Beiteinu Chaj – 2004 Foundation

Report on Project

Presentation – 1 Presentation – 2 Presentation – 3 Presentation – 4 Presentation – 5

The Jewish Yishuv  of Reichenbach/Dzierżoniów in Lower Silesia, after World War II – personal and collective reminiscences (Project 102243)

The primary part of the project “The Jewish Yishuv of Dzierżoniów” was the seminar, attended by students that took place in Kreisau / Krzyżowa between the end of April and early May 2010. Its most important result is the exhibition on the theme of the project.

The project was carried out by a team of four persons, Elżbieta Opilowska (Poland), Rafael Blau (Israel / Poland), Wolf Borchers (Germany), and Dominik Kretschmann (Poland). Since the members of the project team already knew each other and also possessed prior experience in international projects, collaboration was not hindered by intercultural misunderstandings. The greatest challenge was the geographic spread (Israel, Germany, Poland) and the coordination of the project with the professional activities and responsibilities of the team members. This resulted in activities of varying intensity, i.e. some members of the team were mainly occupied with the preparations of the seminar, other more with its execution, while still others devoted their efforts to the final preparations of the exhibition.

In preparation of the seminar for the students, it presented problems to chose five participating la dies from Israel (the plan was to have five participants per country), while from Germany we had four female participants; only in Poland, it required extra efforts to eventually find three members (female).

All of the thirteen members (in Kreisau, a further German participant joined us) made up a wonderful group. The team had prepared special methods for starting the seminar, but the immediately harmonious functioning of the group from the first evening on was the result of other factors: All members had a keen interest in the topic; several participants from Israel had already taken part in meetings in Poland, three of the four German participants were busy writing bachelor of magister papers on related topics, and all three Polish participants had Jewish history and culture as the main topics of their studies. All participants had prior international experiences and above average knowledge in languages; all of them spoke English well and other languages, e.g. all four German participants had knowledge in Polish. Despite of these excellent circumstances, one must be aware that the goals of the seminar had been set very highly: Analyses of written sources and their translation, discussions with contemporary witnesses and their written reports, excursions and speeches, e.g. with the topic museum studies. The result was that at the end of the seminar, a lot of material had been used and worked over, and a first concept of the exhibition was established, but we did not succeed to prepare the exhibition by having all materials close to ready for printing – afterwards the team had quite a lot to do.

During the work with the students, it became clear that we would have to modify our original objective, i.e. to above all show at the exhibition something pertaining to the individual and collective memory – as historical events and facts are unknown to most people, the main goal would have to be modified towards the presentation of history, complimented by reminiscences.

The trilingual exhibition (German, Polish, English) has so far been shown in Berlin from December 2 to 13 by the Landesvertretung Niedersachsen, and for one month starting on January 17, 2011, by the Stiftung Kreisau für Europäische Verständigung. In April 2011, the exhibition will be presented in the Edith Stein Haus in Wrocław / Breslau, and in May / June in the synagogue in Dzierżoniów.

Because of the close proximity between Kreisau / Krzyżowa and Dzierżoniów, we decided to modify the focus of the exhibition giving it a different emphasis at either site: In Kreisau, the exhibition will be mainly used for groups who visit Kreisau, while in Dzierżoniów, we will cater more to the local populace, since so many people are living in the city, who together with its administration have supported us in past years and now matters relating to the seminar. An electronic execution of the exhibition can be seen on the internet pages of the Foundation of Kreisau for European Understanding, and the Fundacja Beiteinu Chaj-2004 in Dzierżoniów.

January 15, 2001, Dominik Kretschmann

Translated from German by Maria Koch