PUTTING THINGS BACK
JEWISH BRESLAUERS AND THEIR OBJECTS
OP ENHEIM, Wrocław, Poland
29/05 – 29/09/2024
Packed things, only the most necessary or all belongings – everyday items, furniture, books, family souvenirs, works of art and non-obvious trinkets – left with the Herz, Hadda, Freund, Tischler, Zadik, Falk, Sklarz, Peritz and many other families from pre-war Breslau during the Nazi persecution. Like their owners, they were never to return.
And yet in 2024, thanks to the cooperation of the Urban Memory Foundation and OP ENHEIM, they were on display in the Oppenheim House at Plac Solny 4. Throughout history, this building was home to many Jewish families from Breslau. The symbolic gesture of “putting things back where they belong’’ meaning returning these objects to Wrocław – even if only for the duration of the exhibition – was an attempt to bring the German, Jewish and Polish identities of the city closer together. This was the first initiative of this type in Poland based on private collections of twelve Jewish families from Breslau and has been created in cooperation with those very families.
Nearly one hundred objects presented at the exhibition came to Wrocław from many parts of the world, including Europe, North and South America and the Middle East.
The exhibition opened with the presentation of findings from the Oppenheim tenement house itself – two mezuzot and a sheet of paper with notes – discovered during renovation works. Artifacts, made available to the general public for the first time, were juxtaposed with testimonies by the descendants of the families participating in the exhibition. They were the ones who “welcomed” visitors and shared reflections on their connections with Breslau/Wrocław and the presented objects.
The historical narrative about the German Jewish community from pre-war Breslau began in the 18th century in the next room entitled “Becoming a Breslauer”. Visitors learned about acquiring equal civic rights, integration, bourgeois life and the first spectacular socio-political and economic careers of Jews in Breslau. The objects that have survived from this period in family collections are unique and rare. Moving on through the exhibition to the next room and along the timeline to the 19th and 20th century, one could discover various personal items illustrating the dynamically developing life of the city’s Jewish community: family, professional, religious.
Being a Breslauer was expressed in the area of culture and education, which visitors could see on the example of preserved artworks and everyday objects, and then move on to the last part of the story about the pre-war life of families from Breslau entitled “Broken Ties”. This is where we discussed the growing nazi persecutions in the 1930s and what exactly it meant for the family members whose stories are presented at the exhibition. In this section, the number of items was significantly decreasing.
Finally, visitors could explore the war-time and post-war circulation of Jewish objects – those saved, those lost and also those that were recovered. They were accompanied by an artistic commentary of a site-specific work by Berlin-based artist Anna Schapiro. The artist explored the layers of histories encapsulated in the objects presented at the exhibition, the cumulative stories they convey and the way these invisible and neglected pasts still weave themselves into the present.
Photos: Jerzy Wypych, Alicja Kielan
Watch a 15-minute video from the exhibition opening with family testimonies or a short clip.
Full photographic documentation of the exhibition at OP ENHEIM (photos by Alicja Kielan) is available here.
CREDITS
Curators of the exhibition: Dr. Małgorzata Stolarska-Fronia and Dr. Maciej Gugała
Objects loaned for the exhibit from: the Aviv Family, Tamar Cohn Gazit, Stephen and Donald Falk, Ann Goebel-Fabbri, William L. Gross, Ingeborg Huhn, Alfred and Lotte Laurence, Daniel Ljunggren, the Pearce Family, Nicholas Rose, Benjamin and Rose Sklarz, Nick Tischler, Annemarie Wadlow, Madelaine Helga Zadik and OP ENHEIM, the University Library in Wrocław, and Yad Vashem.
Consultants and experts: Dr. Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Prof. Marcin Wodziński, Dr. Aleksandra Janus, Dr. Juliet D. Golden, Dr. Tamar Cohn Gazit, Stephen Falk, Donald Falk, Daniel Ljunggren and Prof. Tim Buchen
Artistic intervention: Anna Schapiro
Producers: Łukasz Adamski, Małgorzata Sobolewska
Exhibition designers: Musk Kolektyw
Project management: Agnieszka Jabłońska (UMF) with the support of Tomasz Woydyłło (UMF) and Dr. Karolina Jara (OP ENHEIM & Deutsch-Polnische Stiftung Kulturpflege und Denkmalschutz)
Translations, editing and proofreading of texts: Dr. Juliet D. Golden, Anna Nowogońska, Steffen Wirsing
Multimedia: Paweł Romańczuk – Małe Instrumenty (musical recordings – symphonion; PL voice-over), Anna Skotarczyk & Bartłomiej Szewczykowski (video and audio editing), Steffen Wirsing (DE voice-over)
PR & Promotion: Martyna Chrzanowska-Przystupa (MH+), Dominika Fedyk-Wolanin (MH+), Maria Majchrowska (OP ENHEIM)
Supporting researchers: Dr. Wojciech Tworek, Dr. Monika Piechota, Dr. Danuta Płókarz, Celine Skrippek
Objects conservation: Anna Szlasa-Byczek, Mateusz Jasiński
Organizers: The Urban Memory Foundation and OP ENHEIM
Partners:
Deutsch-Polnische Stiftung Kulturpflege und Denkmalschutz, Viktor Oppenheim Haus, WOMAK Holding SA, Akcelerator Obywatelski Spark Foundation, Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław, the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, the City Museum of Wrocław, KEIM, Open Reklama and MultiMemo project partners: FestivALT, Zapomniane Foundation, JCC Warsaw, Formy Wspólne Foundation, the Foundation for the Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries, CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe, and the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg.
Funding: the European Union as part of the MultiMemo project, the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Department of Culture of the Wrocław Municipality and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland.
CREDITS ONLINE EXHIBITION
Digital documentation of the objects: SPARK Civic Accelerator Foundation
Photographic documentation of the exhibition at OP ENHEIM: Alicja Kielan
Photographic documentation of the exhibition opening at OP ENHEIM: Jerzy Wypych
Website design: Magdalena Gauger, Filip Morawski
Website development: Łukasz Grochowski
Project implementation: Urban Memroy Foundation
Funding: European Union as part of the MultiMemo project (CERV program)