Kielce
The Memory Lanes project focuses on Kielce in Poland. Click below to see what artistic projects the teenagers created in order to retell the story of Julian Gringras, a Jewish man from the Centropa archive who once lived in their neighborhood or keep scrolling to find out more about the Jewish history of this place.
The city of Kielce boasts a rich past, yet also a dark history for the Jewish community. Jewish communities only began to settle in Kielce in the 19th century, as a law from the 16th century had prohibited them from living here earlier. As the community grew, they prospered within industries such as crafts and commerce. They took part in local government and cultural life. Yet in 1918, a pogrom marked a turning point in the Jewish life that had established itself here. The horrors of the Second World War followed and brought German occupation and with it unimaginable suffering. Thousands were forced into overcrowded ghettos and deported to concentration and death camps. Only a few returned after the war. In 1946 a brutal pogrom crushed any hope of re-establishing Jewish life in Kielce, leading Jews from all over Poland to leave the country.
The project is funded by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF).
