“Exactly 125 years ago, in reaction to the Dreyfus case, Èmil Zola launched his famous ‘J’accuse!’. This cry shocked France and in a certain sense also Europe. I believe, I am deeply convinced, that today from here, from Warsaw, this appeal must be repeated. J’accuse…! We must oppose anti-Semitism, the violation of human rights, the aggression of neighbors, the falsification of history, the failure to respect the interests and will of the minority by the majority in power.” Adrianna Siennicka, director of the Polish Institute in Rome, closed her speech with these words, spoken by the Polish historian and Shoah survivor Marian Turski on the 80th anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in front of the monument that remembers its heroes. The occasion was the screening of Eric Bednarski’s documentary entitled Warsaw, a divided city, organized in Turin for the 81st anniversary of the Ghetto revolt (which began on 19 April 1943) thanks to the collaboration between the Jewish Community of Turin, the Polish Institute of Rome, the Honorary Consulate of Poland in Turin and the Salvemini Foundation. The documentary, screened at the Cinema Massimo, starts from films discovered only in 2004: they are approximately ten minutes, filmed between March and November 1941 by Alfons Ziólkowski, and constitute the only footage of the Warsaw Ghetto not shot for propaganda purposes by the Nazis. Images which were combined with other historical documents, current footage and interviews with architects and architectural historians who tell the story of the evolution of spaces, and the transformation of the city and of Memory. A tram runs through the Polish capital and commemorates its inhabitants while the director retraces the division of the capital, the creation of the Ghetto and the extermination perpetrated within it, up to the construction of the new city after the war. As Dario Disegno, president of the Community, recalled, the topography of today’s Warsaw hides important traces of its past, which in the documentary come to life also thanks to the stories of the survivors. The Nazi urban planning project of cancellation and replanning of the capital emerges in all its violence. Thanks to the images shot in 1941, however, we see the buildings and inhabitants of the city return, removed from the Nazi propaganda eye. Coordinated by Victoria Musiolek, the evening also hosted a speech by Zuzanna Schnepf-Kolacz, scholar of Polin, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Schnepf-Kolacz retraced the history of the Ghetto, starting from the construction of the walls in 1940. The discovery of the archive of Ringelblum, historian and founder of the group of activists “Oneg shabbat” dedicated to the recovery of the history of the ghetto was fundamental, to point that the contents of those metal boxes have been declared a UNESCO heritage site. After the first liquidation of the ghetto, which in July 1942 led to the deportation of around 280 thousand people to Treblinka, mainly young people remained inside the walls, considered suitable for work. They had no illusions and with the awareness of the end that awaited them they immediately began to prepare for the resistance, which would later be led by Mordechai Anielewicz. In the documentary, the images of the completely destroyed ghetto overlap with current architecture, the memories of the survivors are intertwined with places that are today unrecognizable, completely transformed. Other shots recently found integrate a tight narrative, which forces us to question the very concept of memory of places and of Memory. That part of the city that was completely razed to the ground, destroyed together with its inhabitants, is now at the center of not only an architectural but also historical recovery operation which, instead of weakening over time, attracts more and more participants year after year, demonstrating that the remembering is not just a duty: it is living matter. at
Tags: MEMORY Turin Warsaw yesterday resurfaces beneath today
