News
2012-01-26
The ‘Matzevot of Everyday Use’ exhibition at the Minsk museum
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews has the pleasure of inviting you to the opening of the exhibition called ‘Matzevot of Everyday Use’ (Мацэвы штодзённaгa ўжытку), which will take place on February 2nd in Minsk, Belarus, at the National Museum of History. The inauguration will be accompanied by a debate among Polish and Belarusian panelists.
The author of the exhibition, Łukasz Baksik, is a photographer interested primarily in socially involved documentary photography. The ‘Matzevot of Everyday Use’ exhibition, showing various usages of Jewish tombstones as a building material, has already been displayed at the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw and in the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow.
The artist comments on the exhibition, saying that “Jewish tombstones, embellished with symbols and inscriptions, are a source of information about specific people, families and entire shtetls. It is difficult to estimate today how many matzevot there were in one thousand and two hundred Jewish cemeteries in prewar Poland. Maybe a few hundred, maybe a few million.
Under the Nazi occupation during World War II, Germans used matzevot to pave the backyards of seized buildings, to pave streets and build walls. As Poles did after the end of the war, tiling a fire pool, railway and river embankments with Jewish tombstones. The slabs were also used for stove, floors and pavement curb construction works. Throughout Polish villages, there are hundreds of grinding wheels made of matzevot. Hebrew inscriptions on their surfaces have not faded away yet.
I have been tracking the history of Jewish tombstones. I come across Catholic tombstones, from which someone forgot to erase Hebrew letters. I talk to people who are aware of what they have in their backyards but do not feel uncomfortable with that. I discover the history of a family whose members are spread throughout the world. One matzevah helped them to unite fifty years after the Shoah.
‘Matzevot of Everyday Use’ is only the beginning of a large project. I want to recover the matzevot and bring them back to the place where they belong, to Jewish cemeteries.’
The exhibition runs till the end of February 2012.
Team:
Łukasz Baksik – author of the project
Ewa Toniak – curator
Prof. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir – expert consultant
Małgorzata Szcześniak – arrangement of the exhibition
The exhibition could be mounted thanks to the grant which was donated by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Warsaw to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw Association.
The Polish Institute in Minsk and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews have co-organized the exhibition.
Archive
- february 2012
- january 2012
- A Torah dating back over one hundred years goes to the Museum of Ceramic Technologies in Koło (2012-01-31)
- The Women's Day in the Janusz Korczak year will be dedicated to Stefania Wilczyńska (2012-01-31)
- Kazimierz Smoleń, a former Auschwitz prisoner and Director of the Auschwitz Museum, passes away (2012-01-31)
- Swietokrzyski Sztetl in Chmielnik (2012-01-30)
- The 7th International Holocaust Remembrance Day (2012-01-30)
- The 198th anniversary of the death of Tzadik Dawid Biderman from Lelowa (2012-01-30)
- The exhibition ‘Nazi Ghettoes’ opens in Rome (2012-01-27)
- An educational program of the ‘Never Again’ Association (2012-01-27)
- A meeting with Mikołaj Grynberg marking the premier of the book entitled ‘Ocaleni z XX wieku’ (2012-01-27)
- The International Holocaust Remembrance Day (2012-01-26)
- Prof.Tamar El Or’s lectures in Warsaw (2012-01-26)
- The ‘Matzevot of Everyday Use’ exhibition at the Minsk museum (2012-01-26)
- Every fifth young German does not know that Auschwitz is the name of a former concentration camp (2012-01-25)
- An evening meeting in memory of Izaak Celinkier (2012-01-25)
- A Polish-Welsh exhibition marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (2012-01-25)
- Agnieszka Holland’s movie ‘In Darkness’ nominated for an Oscar (2012-01-24)
- The second edition of the Days of Memory at Stefan Jaracz Theater in Lódź (2012-01-24)
- An incredible story written in letters (2012-01-24)
- The Ulm Family Museum to be built in Markowa (2012-01-23)
- The Polish premier of the book entitled ‘In Search of Heroes’. (2012-01-23)
- Prof. Elie Wiesel receives the doctoris honoris causa title (2012-01-23)
- The 70th anniversary of the Grosser Wannsee conference (2012-01-20)
- An exhibition mounted from the collection of the Museum in Belzec to be displayed at the Synagoga Center in Zamosc (2012-01-20)
- The Medical Society House (TLK) in Krakow will hold an official session to mark the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the Auchwitz-Birkenau camp and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (2012-01-20)
- Kalisz municipality will recover the Jewish cemetery (2012-01-19)
- The ‘And I still see their faces’ exhibition will be displayed in other cities (2012-01-19)
- Stories told by absentees – audio guides to the Jewish heritage in towns in the Slaskie province. (2012-01-19)
- Righteous Medals on the Day of Judaism (2012-01-18)
- The shooting work of the ‘Świętokrzyskie Sztetle’ movie completed (2012-01-18)
- Jeremiah’s lamentations at Cheder Cafe in Krakow (2012-01-18)
- The State Higher School of Technology and Economics in Jarosław to co-organize the International Holocaust Remembrance Day celebrations (2012-01-17)
- An IT competition under the banner of ‘Our Small Homeland’ (2012-01-17)
- A meeting with Prof. Andrzej Żbikowski (2012-01-17)
- The renovation of the synagogue in Dąbrowa Tarnowska almost completed (2012-01-16)
- The 7th Edition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (2012-01-16)
- The sketchbook from Auschwitz (2012-01-16)
- A pavement made of matzevot (2012-01-13)
- The Second Christian-Jewish Meetings called TIKKUN- A MENDING (2012-01-13)
- A meeting with Anda Rottenberg at the Center for Yiddish Culture (2012-01-13)
- School for Dialogue Gala (2012-01-12)
- A seminar for teachers on the Holocaust and tolerance (2012-01-12)
- A Jewish Week in Torun (2012-01-12)
- Recently discovered matzevot in a landfill site (2012-01-11)
- An interdisciplinary scholarly conference called ‘The Jewish Child’ (2012-01-11)
- Joseph Malovany’s performance will highlight the celebration of the Day of Judaism in Rzeszow (2012-01-11)
- Stories told by absentees (2012-01-10)
- The Days of Judaism in Gniezno (2012-01-10)
- The New Muranów Guide (2012-01-10)
- The inauguration of the Janusz Korczak Year at the Jewish Historical Institute (2012-01-09)
- Warsaw Jewish Radio (2012-01-09)
- An exhibition on the annihilation of Jewish towns in Biała Rawska (2012-01-09)
- The enrollment to the Open Jewish University starts (2012-01-05)
- On the trail of Myslenice Jewry (2012-01-05)
- What difference does it make whether they did it out of greed. The slaughter of the Trynczer family. (2012-01-05)
- A neglected monument in the center of Kielce (2012-01-04)
- Mishna – the soul of the Torah (2012-01-04)
- The New York Rabbi Sacha Pecaric will deliver a lecture (2012-01-04)
- Jerzy Kluger, John Paul II’s friend, passes away (2012-01-03)
- Only a few of us have remained – the memories from a certain shtetl (2012-01-03)
- The 15th Day of Judaism (2012-01-02)
- Yafa Yarkoni, an Israeli writer, passes away (2012-01-02)
- Marek Edelman was born ninety years ago (2012-01-02)
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