Next THIS week: The Commemoration.

75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Friends - 

I write this on the eve of my trip to Poland, to observe the 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemoration. I will be there under the auspice of POLIN Museum. We are expecting thousands of visitors to the Museum as well as a group of approximately 150 VIPs from a variety of American Jewish organizations, including World Jewish Congress, HaShomer Hatzair, YIVO and others. It will be an incredible show of solidarity plus a variety of emotions I cannot even describe.

I will be bringing my copy of The Warsaw Diary of Chaim Kaplan. Here is a link to a description of the man, and to his diary. Kaplan’s eyewitness account of the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto is as vivid as ever.

The Daffodils campaign and Remembering Together concert

on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 

My mother had noted that Chaim Kaplan lived next door to her family once her family was “relocated’ to the Warsaw Ghetto from Lodz. As time moves on and away from that terrible era, somehow this commemoration seems to make the unspeakable horror seem closer than ever – as though this just happened, and I am coming to protest the mistreatment of Jews at the hands of their tormentors. As though this happened to someone else, and not to hundreds of members of my own family – including every one of my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Thus, I will be there to honor the memory of our people. If you can’t be there with me, I will also honor the memory of your family. Of “Our” family.

It is important for me to share that all is not gloom and doom. Please take a look at the attached. You will find information about the events of next week that are being sponsored by POLIN Museum. 

There is a strong and growing voice of Jewish renewal that I will also be there to support. I hope you will consider joining me on this journey – if not now, then in the future.

All the best in the meantime,

Lynda 

(FYI - here's the attachment)

WARSAW: April 6 2018

The Daffodils campaign and Remembering Together concert

on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

April 19, 2018, marks the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – the biggest Jewish military revolt during World War II, and the first urban insurgency in occupied Europe. On April 18, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews will organize two unique events: the sixth edition of the Daffodils social-educational campaign; and the Remembering Together concert. At 12 noon, Andrzej Duda, President of the Republic of Poland, invites participants to a special ceremony to commemorate the anniversary in the square in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw, across from POLIN Museum.

In the summer of 1942, the Germans began the so-called Great Deportation Aktion of the Ghetto, which was built in 1940. Nearly 300,000 Jews were deported to the extermination camp in Treblinka. On April 19, 1943, 2,000 Germans entered the Ghetto order to carry out its final liquidation. They were met with the resistance of several hundred poorly armed insurgents. In the course of a month that followed, they engaged in combat amongst the rubble of the systematically destroyed Ghetto.

The Daffodils campaign

On April 19, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews will launch the sixth annual Daffodils social-educational campaign. This year, a record number of over 1,500 volunteers will distribute paper daffodil badges - the symbol of remembrance of the Uprising - in the streets of Warsaw.

Why daffodils?

They are related to the figure of Marek Edelman, the last commander of the Jewish Combat Organization which organized the Uprising together with the Jewish Military Union. Edelman was one of the few survivors. After the war had ended, each year on the anniversary of the Uprising, he used to lay a bouquet of yellow flowers at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes. POLIN Museum continues this tradition by distributing thousands of yellow flowers and leaflets informing on the Uprising on 19 April. By wearing the paper daffodil on our lapel we demonstrate that we are all united in the memory of those who perished in a combat for dignity.

“We cannot change the past, but we can preserve the memory of the residents of Warsaw who fought for freedom, dignity and life during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” say Ania and Janek Goliasz, campaign volunteers. “The memory is all that we have left of these people. That is why we have to join the Daffodils campaign each year on April 19.”

The Goliaszes say they have met passionate and enthusiastic volunteers in the course of the campaign. “It is a community of people of goodwill, so hard to come across these days. Undoubtedly, we can call them our second family. The growing community of volunteers who remember and do not let people forget is the highest asset of the Daffodils campaign.”

This year, famed personalities from the POLISH entertainment industry - Maja Komorowska, Katarzyna Nosowska, Zofia Wichłacz, Radzimir Dębski (JIMEK) and Dawid Ogrodnik - also joined in promoting the campaign.

The Daffodils social-educational campaign is organized under the National Auspices of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda on the 100th Anniversary of Poland’s Independence, and the honorary patronage of the Ministry of Education. As in previous years, schools, libraries and other institutions from all over Poland will join the campaign, organizing various activities related to the commemoration of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This year, over 1,000 institutions are planning to join in, but more can still do so by filling in this form no later than April 17. Teachers and representatives of the cooperating institutions will be provided with special instructional materials.

Remembering Together concert

At 8 PM, the Uprising anniversary ceremony will end with a special concert organized in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes. The concert will feature the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and will include, among others, 4th part of the IX Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven. In the autumn of 1940, musicians in the Warsaw Ghetto set up a Jewish Symphony Orchestra. Artists who had performed with the National Philharmonics or the Polish Radio Orchestra before the war were amongst its members. 

Despite the ban on performing pieces by non-Jewish composers, the Orchestra performed pieces by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert or Mozart. In April 1942, the German administration suspended the Orchestra’s activity, and yet the musicians continued to perform underground. In the summer of 1942, the Orchestra, together with the 80-people strong Shir (Hebrew for “song”) choir, began rehearsals to perform the IX Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven.

The text of Ode to Joy from the IV Symphony was to be sung in Hebrew. The musicians of the Jewish Symphony Orchestra and the Shir Choir did not perceive Beethoven’s music as an element of German culture. His music constituted part of their music world before the war, and part of their musical identity. Performance of the IX Symphony in the Ghetto was to serve also as a form of protest against the barbarity of Nazism, the forced imprisonment within the Ghetto walls and the symbolic exclusion of Jews from humanity. Alas, the concert did not take place.

On July 22, 1942, the Germans began the Great Deportation Aktion in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the course of the following few weeks over 300,000 Jews, including almost all the artists of the Jewish Symphony Orchestra and the Shir Choir perished in the Treblinka extermination camp. 19 April, the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is a perfect occasion to complete the unfinished work of the Orchestra under the baton of Szymon Pullman and the Choir run by Izrael Fajwiszys.

The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir will be conducted by Maestro Gabriel Chmura. In the second part of the concert, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the composer’s baton will perform for the first time a piece by Radzimir Dębski (JIMEK) composed especially for 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The  Remembering Together concert is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland. The admission to the concert is free, but it is vital to arrive no later than 7.45 PM due to the TV broadcast which is about to start at 8 PM sharp.

The press and graphic materials are available here.

For more information on the Daffodils campaign and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising please click here.

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