III Dawid Rubinowicz Days

This year we had planned to start the III Dawid Rubinowicz Days on the 2^nd of September with a Polish - Swedish training conference, but as it turned out. an initiative headed by Adam Jarubas the Marshal of our local parliament, presented us with  quite a special surprise; some 46,000 copies of our new edition of the David Rubinowicz Diary were handed out on 1^st September, the first day of the new school year, to the  middle school pupils of the Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship. So, we can proudly say this marked the first day of this years Dawid Rubinowicz days Our publication of the Diary bears the title The Diary of David Rubinowicz - the rest is not silence and is made up of four parts: details of how the diary was found in 1957 in Bodzentyn, the transcript of the diary, a collection of reports from 1960 written by Jerzy Janicki and Bronisław Wiernik, which describe interviews they carried out with people who had known Dawid before and during the war,  and a comparative study of life in general in Bodzentyn between the years 1939-42 written by  Swedish journalist Ewa Wymark

           After that everything went according to plan with the Polish - Swedish training conference  for Świętokrzyskie teachers on, “How to teach about the holocaust” starting  on 2^nd September  and finishing on the following day. More than 20 teachers from our region’s middle schools (Gymnasiums 13-16 year olds) took part. On the first day Wiesława Młynarczyk gave a  talk  on teaching the holocaust in Polish schools  whereas Mikael Enoksson started the second  day by presenting the Swedish approach to the issue. This was followed up by workshops with Swedish educators and Polish teachers jointly working together. Here I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude and acknowledgment to The Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism for co-organising the event with a very special thank you to bureau chief Lena Jersenius for her personal involvement in the project

            On Saturday 4 September we had planned the unveiling  of a monument  dedicated to members of Max Szafir’s family at the Jewish cemetery in Bodzentyn. Unfortunately the sudden  illness of Max’s son prevented him and his children from attending the ceremony in Bodzentyn. In order to pay our respects, we got together    with Father Leszek Sikoraa to say a prayer for Max and his nearest and dearest. In the afternoon we moved onto the Czernikiewicz timber built farmhouse at no. 3 Maja in Bodzentyn.

            Our meeting with Jadwiga Płonka, the daughter of former residents of Bodzentyn Kazimierz and Maria Zygadlewicz, gave us the unique  opportunity to get to know about  the history and fate of her parents,  who in later years were recognised as Righteous among the Nations. Both of them  unquestionably deserve  to be remembered for their noble deed, sheltering Józef Rubinowicz  a Jew from the city of Lódz, for  one and half years. The history of Józef Rubinowicz saved from the holocaust by the Zygadlewiczs will shortly be available on our website.

         Ewa Wymark a freelance  Swedish journalist  was the guest speaker of our next  meeting.  In our  new edition of the diary she is the author of the chapter on living conditions in Bodzentyn from 1939-42. Ewa has based her work on 15 filmed interviews with former Jewish  residents of Bodzentyn of that time. Ten of them were born in Bodzentyn and lived there before the war and  five were Jews who had been  deported from Płock to the town  in the war. Ewa showed us some film footage of the interviews and also gave  a graphic account of the tragic living conditions in the Bodzentyn ghetto.  Anyone interested in finding out more about the subject  should read Ewa’s comparative study entitled, The Dawid Rubinowicz Diary – Bodzentyn 1939 - 1942.”.

            The last item on the III  Dawid Rubinowicz programme was a performance of a musical play entitled “Three Cultures” produced and directed by Dorota Anyż  It was unquestionably a fascinating portrayal of Polish, Jewish and Roma cultures happily coexisting together. The play presents some eye opening  and entertaining renditions  of local folk verse It  set to a modern  arrangement of folk music, the work of  Piotr Restecki and   accompanying musicians. Undoubtedly a super production  worthy of  promoting the region at home and abroad. Congratulations to all the artist involved.

            Lastly our warm  thanks to the Kielce Region Museum of Rural Life and folk Architecture for kindly letting us  stage the play on the premises of the Old   Czernikiewicz farmhouse.

Jan Pałysiewicz