»In the River of Time – Jewish Life on the Oder» / »Z biegiem rzeki – Dzieje ‘yd’w nad Odr»

Exhibition

The landscape on the Oder, with its changing stately and national affiliations, has been a meeting place for centuries. German-Jewish and Polish-Jewish culture also crossed here. In modern times, nationalism, coupled with anti-Semitism, threatened this cultural diversity of Oder, Obra and Warthe. National Socialism destroyed them. After the Second World War, large sections of the Oder were driven to the German-Polish border and the German population was expelled from the regions east of the river. Poles found a new home here and for a short time it seemed that Jewish life could become home in Lower Silesia and Pomerania. Several tens of thousands of Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors settled here, but most emigrated by the end of the 1960s. The centuries-long presence of Jews on the Oder was forgotten, their traces were often destroyed.

Your questions

The exhibition is dedicated to moments of Jewish history on both sides of the Oder. It aims to encourage reflection and conversation between the former and present inhabitants of the region. It is also an invitation to rediscover the German-Polish-Jewish cultural heritage of this landscape.

Concept:
The exhibition is a contribution of the Cultural Forum to the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. It was realized in cooperation with the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the University of Wroclaw, the Center for Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences , the “Terra Incognita” association, the Museum of the Meseritzer Land and the Bente Kahan Foundation.

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