During the first weekend in April, the 7th edition of the Gdańsk Jewish Culture Festival Shalom Polin took place at the University of Gdańsk. During the three days of the festival a series of events were organized - feature and documentary film screenings, literary and artistic meetings, lectures, discussions and workshops. And all this around Jewish culture.

- 'The rich Jewish culture, our common heritage and history are the driving force behind the festival,' - says Tomasz Pupacz from the Alternator University Cultural Centre, the initiator and coordinator of the event. - 'The idea behind the project is to bring closer the traditional Jewish culture and present the contemporary face of today's Israel. Through meetings with artists, workshops and lectures we try to broaden, especially among the younger generation, the knowledge of common Polish-Jewish tradition and history. At the same time, we do not avoid often difficult and controversial topics,' - adds Pupacz.

LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS

The festival was inaugurated with a lecture by dr Krzysztof Ulanowski entitled Exodus from Gdańsk. Jews in the Free City of Gdańsk in the years 1933-1939, in which the author presented the centuries-old history of the Jewish community along the Motława River in the broader geopolitical context of the past centuries.

Dr Martyna Wielewska-Baka's lecture A Few Words about Israeli Cinema - What Is the Conflict Between Israel and Palestine? brought the audience closer to the current situation in the Middle East, based on contemporary Israeli cinema and television productions.

To balance the heaviness of the topics discussed, the audience also had the opportunity to learn about Israeli culture from the culinary side thanks to a presentation entitled Israeli twist or contemporary Israeli cuisine by Ola and Sławek Kalkowski, creators of the JAFFA eat & drink Israeli restaurant, which culminated in a tasting of a wide range of dishes prepared by our speakers.

The picture of contemporary Israel was complemented by a lecture by Ula Rybicka from the Żydoteka Foundation, who presented the most acclaimed Israeli authors of contemporary prose with her subjective key.

AUTHORS' MEETINGS

The main theme of this year's literary meetings at the festival was processing and cultivating the memory of human fates, events and places in the context of wartime and post-war times.

A meeting with Patrycja Dołowy, the author of reportages Skarby. Poszukiwacze i strażnicy żydowskiej pamięci (Czarne Publishing House 2021), was moderated by Krystyna Weiher - Sitkiewicz. Dołowy talked about her meetings and conversations with American descendants of Polish Jews, who were brought to Poland by the legend of family treasure, and about the stories of Poles who became local guardians of Jewish memory.

The second meeting with the author was a conversation with Rafał Hetman about his book Izbica, Izbica (Czarne Publishing House 2021), conducted by dr Rafał Kowalski (Museum of Mazovian Jews in Płock). The discussion with Hetman focused on unearthing from oblivion figures and fates about which successive generations of Izbica residents have remained stubbornly silent. From interviews, testimonies and documents, the author created a mosaic of the Jewish-Polish past, whose shadow falls far beyond the war years. He also spoke about the pitfalls of human memory and the consequences of stories that are kept quiet and that speak most about us.

The series of meetings was complemented by a discussion with the artist Maria Ka - Yiddish, electro and subsequent steps into the 21st century, who talked about her fascination with Jewish culture and the creative processing of traditional Yiddish cultural texts in contemporary electronic music.

FILMS

Seven film segments, comprising short and feature films as well as documentaries, were presented during the festival. The predominant theme of the films was the experience of the Holocaust and the occupation during World War II. In addition, the audience had the opportunity to get acquainted with contemporary Israeli cinematography.

Particularly noteworthy was the screening of My Name is Sara by Steven Oritt, a film based on a true story of a thirteen-year-old Polish Jewish girl who, having lost her entire family, assumes the identity of her school friend and finds shelter with a Ukrainian farmer and his wife. The film won the Grand Prix - Camera David and the individual award for best actress at the 17th Warsaw Jewish Film Festival 2019.  

The screening was followed by a meeting with the lead actress Zuzanna Surowy, whose award-winning performance in the film was her acting debut. It is worth noting that Surowy is currently a student of Knowledge of Film and Audiovisual Culture at UG.

The film screenings were made possible thanks to the cooperation with the international festival Warsaw Jewish Film Festival and the Embassy of the State of Israel in Warsaw. 

WORKSHOPS

Of course, no Jewish cultural festival would be complete without a culinary theme. On the last day of the project, under the expert supervision of dr Wojciech Śledź, practical classes in preparing Jewish potato pancakes took place, which ended with a tasting of the prepared pastries. The three-day event also included language classes, thanks to which participants could learn the basics of Yiddish and the Hebrew alphabet.

- 'The theme of this year's Shalom Polin festival was very evocative in the context of the current armed conflict and emigration in Europe. This shows that the wartime experiences of previous generations are not a distant history and that their memory and awareness are important for our community identity and future,' - sums up Tomasz Pupacz.

The event was held under the honorary patronage of His Magnificence Rector of the University of Gdańsk, prof. dr hab. Piotr Stepnowski and Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Mayor of the City of Gdańsk.

ACK UG Alternator