Remembering the murder of the Jews of Jedwabe in 1941.
Barn burning in memory of burning of Jews of Jedwabne in 1941. FOT. FILIP KLIMASZEWSKI / AGENCJA GAZETA
Polish performance artist Raphael burned a barn on Sunday, July 10th, the 69th anniversary of the burning alive of the Jews of Jedwabne in 1941 by their neighbors. In the video below Raphael explains why he is burning the barn. More than 1000 people witnessed the artistic act, including the Israeli Ambassador.
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I wish 6 million jews got fried in Germany and Poland, too bad it never happened.
Personally I think this makes an enormous statement to the world at large.
This happened, it happened right there and it was not NAZIs who perpetrated this massacre, it was just these Jews Polish neighbors.
I believe it is important that the rest of Europe not continue to be allowed to blame Germany for the destruction of European Jewry, as most had some hand in it, from Hungary to France.
These countries, especially Eastern European ones were dealing with extreme nationalism post WWI and Jews were continuously downgraded as citizens as they weren’t really from this nation or that.
I fear now that Europe has one final export for us and that is Jew Hating and Israel Bashing and scapegoating.
Thank you Miri for your comment. I tried to keep my opinion out of the blog piece and see what people’s reaction to it are.
Hello, I wouldn’t call it art, but rather a cynical act of self promotion or a grotesque creation of a crazy mind.
The action is controversial and Jewish communities in Poland are rather sceptical or prefere not to comment on it (as mr Rav- Ner did). The atmosphere around the happening resembled rather a village-party and according to the witnesses, many of the local people had no idea what the action was supposed to mean or thought it’s a scene filming for movie.
In my opinion re-creating of a tragedy is too literal and can be painful both for Jews and Poles. And making of it a spectacle for curious onlookers (who shouted “burn it quicker, we want to watch world cup finals”) of it is just inappropriate.
When it comes to powerful memorials, I suspect few rival this one. Its temporal and visually stunning quality are uniquely suited to conveying the horror of the Holocaust.