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Jewish women’s stories told at exhibition in Poland’s Kraków

08.02.2024 09:30
An exhibition entitled “Herstories: In the footsteps of Jewish women in Europe” has opened at the Galicia Museum in Kraków, southern Poland.
Krakóws former Jewish district.
Kraków's former Jewish district.Photo: PAP/Jerzy Ochoński

The exhibition offers insights into the history of 20th-century Europe through the biographies of seven Jewish women from Poland, Germany, Greece, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The biographies of Rosa Rosenstein, Irena Wygodzka, Lisa Pinhas, Rosl Heilbrunner, Vera Szekeres-Varsa, Katarína Löfflerova and Ludmila Rutarova are presented through a selection of documents and photographs, alongside interviews, memoirs and accounts.

The Galicia Museum writes on its website: “Traveling in the footsteps of seven European Jewish women we can see where they were in particular moments in history, what they experienced, and how they felt during the first decades of the 20th century, the interwar period, the dark years of the Second World War and the Holocaust, and postwar Europe.”

The museum adds: “These stories reveal not only individual views and decisions but also their roles in society, their survival strategies, as well as their worlds falling apart and then being rebuilt in the postwar years. This way the unique story and experience of each woman ‒ juxtaposed and intertwined with one another ‒ reveals the complexity and diversity of 20th century European Jewish history.”

In organizing the exhibition, the Galicia Museum cooperated with museums in Greece, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain.

Located in Kraków’s former Jewish district of Kazimierz, the Galicia Jewish Museum aims  to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and celebrate the Jewish culture of Poland's historic Galicia region.

The museum pursues a wide range of cultural and educational initiatives, serving as a venue for local artists, performers and musicians.

Details are available on the project website at her-stories.eu

(mk/gs)

Source: Galicia Museum