August 9th (Sunday)
12:00 pm – "Calendar of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto" - premiere of the e-book [PL]
An electronic publication describing the calendar of the ghetto liquidation
Organizer: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź
Online event: fb.com/MuzeumTradycji
Publication in electronic form constituting the timeline of the Ghetto liquidation period, presenting selected events on a day-by-day basis. Sometimes they are presented by official documents and decisions, but more frequently - through the eyes of the people participating in them.
August 16th (Sunday)
12:00 pm – “Chava Rosenfarb. A Novel about the Ghetto” - an interview with Joanna Lisek, translator of Chava Rosenfarb's books from Yiddish [PL]
Host: Joanna Podolska
Online streaming: fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
Conversation between Joanna Podolska and Joanna Lisek, translator of "The Tree of Life" by Chava Rosenfarb as well as the author's next novel which is currently underway.
Joanna Lisek - literary scholar, translator, research associate at Tadeusz Taube Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław. She is principally engaged in Jewish poetry and Yiddish culture, with particular focus on the work of women.
The theme of Chava Rosenfarb's three-volume saga, "The Tree of Life" ("Der boim fun lebn"), is the city of Łódź - in particular the Łódź Ghetto and its inhabitants. The novel has been translated from Yiddish to Polish, and our adventure with Chava Rosenfarb has not come to its end yet. The next volume, telling the story of Łódź of the interwar period, will be released late in the fall.
August 23rd (Sunday)
12:00 pm – A walk around the Jewish cemetery and the Ghetto Field with Dawid Szychowski - the Rabbi of Łódź [PL]
Venue: Jewish cemetery, 40, Bracka Street
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please provide the name and date of the event in the title)
Dawid Szychowski, the Rabbi of the Jewish Community, will guide a tour around the necropolis of the Łódź Jews, talking about burial traditions and the most important rules followed by religious Jews after the death of their loved ones. He will also discuss the specific nature of the cemetery. It will also be an opportunity to talk about the important people buried in the Łódź necropolis, also in the so-called Ghetto Field, where approximately 43,00 people were buried in the years 1940-1944.
8:00 pm – "Reverberations of Holocaust Memory" – a panel discussion with Children and Grandchildren of Łódź Ghetto Survivors [ENG]
Host: Ellen Korman Mains
Online event fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
This conversation with representatives of the 2nd and 3rd generation, from different continents and spheres of interest, will explore how our shared history as descendants of Holocaust survivors has shaped our lives. What is our role in preserving Holocaust memory as keepers or researchers of memory−or as educators, healers, or agents of change? In what way does the collective trauma of the Holocaust remain frozen or begin to repair itself through our lives and choices? Finally, how does this profound history inform or relate to current world events?
Please join the discussion online at www.facebook.com/centrumdialogulodz as we explore these topics, including Q & A during the last 20-30 minutes. The panel:
Janet Bychek is the daughter of two Lodz ghetto survivors. Like most survivors of the ghetto, her mother was deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, but her father was among the small group left behind to clean-up the ghetto after the final deportation. As a licensed Clinical Social Worker in Boulder, Colorado, she provides counseling and psychotherapy to individuals, couples and families.
Dr. Liat Steir-Livny is a Professor & Lecturer at Sapir College and the Open University of Israel. One of her grandfathers was a survivor of the Lodz ghetto, labor camps and a death march. One grandmother survived the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The author of numerous articles and five books, Dr. Steir-Livny’s research focuses on the changing commemoration of the Holocaust in Israel since the 1940s.
Miriam Friedman Morris is the daughter of Holocaust survivors David and Hildegard Friedmann. Her father, David Friedmann, survived as an artist in the Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz subcamp Gleiwitz I. Morris, who lives in New York, facilitates exhibitions, lectures and writes — and is dedicated to the preservation of his legacy. She is currently writing a book about her father’s life through art: http://z.umn.edu/becausetheywerejews
Aron Krochmalnik, from Germany, pursued professions in literature, theatre, the pharmaceutical industry and real estate. For the past 3 years, he has focused on historical and family research and writing. His father Josef, born in Lodz in 1923, survived the ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death march, and several camps including Gross-Rosen, Flossenbürg and Dachau. His mother from Tomaszow Lubelski, who recently died from Covid-19, was one of the “Tehran Children.”
Ellen Korman Mains (Moderator) travels from Colorado to Poland regularly, especially to Lodz. Her mother, Masza Goldblum, was born in Lodz in 1920 and survived the ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Ravensbruck. Her father, Szapsa Korman, was born in Kozienice. From an early age, she was drawn to Buddhist meditation, healing, dialogue, and peace work. Her award-winning memoir is “Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust.”
August 24th (Monday)
6:00 pm – "Liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto" – a lecture [PL/ENG]
Lecturer: Andrzej Grzegorczyk
Organizer: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź
Online event fb.com/MuzeumTradycji
Lecture presenting the background and the course of the liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto.
August 25th (Tuesday)
10:00 am – "The phenomenon of the Łódź ghetto" - webinar for young people [PL]
Lecturers: Adam Sitarek, Michał Adamiak
Online event (link available after registration)
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 3, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Webinar dedicated to students and teachers of secondary schools during with the educators of the Dialogue Centre will present the most important events from the history of the Łódź Ghetto and discuss the educational materials on the history of the "confined district" in Łódź that are available online.
12:00 pm – Screening of the film “Dziennik Sierakowiaka” (Sierakowiak’s Diary) by Michał Bukojemski, 2016 [PL/ENG]
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, 83, Wojska Polskiego Street
Film screening also available at fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please provide the name and date of the event in the title)
The documentary is based on a historical document, Dawid Sierakowiak’s diary read by Maciej Stuhr, and, at the same time, it is a record of a private life. The preserved notes start the narrative just before the Second World War and describe the times of violence, hatred, hunger and suffering. They also offer a remarkable insight into political reshuffles in Europe and serve as a barometer of opinions among Jews. The largest part of the diary is devoted to the scary, albeit surprising, everyday reality of the Łódź ghetto.
5:00 pm – "We are one piece of longing" - a walk in the footsteps of Jewish women in the Łódź ghetto [PL]
Organizer: Lodz Women's Trail
Meeting point: entrance to the Bałucki Rynek Hall in Zgierska Street
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 10, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
They painted their lips to look healthy and able to work, and thus avoid deportation from the Ghetto. They wrote poems and journals, even though pencil were so difficult to find. They fought for their survival and the survival of their children.
Let us take a walk in the footsteps of Jewish women of the Łódź Ghetto with the Łódź Women's Route. We will tell the story of pre-war female artists and writers imprisoned in Litzmannstadt Ghetto, women who were brought to Łódź - a city which was strange to them - during the occupation and placed in the Ghetto, and the problems and hardships which they had to face.
Walking around the area of the former Łódź Ghetto we will present their profiles and show places which are related to them. We will give the floor to, among others, Chava Resenfarb, Ester Daum and Rywka Lipszyc, reading excerpts from their works referring to Łódź.
Presented by: Izabela Olejnik, Ewa Kamińska-Bużałek
6:00 pm – "Lexicon of the Łódź ghetto" - presentation of a new Internet portal [PL]
Organizer: Centre for Jewish Research at the University of Łódź
Online event fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
Presentation of the project entitled "Lexicon of the Łódź ghetto" carried out by the Jewish Research Centre of the University of Łódź. Prepared by scholars, the Lexicon will contain almost 3,000 entries describing places, events and people associated with the ghetto. The project is carried out within the framework of the National Programme for the Development of Humanities funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
August 26th (Wednesday)
4:00 pm – "Łódź ghetto in diaries and testimonies" - meeting with Prof. Robert Shapiro [ENG]
Host: Joanna Podolska
Online event fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
Robert Shapiro, whose teachers and masters were prominent experts in the field of history - Isaiah Trunk and Lucjan Dobroszycki - has unique knowledge of the history of Łódź. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the city of Łódź in the interwar period. He translated the first large monograph of the Łódź ghetto, entitled "Łódź Ghetto. A history", which was published by Trunk in 1962 in Yiddish (its English translation was issued in 2002). As he is fluent in Yiddish, Polish, German and Hebrew, he has access to a great amount of literature on the Ghetto in Litzmannstadt. He translated or participated in translations of several important journals and documents related to the Ghetto, i.a. texts which can be found in the Ringelblum Archive. During his conversation with Joanna Podolska, he will discuss the most important sources used in the study of the history of the Łódź Ghetto, such as little known documents found in the ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Robert Moses Shapiro - a professor at the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, researcher of the history of the Jewish self-government in Łódź and the Łódź Ghetto, author of several books and several dozens of scientific papers. He is currently working on the English issue of the journal of Jakub Poznański from the Łódź Ghetto.
6:00 pm – "Ghetto space" – a lecture [PL]
Lecturer: Adam Sitarek
Venue: Funeral Home at the Jewish Cemetery, 40, Bracka Street
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please provide the name and date of the event in the title)
Lecture on topography, history of places and characteristic sites in the Łódź Ghetto based on historical sources and the accounts of Ghetto prisoners. The tale consists of 5 parts: the border, the gate, the streets, the courtyards and Marysin.
August 27th (Thursday)
6:00 pm – "Birds of Sorrow ..." - a musical spectacle based on texts by Szaja Szpigel performed by Dorota Miśkiewicz, Paweł Szamburski and the group L.Stadt, dir. Miron Zajfert [PL/ENG]
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, 83, Wojska Polskiego Street
NO SEATS AVAILABLE! We invite you to the broadcast of the concert on August 29, 2020
The main event during this year's celebrations will be the musical show entitled "Ptaki Smutku..." ("Birds of Sadness...") performed by exquisite artists: Dorota Miśkiewicz, Paweł Szamburski and the L. Stadt group, inspired by the work Yeshayahu Spiegel, a poet from the Łódź district of Bałuty. It will be an exceptional event - a premiere presenting a forgotten, prominent artist from Łódź, which will also pay tribute to those murdered in the Łódź Ghetto.
Yeshayahu Spiegel was born on 14 January 1906 in Łódź. He lived in Bałuty, where he also spent the most tragic time in his life, in the ghetto created in 1940. To a significant extent, his oeuvre pertains to this period. In 1951, Spiegel emigrated to Israel. He died in Tel-Aviv on 15 July 1990, exactly 30 years ago. The show "Ptaki smutku..." will constitue an attempt to restore the memory of this exceptional writer from Łódź at an exceptional time - on the 30th anniversary of his death and 75 years after the end of the war.
The literary selection comprises works created during the time of Holocaust, poems and fragments of poetic prose as well as two cult songs performed with music by David Bagelman, including the unforgettable lullaby entitled "Zmruż Oczęta" ("Close your eyes"). Several poems, created at a later stage when the artist was already living and writing in Israel, will constitute a reflexive and philosophical complement.
The author of the show's musical background is a prominent musician and composer from Łódź, the founder of the L. Stadt group - Łukasz Lach.
Selection of texts, screenplay and direction - Miron Zajfert
Original music and arrangements of 2 compositions by D. Bagelman - Łukasz Lach
Documentation and language consultations - Anna Rozenfeld
Performers:
Dorota Miśkiewicz
Paweł Szamburski
The L. Stadt group in the following line-up: Łukasz Lach - vocals, guitar, piano
Adam Lewartowski - bass guitar
Andrzej Sieczkowski - percussion instruments
Piotr Gwadera - percussion
6:00 pm – "Sara Majerowicz - artist of the Łódź ghetto" – a lecture [PL/ENG]
Lecturer: Maria Szulc
Organizer: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź
Online streaming fb.com/MuzeumTradycji
Lecture presenting the life and artistic path, in particular the period spent in the Ghetto, of Sara Majerowicz - one of the most interesting painters from Łódź who remains unknown to the wider audience.
August 28th (Friday)
6:00 pm – Screening of the film “Radegast” by Borys Lankosz, 2008 [PL/ENG]
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Centre 83, Wojska Polskiego Street
Film streaming will also be available at fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please provide the name and date of the event in the title)
The main storyline features the Western Jews in the Łódź ghetto and the accounts of Survivors – Lucille Eichengreen, Erwin Singer, Roman Freund, Nachman Zonabend and Stella Czajkowska, Bronisław Wrocławski, actor of the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź, narrates the story presenting the most important facts from the history of the Łódź ghetto and reading the speeches of Chaim Rumkowski, including his appeal “Give Me Your Children”. The artistic supervisor of the film was Leo Kantor.
August 29th (Saturday)
9:00 am – "To see Lunia" - herstory workshop with Patrycja Dołowy - part 1 [PL]
Organizer: Łódź Women's Trail
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Centre 83, Wojska Polskiego Street
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 10, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Łódź Women's Route is organising workshops at which we will together discover the fortunes of the forgotten carers of the Łódź Ghetto orphanages. They will be conducted by Patrycja Dołowy.
Participation is free of charge. Registration for workshops is obligatory: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Number of participants is limited.
The workshops consist of two parts. The Sunday part (30 August) is a continuation of the Saturday part (29 August).
Together, we will try to see Lunia and other women who worked as carers at the Łódź orphanage during the period of war. Learning about the fortunes of women, even those best known, most often requires considerable effort and arduous work. It is a task usually consiting in putting together stories from a number of small, seemingly mismatching pieces which are hard to obtain: undescribed photographs, oral accounts, documents of the women's brothers, husbands, sons. The process resembles making collages or sewing with the use of scraps. And it is the collage that we'll create together, the cooperation on the available fragments of history and our joint work on the filling of gaps that will help us tell the story of the carers from the Łódź Ghetto. At the workshops we will work with memorabilia, archives, photographs and memoirs, but the contributions of the participants themselves - their emotions, empathy and memory - are also important. Our collage/patchwork will take the form a story about women - both told and illustrated.
Patrycja Dołowy, PhD - writer multimedia artist, social activist, populariser of science and art. She has been working on the issues of identity and memory for years. Her work is based on oral history and testimonies. Her actions are based on the need to listen, hear and reach as well as uncover and pass on that which is invisible or has been overlooked for some reason. The author of a book entitled "Wrócę, gdy będziesz spała. Rozmowy z dziećmi Holocaustu" ("I will come back, when you're asleep. Conversations with the Children of the Holocaust") (Czarne, 2019) and a blog entitled "Widoczki: Pamięć miasta/pamięć ciała" ("Views: Memory of the city/memory of the body"). Co-author of books, including: "Przecież ich nie zostawię” ("Why, I won't leave them") (ed. Magdalena Kicińska i Monika Sznajderman), theatrical plays (i.a. "Wanda”, with Sylwia Chutnik, "Hideout/Kryjówka”, "Dziady. Twierdza Brześć” ("Dziady. The Brest Fortress"), "Matki” ("Mothers"), "Hindełe, siostra Sztukmistrza” ("Hindele, the sister of the Magician)) and performances. She has cooperated with the MaMa Foundation, Przestrzenie Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, POLIN Museum, the Center for Yiddish Culture, BioEducation Foundation.
1:00 pm – Virtual tour of the Łódź ghetto [PL/ENG]
Hosts: Joanna Podolska and Adam Sitarek
Online streaming fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
Presentation of a documentary prepared by the employees of the Dialogue Centre of the University of Łódź, telling the story of the Ghetto from the angle of the biographies of its prisoners and showing traces of the Ghetto history in contemporary Łódź. The film has been prepared within the framework of the Culture programme funded by the National Centre for Culture.
4:00 pm – "Radegast station. A Guide to the Memorial Site ”- book premiere combined with an educational tour of Radegast Station [PL]
Hosts: Andrzej Grzegorczyk, Marcin Gawryszczak
Organizer: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź
Venue: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź - Radegast Station Branch, 12, Alley In Memory of the Victims of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto
The event will be also streamed at fb.com/MuzeumTradycji
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The book entitled "Stacja Radegast. Przewodnik po miejscu pamięci" ("The Radegast Station. A guidebook to the memorial site") is a popular-scientific publication focusing entirely on the history of the Radegast Station. It will be presented to the public for the first time ever at the premiere. It will also be combined with a walk around the former Ghetto train station.
8:00 pm – "Birds of Sorrow ..." - a musical spectacle based on texts by Szaja Szpigel performed by Dorota Miśkiewicz, Paweł Szamburski and the group L.Stadt, dir. Miron Zajfert [PL/ENG]
Online event fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
August 30th (Sunday)
9:00 am - „To see Lunia" - herstory workshop with Patrycja Dołowy - part 2 [PL]
Organizer: Łódź Women's Trail
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, 83, Wojska Polskiego
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 10, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
1:00 pm – Tour of the Survivors' Park dedicated to Lolek Grynfeld (1923-2020) [PL]
Hosts: Joanna Podolska, Justyna Tomaszewska
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, 83, Wojska Polskiego
The number of participants is limited. Registration from August 17, 2020, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please provide the name and date of the event in the title)
The Survivors Park was established in August 2004, during the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Litzmannstadt Ghetto liquidation. Its establishment was initiated by a Survivor, Halina Elczewska.
During the walk around the park we will tell the story of the people in memory of whom the place was created. We will introduce you to the fortunes of the Survivors of the Łódź Ghetto and discuss its symbolism.
The walk is dedicated to Eliezer Lolek Grynfeld, a Survivor who passed away in April 2020
6:00 pm – Presentation of the spectacle “Fly-trap Factory” dir. Andrzej Bart, 2017 [PL/ANG]
Organizer: Kazimierz Dejmek Nowy Theatre in Łódź
Online event: fb.com/centrumdialogulodz
"The Flytrap Factory" is Andrzej Bart's theatrical adaptation of his famous novel of the same title. The show tells the story of the rise and fall of one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. The audience of the Nowy Teatr will take part in the trial of the Head of the Jewish Council of Elders - Chaim Rumkowski. A trial that never took place.
The past returns to help us understand our present, and love once again attempts to overcome the inevitable. A special trial, a mysterious judge, a fiendish prosecutor, an inexperienced but passionate attorney and extraordinary witnesses who have arrived from the afterlife to tell the story of what had happened.
Director: Andrzej Bart
Assistant Director: Gracjan Kielar
Scenography: Natalia Kitamikado
Stage Manager: Hanna Molenda
Costumes: Anna Sitkowska
Film and light: Rafał Wróblewski
Co-operating Director: Martyna Quant
8:00 pm – "Birds of Sorrow ..." - a musical spectacle based on texts by Szaja Szpigel performed by Dorota Miśkiewicz, Paweł Szamburski and the group L.Stadt, dir. Miron Zajfert [PL/ENG]
Broadcast on Radio Łódź - 99,2 MHz and radiolodz.pl
August 31th (Monday)
6:00 pm – "The Łódź Ghetto in the Collections of the Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź" - presentation [PL]
Hosts: Andrzej Grzegorczyk, Michał Hankiewicz
Organizer: Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź
Online event fb.com/MuzeumTradycji
The collection of the Museum includes numerous monuments related to the history of the Ghetto, and the purpose of the meeting will be to present them, telling both the history of the objects themselves and, more broadly, the history of the Ghetto.
6:00 pm - "Children of Korczak" - premiere of the spectacle based on texts by Janusz Korczak and the collected stories, dir. Jakub Margosiak [PL]
Organizer: Living Space Theatre, in cooperation with Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź
Venue: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, 83, Wojska Polskiego Street
NO SEATS AVAILABLE!
Dance theatre performance based on the texts by Janusz Korczak and collected stories.
Fairytale.
Of several children
Their breaths, games, letters and souls
Awakening and dancing
Chirping of bodies
Laughter
Faith and disbelief
Old prayer
Life.
Written and directed by: Jakub Margosiak
Choreography: Group
Starring: Grzegorz Łabuda, Jakub Margosiak, Julia Lewandowska
Music: Stanisław Leśniewski
Scenography and costumes: Alicja Helfojer, Grzegorz Łabuda
Dramaturgical consultations: Wojciech Faruga
Production: Living Space Theatre
Organisation and content-related co-operation: Marek Edelman Dialogue Centre in Łódź.
Co-financing was provided by the Jewish Historical Institute, Katowice the City of Gardens - K. Bochenek Culture Institution as well as thanks to the support of the Silesian Regional Government.
* Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of invited guests and the nature of the meetings will depend on the currently applicable sanitary regulations.