difficulties inherent in Polish-Jewish dialogue today.
The second episode features Dr Katarzyna Person, Director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum and one of the leading scholars of Holocaust and Polish-Jewish history. Our conversation moves into some of the most complicated areas of Holocaust research: the Jewish Police in the Warsaw Ghetto, Jewish converts to Christianity, the postwar Honor Courts, the Ringelblum Archive, and the ways in which new research can be translated into museum narratives for future audiences. We also discuss her research on Jewish survivors in postwar Poland and the questions of responsibility, judgment and memory that emerge from it.
The third episode takes us to Będzin, where I speak with Karolina and Piotr Jakowenko of Brama Cukermana, whose work is rooted in the local landscape and in the traces of a Jewish community that was almost entirely destroyed. Our conversation focuses on what it means to become, in their words and actions, guardians of memory: to uncover forgotten places and stories, preserve surviving traces of Jewish life, work with the remains of the Będzin Ghetto Fighters' bunker, and create new ways of bringing the Jewish history of Będzin into the present. We also discuss their vision for the future, including the creation of a Ghetto Fighters’ House in Będzin, and the larger question of what responsibility for Jewish memory can mean for Poles living today in towns and cities shaped by Jewish absence.
The range among these first three conversations is intentional. Polish-Jewish history cannot be approached through a single subject or a single period. It encompasses centuries of Jewish life in Poland, the Holocaust and its aftermath, contemporary Jewish culture and community, museums and memorial sites, education, scholarship, contested memories, grassroots initiatives and new forms of dialogue.
Alex understood this perhaps better than most.
He could speak about the Holocaust and then about contemporary Polish literature and sports; about Jewish history and then about life in the kibbutz and irrigation; about difficult chapters in Polish-Jewish relations while continuing to build friendships in Poland.
That ability to live with more than one identity, more than one history and more than one perspective is also part of the legacy I hope Bridging Voices will carry forward.
A dialogue does not require agreement. It requires knowledge, curiosity, the willingness to ask difficult questions, and—perhaps most importantly—the willingness to continue listening.
Alex spent decades doing precisely that.
Bridging Voices – Polish-Jewish Dialogue is one way of making sure that the conversation continues.
The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms. I invite Memoria readers to listen, to follow the conversations, and to become part of them.
To hear Alex and learn more about his legacy: LINK
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