The commemoration of the liquidation of Liztmannstadt-Getto is annually accompanied by activities around the visual arts. This year, together with the Municipal Art Gallery, we invite you to an exhibition, which is the first in the world to present the found works of Zeni Larsson - a Jewish woman born in Lodz in 1922 as Szajna Marcinkowska. The opening of the exhibition will take place on Sunday, August 25 at 4:00 pm at the Balucka Gallery in the Old Market Square. It will be accompanied by a performance by artist Izabela Maciejewska, inspired by the life and work of the exhibition's heroine. The opening will be preceded by the unveiling of a mural at 25 Lagiewnicka Street dedicated to Zeni Larsson.

In the ghetto she began creating her first clay sculptures, which were a prelude to her future career as an artist. After the war, thanks to incredible determination, Larsson continued her art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Since the 1960s, she devoted herself primarily to literary work. Although she was one of the best-known representatives of Holocaust literature in Sweden, since her death in 2007, the memory of Zeni as an artist and writer has quickly faded. The exhibition is being created through the thorough research and investigation of curator Ursula Ulla Chowaniec. Significantly, Zeni Larsson's biography is closely linked to the life story of Chava Rosenfarb - a Lodz-born, Yiddish-writing poet and writer, last year's patron of Lodz, who settled in Canada after the war. Chava was Zeni's faithful life companion - first from her childhood backyards in Lodz, then in the ghetto and concentration camps, then a friend with whom she corresponded almost all her life. In this way, the two women, born and raised in Lodz, connected Stockholm and Montreal by irregular, though more than 60-year-long letter dialogues in the only language they had in common - Polish. The Swedish artist and writer recounted her life in Polish to a Yiddish-writing writer from Canada. The exhibition will be accompanied by the Polish premiere of Zeni Larsson's novel “Shadows at the Wooden Bridge” (translated from Swedish by Piotr Zettinger and Katarzyna Tubylewicz), published by the Dialogue Center Library. Published in Sweden in 1960, it is part of a trilogy describing the fate of a young girl Paula. The next parts of the trilogy are “Lang rgryningen” (The Long Dawn, 1961) and “Livet till mtes (Life Toward Meeting, 1962). The trilogy, which is largely autofiction, explores various stages of Paula's life: from the dramatic events in the ghetto, to her last months in Bergen-Belsen, to her new life in Sweden. The opening of the exhibition of Zeni Larsson's works has been scheduled for Sunday, August 25 at 4:00 pm at the Balucka Gallery in the Old Market. It will be accompanied by a performance by artist Izabela Maciejewska, inspired by the life and work of the exhibition's heroine.

The opening will be preceded by the unveiling of a mural at 25 Lagiewnicka Street dedicated to Zeni Larsson.

Program of activities around the exhibition dedicated to the works of Zenia Marcinkowska-Larsson

August 25 / Sunday

15.00 - Unveiling of a mural in the space of Lodz dedicated to writer and sculptor Zeni Marcinkowska-Larsson. PL

Place: 25 Lagiewnicka St.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue in Lodz.

16.00 - Zenia Marcinkowska-Larsson. Sculptures. Memory. Words.

The opening of an exhibition of sculptures by Zenia Marcinkowska-Larsson.
Curator: Urszula Ulla Chowaniec. The exhibition is accompanied by a performance inspired by the life and work of Zeni Marcinkowska-Larsson. Artistic collaboration and performance: Izabela Maciejewska. vernissage combined with the promotion of the first Polish edition of the book Shadows at the Wooden Bridge (translated from Swedish by Piotr Zettinger and Katarzyna Tubylewicz). EN/ENG

Place: Bałucka Gallery, Stary Rynek 2.
Organizer: Municipal Art Gallery in Lodz and Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue in Lodz.

Urszula (Ulla) Chowaniec: literary scholar specializing in women's history. She lives in Stockholm, is a lecturer at Lund University, and also serves as a professor at Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski Academy in Krakow. She is the author of books including: “In Search of a Woman: On the Early Novels of Irena Krzywicka” (2007), ‘Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women's Writing’ (2015). She creates podcasts and organizes academic and artistic events. She is the curator of the exhibition “One Hundred Years, so What?” - dedicated to the centenary of women's emancipation in Poland (Birmingham, 2018), content consultant for the exhibition on Irony (Torun 2024), co-organizer of festivals, including “Queer the Other Europe UCL” (London).
Izabela Maciejewska: visual artist. Sculptor, photographer, performer, painter. Creates installations and video art. Graduate of art schools in Lodz: Wł.Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and L. Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theater PWSFTviT in Lodz.

18.00 - Women writers from the Lodz ghetto - walk. Leading: Joanna Podolska, director of the Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue in Lodz. ENG

Start: Balucka Gallery, Stary Rynek 2.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue in Lodz.
Description: Representatives of all social strata ended up in the Lodz ghetto: doctors and teachers, shoemakers and tailors, merchants and small factory owners, waiters and thieves, painters, musicians, journalists and writers. Among them were no shortage of women who practiced various professions, including artists and writers, such as Miriam Ulinower and Melania Fogelbaum. The times of the ghetto and the camps contributed to the fact that after the war some female prisoners decided to describe their experiences, and wrote in different countries and in different languages: Chava Rosenfarb in Yiddish in Canada, Zenia Larson - in Swedish in Stockholm, Sara Zyskind in Hebrew in Israel. During a short walk we will walk in their footsteps.

Admission is free!

The main celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of Litzmannstadt-Getto will take place on August 29 at the Jewish Cemetery and Radegast Station. In addition to the religious ceremonies and the symbolic lighting of candles at the monument to the memory of the Jews of Lodz, on that day at 10:30 a.m. the exhibition “From Dawn till Dusk” will be opened in the Preburial House on the Jewish Cemetery grounds. It will feature 70 photographs from a collection of 3000 salvaged negatives by Henryk Ross.

Henryk Ross was a photographer tasked with taking propaganda photos for the German administration, but in hiding he managed to capture life in the Lodz ghetto: executions, deaths, births, weddings, deportations. His negatives and works from 1940-1944, buried in the ground, were unearthed after the war. They are a unique record of the life and Holocaust of Lodz Jews and those deported to the ghetto from towns near Lodz and from Nazi-occupied Europe. They come from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto. The above institutions have made part of their collection available to the Jewish Community of Lodz to make the exhibition a memorial to the ghetto.

Admission to the event is free.

Organizer: Jewish Community of Lodz
Exhibition concept: Lilka Elbaum
Curator: Krzysztof Jurecki
Curator and producer: Jerzy Maciej Koba
Essay for the catalog: Maia Mari Sutink, Art Gallery of Ontario
Photos from the collection: Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston and Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto

Part of the events accomanying the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of Litzmannstadt-Getto will take place in the Survivors' Park, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The park is a unique place - it was created on the initiative of a Lodz Ghetto Survivor, Halina Elczewska. The initiator was extremely keen to make this place vibrant. And this is indeed the case - it is a place for meetings, artistic and cultural activities. On August 28, the Dialogue Center invites the public to participate in: film screenings, a walk through the Park with its main creator, a ceremony for naming new memorial trees, a meeting with Marian Turski and three concerts.

The Park has changed since its founding - more than 660 memorial trees have already been planted there, and on August 28 (Wednesday), Survivors' Day, more trees dedicated to those who survived the Lodz Ghetto will be planted. Families of the Survivors will receive certificates from the hands of Lodz Mayor Hanna Zdanowska. Also on that day, the Park's creator, Grazyna Ojrzynska, along with guide Justyna Tomaszewska, will show interested parties around this unusual place, and in the evening the green space will be filled with music. At 6:30 p.m., the public will be able to listen to the “Sounds of Memory” concert performed by clarinetist Robert Stefanski, who will interpret klezmer music associated with Jewish religious rituals. This will be followed by the singing of Katarzyna Jackowska-Enemuo, who, accompanied by an accordion, will perform in Polish and Yiddish songs by Polish composers of Jewish origin, as well as compositions of her own. At 8pm, Alan Bern, conductor, musician and director of Brave Old World, who has put together another stellar ensemble to celebrate this year's round anniversary of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto, will play on the outdoor stage. The stage will feature the music and poetry of Jankiel Hershkovich, David Baigelman, Yeshayach Spigel, Chava Rosenfarb, Rachmil Bryks, Henoch Kon, Pinkas Lavendar and other artists who lived in Lodz before and during the war. Musicians perfectly interpreting Jewish music will perform: Sveta Kundish (singing), Mark Kovnatskiy (violin), Fabian Schnedler (singing), Martin Lillich (double bass). Yuri Vedenyapin (vocals) and Jankiel Hershkovich's granddaughter Lucja Hershkovich (vocals) will be guest performers. The day before, also at the Dialogue Center, Izabela Szafranska and her band will perform. The artist will come to Lodz with her “Jewish street/Jewish street” project, which was born out of her love for Jewish music and culture. Szafranska will sing in Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew and Ladino. Recipients will be able to hear the famous “Rebekah,” “Hava nagila,” “Shalom Aleichem,” “Dona Dona” and “Warszawo ma,” among others. The singer will be accompanied by: Przemyslaw Zalewski (keyboards), Marcin Drabik (violin) and Przemyslaw Skałuba (clarinet, duduk, saxophones).

SURVIVORS’ DAY/ 20th Anniversary of Survivors’ Park in Łódź

10:00 AM – Survivors in the documentary: Marian Turski My Most Important Day Michał Bukojemski [67 min.]. PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.

11:15 AM – Survivors in the documentary: Mietek Wajntraub/Mitchell Winthrop Lessons from Mitch, dir. Klaudia Siczek [10 min.] ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Description: Mitchell (Mitch) Winthrop is Mietek Weintraub, born in Lodz to a middle-class family in 1926, a student at the private Kacenelson Gymnasium, a fun guy - as he refers to himself, forced to live in the ghetto since 1940. There he had to learn to work and fight to survive. His father died in the ghetto from starvation, his mother and family members died in the camps, but he survived and wanted to live. Klaudia Siczek's film tells of a man full of optimism and joy of life, whose passion became billiards. He has spent his free time in the billiard club for 50 years, while infecting others with his smile and sense of humor. In 2012, he wrote the memoir "The Arrival: I sought God in Hell." The documentary was made by the granddaughter of Marian Turski, Mitch's peer.

11:30 AM – Survivors in the documentary: Leon Kowner Leon loves the sea and we love Leon and Art_opening_1940 by Elyasaf Kovner. [10 min.] ENG

11:45 AM – Survivors in the documentary: Tova ben Zvi Tova's World Michał Bukojemski [37 min.]. PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.

12:30 PM – Survivors in the documentary: Leon Weintraub Leon – the boy who survived hell, author: Jacek Tokarczyk, prod. TVP3 Łódź for TVP Historia [13 min.]. PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Description: Leon Weintraub is 96 years old. He is one of the last living "Lodzermensch". Born and raised in Lodz, imprisoned in the city's ghetto, Holocaust Survivor. He lives in Sweden on a daily basis, but visits his hometown exceptionally eagerly and as often as possible.

02:00 PM – Survivors in the documentary: Halina Elczewska Halina Elczewska in Łódź produced by Marek Edelman Dialogue Center. [27 min.] PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Description: Until the outbreak of war, Halina and her sisters, the elder Jadwiga and Inka, lived at 3/5 Łąkowa St. She studied at the Orzeszkowa Gymnasium at 21 Kosciuszko Avenue.
After the outbreak of war, the family moved to the Bałuty area, in the ghetto they lived at 39 Brzezińska St. They survived in the ghetto almost to the end, until liquidation. They were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 24, 1944, where her husband, parents and younger sister Inka died.
After the war, Halinka was vice mayor of Mieroszow, then moved with Jadwiga and her husband, Arnold Mostowicz, to Wroclaw, where she was director of the school of company counselors.
In August 2004, on the initiative of Halina Elczewska, with the support of Mayor Jerzy Kropiwnicki, the Survivors' Park is established in Lodz.

3:00 PM – 20th anniversary of the Survivors' Park. Walk two. Guided by: Grażyna Ojrzyńska (guiding in Polish) and Justyna Tomaszewska (guiding in English). PL/ENG

Start: parking in front of the Dialogue Center building, 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.

4:00 PM – Ceremony of awarding new trees of remembrance. PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | Wojska Polskiego Street 83.
Organizer: City of Łódź and Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.
Description: Since 2004, memorial trees dedicated to people or families who survived the war have been planted in the Survivors' Park. Every year new names are added. They are planted by Survivors, or their descendants, children, sometimes grandchildren, who come from different parts of the world. At the moment, there are already over 660 memorial trees in the Survivors' Park.

5:00 PM – Our youth gave us strength – a talk with Marian Turski, a Survivor of the Łódź Ghetto, about youth organisations in the Łódź Ghetto and with Dr Ewa Wiatr from the Filip Friedman Centre for Jewish Research at the University of Łódź. Conducted by: Joanna Podolska, PhD, Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź. PL/ENG

Location: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.
Description: Practically immediately after the closing of the ghetto, hundreds of young people, instead of going to cramped apartments in the densely built urban area of the ghetto, took up residence in small houses in Marysin and began to organize their lives according to kibbutz patterns. Gradually, other groups of young people were formed, linked primarily by political or religious beliefs, environmental or social ties. The young people had gardens and orchards under their care, learned to work the land, but also did other jobs. Above all, however, they organized cultural life and self-education groups, libraries, lectures, interest groups, and published a newspaper. Young people in the ghetto discussed literature and politics, argued about the future postwar shape of Poland and what the new Jewish state should look like. But they also helped each other. Although the groups gradually disbanded, the young people continued to meet in each other's homes and often supported each other. In many cases, the bonds stood the test of time and even lasted for decades. We'll talk about youth organizations in the Lodz ghetto with researcher Dr. Ewa Wiatr and, most importantly, Survivor Marian Turski.

6:30 PM – Concert in the park on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Survivors' Park. Performer: Sounds of Memory Robert Stefański clarinet. PL

Location: Survivors' Park | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.
Free admission.

7:00 PM – Concert in the park on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Survivors' Park. Performer: Trace of presence Katarzyna Jackowska-Enemuo: singing, akordeon. PL

Location: Survivors' Park | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.
Free admission.

8:00 PM – Do not despair / Nie rozpaczaj - a concert dedicated to the Survivors of the Łódź Ghetto. Performers: Alan Bern (piano), Sveta Kundish (vocals), Mark Kovnatskiy (violin), Fabian Schnedler (vocals), Martin Lillich (double bass). PL/ENG

Location: Survivors' Park | 83 Wojska Polskiego Street.
Organizer: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź.
Free admission.

Throughout the day, a stand with books published by the Dialogue Centre and books by the University of Lodz will be available.