Video: Jewish Festival of Culture Cracow

Celebrating Jewish Culture  in Contemporary Poland. Janusz Makuch Founder and director of the  Cracow Festival of Jewish Culture in conversation with Arnold Zable Award winning Australian writer.

Here is a video by Kutiman that is about the Cracow Festival of Jewish Culture:

Do you have any photos, videos etc. of Holocaust Survivors?

This is a great initiative of the Jewish Holocaust Centre.

Phillip Maisel Testimonies Project

Did someone in your family give testimony. If yes, have you seen it? This is a valuable resource of the Jewish Holocaust Centre.

Janki Goldstein, Holocaust victim from Cracow

Hello friends,

Here is an article regarding the Galicia Jewish Museum which has published an unknown diary from the occupied Krakow that I thought I should share with you

Written by a young woman - Janka Goldstein, has been kept for many years by friends of her family. Now it's available to readers!

Here is the Facebook link (it is in Polish): https://www.facebook.com/events/566732987073090/

I have attached an extract of the story translated by Google from a Polish web page at http://welcometo.pl/dziennik-janki-goldstein-premiera-ksiazki/ . Please excuse the translation errors! I do not know yet if the book is available in other languages:

Dziennik Janki Goldstein - the premiere of the book

 0

BY WELCOME ON OCTOBER 24, 2018ARTICLE

October 28, 2018, 16.00 
Dziennik Janki Goldstein - premiere of 
the Galicja Jewish Museum, ul. Dajwór 18, Kraków

Dziennik Janki Goldstein , a book published by the Jewish Galicia Museum thanks to the financial support of the City of Krakow, is a hitherto unknown testimony from the occupied Krakow. The release of Dziennik in autumn 2018 coincides with the 76th anniversary of the October deportations from the Krakow ghetto to the extermination camp in Bełżec. This book reminds of the tragic fate of one of the many Krakow families whose members died during the Holocaust.

The author of the journal, Janina Bronisława Goldstein (1920-1945) was the daughter of Julian Goldstein, an activist of the Szomer Umonim Association of Jewish Craftsmen, editor-in-chief of "Rękodzieło i Przemysł" published by this Association and the owner of the Artistic-Slusarski Department, which was located in the buildings at ul. Dajwór currently being the headquarters of the Galicia Jewish Museum.

Dziennik Janki, the only preserved notebook (one of many that she wrote), covers the years 1940-1942, and therefore is an important testimony of the years of German occupation - a record of the everyday life of a young Cracovian woman who was affected by exclusion, persecution and finally closure in isolation from the rest ghetto city. Janka spent little time in her journal describing the occupation reality - she focused on herself, her relationships with others, feelings, memories, ordinary and unusual events of everyday life.

The daily was prepared by Katarzyna Zimmerer and Ewa Czekaj. Katarzyna Zimmerer, author of m.in. recently published "Chronicles of the murdered world", took care to embed Janka's testimony in a broader context, reflect the realities of life in Krakow in 1939-1943, explain the words used by Janka related to German occupation and life in the Krakow ghetto, identify at least some people that Janka mentioned. Ewa Czekaj, whose grandparents Alicja and Andrzej Łachów knew the Goldstein family and kept the daily Janki, carried out arduous searches in the archives to at least partially reconstruct the fate of Janek Goldstein, her siblings, parents and other relatives. She reached many documents, thanks to which she managed to establish a lot of facts about Janki herself, as well as her father - Julian Goldstein, her mother - Sarah nee Scheller (r.

Despite extensive explanations, Janki's diary is not an easy read. The journal cards fill the names and initials of the people, only a part of which can be identified. There are many misconceptions in it, broken tales, incomprehensible passages. It is not a matter-of-fact, chronically kept chronicle of occupied Krakow. It is an intimate, hidden even from the next diary, a record of everyday ordinary and unusual events, the relationship of the author with family members, friends and acquaintances, a record of her emotions, including the emerging feelings for Heinz Dressler.

Thanks to the preserved journal, the memory of Janka, her family, friends, close and distant acquaintances will in some sense be saved. Many people about whom Janek wrote in her diary still know little or nothing. However, thanks to Janki's notes, we know that these people existed.

The project "Development and publication of Dziennik Janki Goldstein" is co-financed by the City of Krakow

---

Dziennik Janki Goldstein

Selected fragments:

I am exhausted so recently. I can not sleep at night, I still have some drows falling. Daddy was appointed the vice-president of the commune and today he began to work. We are not happy about it, although everyone congratulated Daddy and when Jula talked about how it was all, pride spread through me. So what. Those times will not return when Daddy calmly sat at home and read books. Now he leaves the house and returns late. In the morning he must be a little at the factory, at noon he is a member of the Craftsmen's Union, and in the afternoon in the Commune. I see him so little and sometimes I feel so sorry for him. I adore him so much. I always try to imitate him and how should I do something, I always think that Daddy acted in my place.

***

From the [Father's] factory I went with all the pots from dinner to bread and powders. Then, on foot, I returned home, stopping and changing my hands every now and then. I still had adventures along the way. I do not know why they took on me. When I went with dinner the day before yesterday, three daugthers at Dajwo were standing one behind the other, and the last one pushed them at me. I pushed him back with all the strength I still had in my electrified hand. Because previously in the Market Square I unscrewed the plug and the current passed through my hand and leg. Yesterday, again, some andrus struck me with a stick on my leg, and a little further a little girl wanted to throw a snowball on me, because I did not say anything to her request for bread, which, by the way, she wanted to steal from me. Of course, such things unnerve me, but not for long. I have an unpleasant taste after them. What will grow out of these children? What kind of society will they create in the future when they hate youth?

***

My thoughts often go towards our neighbor, Gmina official, colleague Stefek, Heinz Dressler. He is an extremely nice, though unlucky boy, a year older than me. Tall, slim not too much, dark haired, with pretty eyes, but big nose. And it disgusts him. But he is very nice. I met him on a couple or on the second day of our introduction. We borrowed two buds for Blassberg for books. And because Heinz lives with him, they both came for these buds. And then I met them.Subsequently, I slowly got acquainted with his family, as well as with some of the tenants. Sometimes I go to books, and every day I see someone from them and often talk. I will return to Heinz, his family and our tenants in general the next time, unless something more important in the meantime happens. Because it always has time. Well, now I'm putting away.I am sleepy and tired. In the field of rain, you want to sleep. However, I am glad that I wrote this page at least. I have little time, when I find a moment, someone is sitting and I can not write. I steal free minutes like a thief.

***

Heinz asked gently, "What exactly are you?" He had asked me this question several times before, and I responded to him every time I shrugged. "I have to go now." But he stood over me and looked at me for a long time. My eyes were dropped, but I knew exactly what he was doing. He grabbed my head, hugged me, like on Thursday, after the "battle." However, Mr. Weigunov entered this. He stepped back momentarily. When she left, he came to me from the other side of the couch, embraced me lightly, and hugged my cheek against mine. I felt so good and yet so sad that tears came to my eyes. I felt that Heinz could not take control anymore and was looking for my lips. He touched them with his own, but I turned gently and his lips rested on my neck, his cheek touched mine again. We stood for a fairly long moment. I wondered, Can I let him kiss me? It gave me such pleasure, but I felt that I was not allowed.

***

I could not, I could not write until that time. And now I barely got it. But to describe everything I've been through since first June ... no! it is above my strength. What is gone, will not come back, so it's better to forget about it. I will always remember in my memory the memories of Heinz's arms covering me, hugging each other and the touch of his soft, hot lips. This is the first boy that I really love, which I embraced and kissed first. I will not describe all these things. They will always be in my memory, and there would be too much writing and sad things that I would rather not think about. One of the most horrible things is that Hela is not with me and worse, I do not know at all what's going on with her and where she is. And I miss so much !!!

Cracow Festival of Jewish Culture

Hello friend,

You are invited to Kadimah Hall 7 Selwyn Street, Elsternwick on Sunday 12 November 2017 at 7:00pm. 

Janusz Makusz Video in Melbourne

Edyta Gawron’s public lecture titled 'Forget Me Not! Memory and Commemoration of Jewish History, Heritage and the Holocaust in Contemporary Poland’ is now available in an edited version on YouTube and Facebook.

Cracow presentation at the 2017 Memorial Service. By Izi Marmur

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-AIkrfKtoOtLUZ4Sjk0aDhibDg/view?usp=sharing

This post is about an exciting initiative being run to Honour and Remember individuals and family members by the Cracow Memorial Committee.

The project involves engaging with family and friends across generations, across the world or next door - about someone you know or indeed, about yourself - by arranging interesting links; resources; records and photos to be shared on Facebook Community Pages.

Help is available free of charge. All that is required initially is that you let Peter know you are interested.

A registration form is attached.

Kind regards,

Peter Schnall

President

Cracow Memorial Committee