Warsaw and has since traveled to over 40 cities around the world,
including Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg, Brussels, The Hague, Prague,
Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, and Castelló d’Empúries! Castelló
is nearby. The exhibit was hung in the Basílica
de Santa Maria – the village church which, oddly enough, includes a Star of
David in its architecture. Some of the
photos reminded me of ones from my parents’ albums.
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