Jiskry 2024

events Programme

This year JCC Warsaw was focused on presenting two specific carriers of memory this year: visual arts and architecture. Both lectures opened a discussion on different types of memory carriers and stimulated the audience to ask questions and debate on the topics such as: Who is responsible for preserving Jewish heritage?; Why is it important?; In what way should it be done?.

The first event was a lecture delivered by the chief curator of the POLIN Museum’s collection, Renata Piątkowska. It was dedicated to the local Jewish heritage, specifically to the oeuvres of Jewish artists who lived here in the 19th and the 20th centuries.

Renata Piątkowska talked about lifes and art of artists such as: Aleksander Lesser, Mojżesz Rynecki, Maurycy Trębacz, Mela Muter, Regina Mundlak, Ber Kratka, and others. We heard about their struggle to be artists, their artistic education, and were shown many examples of paintings and sculptures, which most depicted Jewish culture and Judaism related topics.

The second event's general aim is to spotlight activists and researchers from all over Poland, who are devoted to preservation of the local memory of Jewish heritage. We invited Rita Miernik whose project, The Sad Synagogues, depicts stories and pictures of buildings which once served as synagogues to the Jewish communities and as the people perished, so did the buildings. They are now ruins or were adopted by non-Jews and become swimming pools, shops, or fire-stations, just to give some examples.

Rita Miernik, the founder of Sad Synagogues initiative, took us on a ninety-minutes-long journey through Poland and showed us some of the most striking examples of what happened to the building which once served Jewish communities as prayer houses and spaces dedicated to communal gatherings.