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THE 60TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
COMMEMORATIVE EVENING
(organized by our sister organization
, the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, the
Toronto Chapter)
Sunday, April 27, 2003 at 6:30
pm
University of Toronto, Trinity
College, George Ignatieff Theatre,
Program of the Evening
Introduction and Welcome - Piotr Jassem,
PJHF President
The Uprising, 60 Years
Later - Dr. Frank Bialystok, historian
"Children of The
Ghetto" - documentary short film, produced by The
Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (first Canadian
screening)
Survivor Testimony - Bianka
Kraszewski
Eyewitness Testimony -
Adela Dean, read by daughter Alicja Gettlich
Poetry of the Holocaust
Czesław Miłosz, Campo
di Fiori - Agata Pilitowska
Czesław Miłosz, Campo
di Fiori - Lauren Bialystok, transl. by Lou is Iribarne
and David Brooks
Wisława Szymborska, Jeszcze
- Agata Pilitowska
Wisława Szymborska, Still
- Lauren Bialystok, transl. by Joanna Trzeciak
Władysław Broniewski,
Żydom polskim - Agata Pilitowska
Władysław Broniewski,
To Polish Jews - Lauren Bialystok, transl. by Witold
Liliental
Binem Heller, In Varshever
geto iz itst khoydesh nisn - Ethel Cooper
Binem Heller, In Warsaw
ghetto, it's the month of Nissan - Sandra Bialystok,
unknown translator
J.S. Bach, Partita #2
in D Minor - Aviva Lufer, violin
"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising"
- documentary short film, produced by The Jewish Historical
Institute in Warsaw (first Canadian screening)
The Final Letter of Szmul
Zygielbojm - Henry Dasko
Lighting of Candles
Bianka Kraszewski, Adela
Dean, Josef Meshorer, Anna Cheszes, Jerzy Pilitowski,
Sandra and Lauren Bialystok contact@pjhftoronto.ca
The first part of the address delivered by Peter Jassem,
President of the Foundation
Ladies and Gentlemen – Szanowni Panstwo,
60 years ago the flames
and smoke engulfed the heart of the Polish capital,
and gunfire filled the air. At the height of the desperate
battle against the mighty German war machine, the insurgents
raised two flags on a rooftop high above the ghetto
– one with the blue Star of David on a white background,
the other the red and white banner of the Polish Republic.
Together, these flags proclaimed that the Jews of Poland
were not surrendering to the Nazis, and they also represented
the centuries of coexistence, mutual enrichment and
common heritage of Jews and Poles. The insurgents of
the Warsaw Ghetto were fighting for their oppressed
Jewish nation but yet they had not forgotten their terrorized
Polish homeland.
This is why it is only
natural that, tonight, representatives of the Jewish
and Polish communities of Toronto have gathered together
to pay tribute to this act of outstanding heroism by
the young sons and daughters of the ancient Jewish nation
that had found refuge on Polish soil centuries ago.
As president of the Polish-Jewish
Heritage Foundation, I would like to thank you on behalf
of our organisation for joining us tonight in remembrance
of the heroes of the uprising, and of the countless
victims of the Holocaust.
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ONE OF THE POEMS RECITED DURING
THE COMMEMORATIVE EVENING
TO POLISH JEWS
Dedicated to the memory of Szmul
Zygielbojm
by Władysław Broniewski
Translated by Witold Liliental
From Polish towns and from shtetls no desperate cries
reach the ears,
Like warriors, the last defenders of Warsaw ghetto lie
fallen
In blood I soak my compassion, my heart in a flood of
tears
For you, Polish Jews, I write this - a homeless Polish
poet.
Bloodthirsty dogs, and not humans, not soldiers but
brutal henchmen
Came to kill you and your wives, not sparing the children
crying,
To suffocate in gas chambers, to choke with lime in
the transports,
And ridicule the defenseless, the terrified and the
dying.
But you raised the stone, defiant, to hurl it at the
assailant
Who cynically aimed his cannon to level your home to
rubble
O sons of the Macabbees noble, you also fought and died
valiant
With no ray of hope standing up to our common, patriotic
struggle.
Let this be carved as in granite forever in Polish
tradition:
Our common home has been trampled; one common foe we
both face,
Auschwitz and Dachau unite us, and every street execution,
And every bar in each prison, and each nameless resting
place.
One common sky mid the ruins above our Warsaw will
spread
With many years’ toil and struggle victoriously left
behind,
To each giving freedom and law and to each one a bite
of bread.
And but one human race will flourish; the highest: the
noble kind.
From the Web editor:
Szmul Zygielbojm was the Bund Representative with the
Polish National Council in Exile. Open the file : ‘The
Last Letter from Szmul Zygielbojm’, published on our
Web site in NEW PUBLICATIONS in April
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