12/05/2017

The Faculty of Humanities held an inauguration event for a photography exhibition entitled “My Jewish parents, my Polish parents”

The General Consul of Poland to Barcelona, Mr Marek Ciesielczuk, and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Dr Judith Urbano, yesterday inaugurated a photography competition entitled “My Jewish parents, my Polish parents” which can be visited until the end of month at the entrance to the Alfa and Beta buildings on our Barcelona campus. 

After a few words of thanks from the General Consul and the Dean of Humanities, the event began with a talk from Dr Xavier Baró, a professor of history and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences.

Baró provided information on the events leading up to the holocaust in Europe, more specifically in Poland.  The professor made some reflections on how it reached that point and how the situation had been aggravated in the years before the Second World War.  He also provided real data about what the isolation was like in the Warsaw ghetto and how the Jewish population living there suffered.

Once the attendees were aware of the context, a documentary called The Warsaw Ghetto 1940-1943 was screened, in English.  The documentary contains images, real life stories and written material about the construction of the ghetto and how the population living there lived.

Finally, the floor was given to Joanna Sobolewska-Pyz, president of the Children of the Holocaust Association in Poland, and one of the survivors of the Warsaw ghetto.  As is shown in the exhibition, Joanna is one of the fifteen children born between 1939 and 1942 who survived thanks to their Jewish parents and the bravery of the Polish parents who took them in.

Joanna gave her personal account: “Over the years I was able to find my family in Israel.  When my aunt died I couldn’t understand how it was possible for a person who survived the Holocaust to die.  I understand it better now, I am more accustomed to the fact that these people who were saved, will also die”.

The speaker also talked about the history of the Association, how it was founded, the meetings that have been held over the years and the people who take part in it.

The exhibition entitled “My Jewish parents, my Polish parents” can be visited until the end of May on our Barcelona campus, in the entrance to the Alfa and Beta buildings.  The exhibition tells the story of fifteen children who survived due to the unlimited love of their parents, who decided to give them to other families to save them, and the bravery of the people who took them in as if they were their own children.  Although they were born under a death sentence and fate offered them bitter experiences, they smile on spectators out of the photographs.  This is how they lived the life gifted to them by their parents, both Jewish and Polish.