Galicia Museum
The Galicia Museum in Krakow opened to visitors on April 17, 2004. Located in a former Jewish factory, the official opening took place on June 27, 2004, as part of the Festival of Jewish Culture.
The building, which was renovated in post-industrial style and has a total of 920 square meters, has an exhibition room and café seating forty people. The Museum also has a seminar room that can accommodate sixty people and a bookshop with books in Polish, English and German on Jewish life, culture and the Holocaust, as well as Jewish thought, identity and literature.
The Galicia Museum was founded by Chris Schwarz, a British photographer who over a twelve-year period photographically documented places in Galicia associated with the Galician Jews.
For the first time, an exhibition displays over 150 color large-format photographs taken in Galician towns and villages. The photographs document the traces of the Jewish past that still exist today in southern Poland.
Jewish culture developed in Poland for over eight hundred years before it was brutally destroyed by the Holocaust. The Jewish past in Poland has been overshadowed by images of the Auschwitz and by the atrocities committed there. But if one is to fully understand the Jewish past here one needs to place another set of images alongside these: the traces of memory that are to be found in the towns and villages where Jewish life once flourished.
This is not an historical exhibition in the conventional sense. The exhibition does not display old pre-war photographs; on the contrary what we are showing are contemporary photographs with the intention of showing what can be seen about the past. To put this exhibition together required the creative collaboration over twelve years between British photographer Chris Schwarz and British scholar Jonathan Webber. Working village by village and town by town, the material assembled offers a completely new way of looking at the Jewish past in Poland, the past that was left in ruins. The idea has been to try and piece together a picture of the relics of Jewish life and culture that can still be seen today, and to describe and interpret these traces in a manner that will be informative, accessible, and thought provoking.
The exhibition is divided into five sections, corresponding to different ways in which the subject can be approached: sadness in confronting ruins; interest in the original culture; horror at the process of destruction; and recognition of the efforts to preserve the traces of memory. We end with a section showing some of the people who are involved, in different ways, with recreating and preserving the memory of the Polish Jewish past.
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Other museum activities:
Concerts:
The museum plans to begin a regular concert series illustrating the influence Jewish musicians had on Polish classical music.
Lectures/Discussions/Workshops:
The museum also plans to launch a series of lectures, debates and discussions on various topics.
Education program:
The museum is in the process of applying for funds to implement a regular educational program.
Hebrew lessons:
In response to the growing interest in Hebrew, the museum intends to begin offering an intensive Hebrew language course.
Exhibition on tour:
In cooperation with other Jewish museums in Poland and abroad, the Galicia Museum plans to make part of its exhibition titled "Traces of Memory" available for display to other institutions.
The Festival of Jewish Culture
The Galicia Museum is an active participant in the Festival of Jewish Culture. More information may be found on its internet page.
In order to implement its educational program and continue its development as an institution, the Galicia Museum has applied for financial support. The museum is a non-profit organization registered in both Poland and Great Britain.
Director
Chris Schwarz
Galicia Museum
ul. Dajwor 18
31-052 Krakow
Poland
Tel: (+48 12) 421 68 42
Mobile: (+48) (0) 508 579 855
You are welcome to discuss about "Galicia Museum"
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