By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
During the course of his career, Chris Schwartz had a number of occasions to visit Krakow, Poland. As a photojournalist, Schwartz first journeyed to Krakow in 1981 to cover the Solidarity movement and then returned in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But for all of the region’s complex contemporary social and political goings-on, it was a side of the city that no longer existed that captivated Schwartz.
The son of a Polish Jew (his father had escaped to England in 1939), Schwartz embarked on a project in the early ‘90s to preserve, through photography, the world of Krakow’s once-vibrant Jewish community.
Schwartz photographed cemeteries, synagogues and historically Jewish neighborhoods. In 2004, he opened the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, dedicated to preserving the memory of the city’s Jewish community, featuring his photography. During that time, he also set out to photograph Polish gentiles who had rescued Jews during World War II. This collection of portraits became its own traveling exhibit, and has toured American museums and universities for the last several years.
“Polish Heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews” will be in Seattle, on display at the Suzzallo-Allen Library at the University of Washington from Jan. 12–Feb. 13. The exhibit’s Seattle stay is sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center and the UW Polish Endowment Committee. According to Ilana Cone Kennedy, director of education for the Holocaust Center, this is the first time the Holocaust Center has worked together with the UW Polish Endowment Committee, or any Polish organization.
“Jews have such a strong history in Poland; it seems like a natural partnership,” she said.
Each portrait in the exhibit is paired with a written statement about its subject, creating a history not only of the individuals pictured, but of what life was like for Poles and Jews alike during the war.
Laurie Warshal Cohen, executive director for the Holocaust Center, said she hopes that the exhibit will draw a wide audience.
“We expect to see both people who are interested in the Holocaust as well as those interested in Poland coming through,” she said.
The UW Polish Endowment Committee and the Holocaust Center have worked together to present a variety of events in conjunction with the exhibit, including several lectures on Polish rescuers, a teacher training workshop, a talk by Polish Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman, and a screening of the film Zegota, about an organized Polish movement to protect Jews.
The grand opening of the exhibit, which will take place Jan. 15, will feature a talk by Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, an organization that provides financial assistance for gentiles who aided Jews during the war and now, as they age, are in need of financial support. A number of the individuals whom Schwartz photographed receive help from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.
According to Kennedy, Schwartz, who died of prostate cancer in 2007, captured that ordinariness of these men and women in his portraits.
“These are just regular people. They don’t look very extraordinary,” Kennedy said. “But they did something extraordinary.”
This, Kennedy said, is the message she hopes visitors to the exhibit will take away: That anyone is capable of making heroic gestures in the face of injustice. Kennedy added that only one half of one percent of the people who lived in the territory occupied by the Nazis during WWII took steps to help protect Jews.
“It was a very dangerous thing to do,” she said. “These people put themselves at risk to save Jews who, in many cases, were perfect strangers.”