Beyond the Umschlagplatz: Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto - 23.10.22

In the fourth and final program in the series Grossaktion Warsaw: 80 Years Later, we examined the ways in which the Warsaw ghetto is remembered and commemorated. Prof. Liat Steir-Livny, an expert on Holocaust commemoration, moderated a discussion with a panel of speakers who are the agents of memory today. Dr. Maria Ferenc researches the real-time information, such as rumors and false news, disseminated in the Warsaw ghetto and its surroundings and how they affect what Jews in the ghetto know about the Holocaust as it was happening. Dr. Slawomir Grunberg has directed prize-winning documentary film, Jan Karski & the Lords of Humanity, based on authentic documents, real-time film, testimonies of survivors, and animation in order to create a tangible commemoration of Jewish Warsaw and the Warsaw ghetto. The documentary by Eric Bednaski, Warsaw: A City Divided, was also discussed in his absence due to illness. The discussion focused on how authentic material is being used in order to remember a community that is almost non-existent 80 years later.