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The Jewish Galicia Museum
The museum is located at ul. Dajwór 18 in a building that once belonged to the Jewish slaughterhouse, and later served as storage for old furniture. It has been renovated and adapted for use as a cultural center. Although visitors were first allowed to visit its collections on 17 April 2004, its official opening was only on 27 June 2004.
The Jewish Galicia Museum is a foundation established by the British photographer Chris Schwarz, who in doing so hoped to realize his dream of saving the traces of the Galician Jews from oblivion.
Since the 1970's, Schwarz has traveled the world, photographing the homeless, AIDS patients and refugees, in Great Britain as well as in France, Japan, Afghanistan and the United States. He was also in Poland - during an interesting period, the birth of Solidarity. From his first visits to Poland in Warsaw and Lublin, he knew that this was a place where much could happen. He went to Kraków only in 1991, when the BBC was preparing a program about Wieliczka. It was then that he first saw Kraków�s Kazimierz district as well.
Before starting the foundation and opening the museum, Schwarz spent many years traveling and taking photographs in small Galician towns and villages. He also prepared the illustrations for a book by Professor Jonathan Webber of University of Birmingham (UK).
From materials he collected so carefully over the years, an exhibition titled "Traces of Memory: A Tribute to the Jews of Galicia". This tribute serves also to resist the shadow of Auschwitz, which often veils from the world the eight centuries of Jewish culture in the Polish lands. As the photographer has noted, the ruined, empty synagogues speak differently about what happened to the Galician Jews than do the crematoria. They speak of a sense of community and roots, of building and creating.
see also
Address: Galicia Museum, 18 Dajwór street, 31-052 Kraków
Tel: +48 12 421 68 42
www.galiciajewishmuseum.org
Chris Schwarz - Director, Founder
chris@galiciajewishmuseum.org
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The exhibition includes one hundred fifty photographs grouped into five sections that convey sadness among the ruins, interest in traditional culture, destruction and an attempt to preserve the traces of memory, as well as a record of those people who helped revive the memory of the Galician Jews. Visitors will be surprised by the attention to detail and broadly conceived perspective of the exhibition: from the photographs of lovingly restored synagogues to traces of the niches in old doorframes that used to hold mezuzot.
The restored interior of the museum, which has a total of 920 square meters (9,903 square feet), reflecting a post-industrial aesthetic, has a warm atmosphere. In addition to the exhibition area and educational room, there is also a vegetarian cafe open during the museum's opening hours, offering a selection of kosher bagels, sandwiches and drinks. The Galicia Museum�s cafe also organizes banquets, lunches, workshops and meetings. The bookstore has a good selection of books about Jewish life and culture, as well as about the Holocaust, Jewish philosophy, identity and literature, available in Polish, English and German. The Galicia Museum runs the Kosher Shop - the only one of its kind in Kraków - where one can buy matzo and many other products, including fresh ones. All products are certified kosher.
Each Thursday and Sunday the museum has concerts, and on Mondays one can take Hebrew lessons in the Hebrew language school operating at the museum. There are also screenings of films and discussions. In cooperation with the Jagiellonian University, series of lectures on basic aspects of Jewish culture are planned. Both Jewish and Catholic participants will take part in some discussions.
The Galicia Museum is a non-profit organization whose aim is to foster tolerance and mutual respect among cultures.
You are welcome to discuss about "The Jewish Galicia Museum"
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