The Great Synagogue Restores Memory
For the second time we had pleasure to create an unique, efemeric audiovisual project of the symbolic rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Warsaw in commemoration of the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
On the evening of 18 April 2019, destroyed by the Nazi Germany after the fall of the ghetto uprising, the Great Synagogue was symbolically rebuilt for the second time. The image of the synagogue emerging from the rubble appeared on the glass facade of the Blue Tower (Błękitny Wieżowiec), which after the war took the place after the Great Synagogue. “May remembrance and love overcome destruction and death.”
In the sound layer of the project consisted archival recordings of the cantor of the Great Synagogue, Gerszon Sirota, who died in the Warsaw ghetto, and fragments of the poem “Bashert”, read by its author, Irena Klepfisz, daughter of Michał, a soldier of the Jewish Combat Association.
Organizer: The Open Republic Association Against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia
Concept and Director – Gabi von Seltmann
Visual project and animation – Elwira Wojtunik, Popesz CsabaLáng / Elektro Moon Vision
Sound collage – Marcin Lenarczyk
Partner: The Jewish Historical Institute Association in Poland
Project is co-financed by Capital City of Warsaw
Donors: Andrzej and Malgorzata Rojek Irene Kronhill Pletka and the Kronhill Pletka Foundation
Patronage: Museum of History of Polish Jews POLIN The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute The Jewish Community of Warsaw JCC Warsaw
Media patronage: Jewish.pl, Midrasz