The exhibition about Polish Jews
THEY CAME TO STAY
will be opened at the European Parliament in Brussels on April 1, 2009
The exhibition has been prepared by the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute with the TP Group Foundation
The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute with The TP Group Foundation present the exhibition:
THEY CAME TO STAY: POLISH JEWS
The central focus of our exhibition is a journey.
Jews had many reasons to flee their communities in Western Europe, migrating to Poland and settling here in the 14th century. Jewish communities flourished and Jews became an integral part of Polish society. At the turn of the 20th century, political and economic conditions forced some to begin their journey anew. In spite of the extraordinary growth of the Jewish community in Poland during the first decades of the 20th century, by mid- century most of the Polish Jews were gone. The majority had been murdered in the Holocaust and, of those who survived, many found themselves on the road again, resettling and rebuilding their lives elsewhere.
This exhibition shows the journey of the Jews to Poland and the long period of their settlement and integration, including glimpses of unique facets of their lives on Polish soil. The exhibition’s main focus is the intellectual contribution of Polish Jews to Polish society, to world culture, and to Judaism.
In spite of the tragedy of World War II and the Holocaust, Polish Jews by no means disappeared from the Polish landscape. Since the 1980s, the descendants of those who remained, though relatively few in number, have been reconnecting openly with Jewish life. Many non-Jewish Poles have started to study Jewish tradition and the Jewish imprint on Polish history and culture. Many Poles, Jewish and non-Jewish, are working together to preserve remnants of the past and enhance contemporary Jewish culture and life in Poland.
CONTENTS:
The Journey
Their Life
The Jewish Contribution
On the Road Again
The Holocaust
Living Memory
March ‘68
Reemergence
Jews first came to Poland in the Middle Ages, fleeing persecution in Western Europe, mostly during the Crusades and the period of the Black Death plague (as the map indicates).
For several centuries, it was in Poland that Jews found a safe haven, a welcoming and hospitable land where they were able to settle, pursue their livelihoods and freely practice their religion. Jewish communities flourished and Poland emerged as a major center of Jewish religion and culture. In time, it also became a focus of Jewish intellectual and artistic life. These achievements are illustrated in the exhibition.
Polish Jews contributed significantly to the intellectual and spiritual enrichment of Judaism. Works by Poland-based Jewish scholars were published by Jewish printers in Krakow, Lublin, Zolkiew and other Polish cities and towns. Rabbinic Judaism developed and expanded. The basic tenets of rabbinical Judaism later merged with Hassidism, a major religious movement that developed in Poland, to create the core of Orthodox Judaism.
At the turn of the 20th century, a dire economic situation and high unemployment, combined with the oppressive policy of the Tsarist regime, forced many Jews out of Eastern Europe, including from the Polish lands under Russian rule. Those emigrants laid the foundations in the United States for what is now the largest and most dynamic Jewish community in the world.
However, in the 1920s and 1930s, Polish Jewry not only outnumbered other Jewish communities in Europe, but also surpassed them in terms of cultural, social, economic and political involvement. This is reflected in the sheer number of institutions, organizations, political parties, literary figures, publishing houses, press titles and businesses that arose in interwar Poland.
The lasting contribution of Jews to the development of society, science and culture cannot be overestimated, as attested to by the map framed with portraits of distinguished statesmen, scholars, scientist and artists of Polish Jewish descent.
The rise of nationalist and anti-Semitic ideologies in Nazi Germany and elsewhere culminated in the “Final Solution” and the Holocaust, which put an end to the great Jewish community of Poland, among others.
The communist regime and postwar social and political conditions thwarted many of the survivors’ efforts to revive Jewish life in Poland. Though some communal institutions and organizations were reestablished, most survivors left Poland, either of their own volition soon after the war or against their will during the 1968 anti-Jewish campaign launched by the communist regime.
Since 1989 and the democratization of Poland, Polish Jews and Polish Jewish institutions have reemerged, Polish-Jewish history is widely discussed and debated, the memory of Polish Jews honored, Jewish sites preserved and academic research significantly expanded.
The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute is the foremost center of research on Polish Jewish history and it houses one of the world’s most important collections of Polish Jewish historical materials. Its role, both in Poland and abroad, is to provide an entrée into an almost lost world and to offer a vital link to the present and a view towards the future.
