Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” — Matthew 23:1-12
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Golda Meir Library is hosting the traveling photographic exhibition, “Katyn: Massacre, Politics, Morality,” from November 7-27 in the 1st floor east wing of the Library.
The exhibit recounts the execution of 21,857 Polish troops and civilians in the Katyn Forest by the Soviet KGB during World War II, and the decades-long suppression of the truth about the atrocity.
Created by Poland’s Council for the Protection of the Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom, the exhibit debuted last May in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. and has traveled to the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and the Buffalo NY Public Library.
In conduction with the exhibit, the UWM Libraries will host a panel discussion, “The Katyn Forest Massacre: The Crime, the Coverup, the Historical Legacy,” on Wednesday, November 9 at 7 p.m. in the fourth floor Conference Center of the Golda Meir Library, 2311 E. Hartford Ave.
Participants are Douglas W. Jacobson, author of The Katyn Order: A Novel; Michael Mikos, Professor, UWM Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literature; Neal Pease, Professor, UWM Dept. of History; and Donald Pienkos, Professor Emeritus, UWM Dept. of Political Science.
The panel discussion and the exhibit are free and open to the public. For more information or special needs, call 414-229-6202.
From J: Wartime love, escape propel immersive ‘Remembrance’
To those who swore they’d seen enough Holocaust-themed films to last a lifetime: Rescind your vow, just this once.
The German drama “Remembrance” (“Die Verlerone Zeit”) is that good. It’s better than good, in fact. It’s unforgettable.
Anna Justice’s fact-based saga relates a tale of escape from war-torn Poland nearly as incredible as Agnieszka Holland’s jaw-dropping “Europa Europa” did two decades ago. At the same time, “Remembrance” cuts between the past and the present (circa 1976) with far greater emotional force than the recent “Sarah’s Key” mustered.
The generator of all that power is a pressure-cooker love affair portrayed with such urgency, immediacy and intensity that it makes every screen romance you’ve seen in the last 10 years look like a foolish game of charades.
In other words, “Remembrance” is the whole package. This is the rare film that’s epic in scale and reach, yet effortlessly capable of touching every viewer.
“Remembrance” receives its North American premiere Tuesday, Oct. 25 in the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival at the Castro Theatre, in a co-presentation with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the honorary consul of Poland. The film is preceded by Werner Biedermann’s seven-minute short “Laula,” an artful ode to his relatives who perished in the Holocaust.
“Remembrance” begins in a gray concentration camp in Poland in 1944, where German Jew Hannah Silberstein (Alice Dwyer) scrubs floors in the bakery and tries to be invisible. That’s the best survival strategy, she’s learned, and her mastery of it is a big reason she makes it through the war.
I’m not giving anything away, for we’re immediately, and jarringly, shown her comfortable life in Brooklyn. Now Hannah Levine (Dagmar Manzel), she’s picking up a tablecloth from her neighborhood cleaners for a party that night when she’s stunned to overhear a television interview with a middle-age Polish ex-partisan.
Her world thrown off its axis, Hannah spends the evening ricocheting between frantic action and distracted reverie, to her husband’s puzzlement and frustration.
Tomasz Limanowski, the gentle non-Jew Hannah glimpsed on TV, is the other reason she’s alive. He was a fellow prisoner and they were secret lovers — which may sound impossible but is presented in an utterly convincing manner. (Bribery, along with Nazi efficiency and fear, kept the camps running, apparently.)
A plan has been concocted to spring Tomasz from the camp with a roll of film exposing Nazi abuses. In an impulsive and breathtaking act of courage and devotion, he takes Hannah with him…
Dr. Guzlowski’s recent reading at St. Francis College is now available on YouTube.
Come see the latest award-winning Polish films and meet some of the people who made them at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.
All films screened at the Canisius College, Montante Cultural Center, 2011 Main St, Buffalo. “IRENA SENDLER: “In the Name of Their Mothers” will be shown in the Student Center on Hughes St. (off Main). All films have English subtitles and are subject to change. Admission is $5. Tickets available at the door. Admission to “IRENA SENDLER: “In the Name of Their Mothers” is free.
For more details on the films, please visit the Permanent Chair of Polish Culture’s events page.
Monday, November 7
7:00 IRENA SENDLER: “In the Name of Their Mothers” The latest documentary about the Polish Catholic women who saved Jewish children during WWII.
MEET THE DIRECTOR: Mary Skinner
Co-Sponsored with The Polish Legacy Project-WWII
Screened in the Student Center, Hughes St.
Thursday, November 10
7:00 WYGRANY – “The Winner” (Drama, 2011) The story of a young pianist. After losing everything, an accidental meeting with his former math teacher and avid horsetrack gambler helps him find his way in life. Dir. Wiesław Saniewski
Friday, November 11
7:00 ŚLUBY PANIENSKIE – “Maiden Vows” (Comedy, 2010)
Film adaptation of the early 19th century comedic play by Aleksander Fredro, still popular in Polish theatres.
Dir. Filip Bajon
Saturday, November 12
7:00 CZARNY CZWARTEK – “Black Thursday” (Drama, 2010) This film is dedicated to the workers’ strikes that swept over Polish coastal cities in December of 1970, only to be brutally crushed by communist authorities. The film focuses on the story of the family of one of the Gdynia shipyard workers.
Dir. Antoni Krauze
Sunday, November 13
3:00 MEET THE PRODUCER of LABYRINTH Fr. Ron Schmidt, S.J.
3:30 LABYRINTH (Documentary, 2010)
Memory, art and hell collide as an Auschwitz survivor finally confronts the horrors of his past after 50 years of silence. Unable to speak after a stroke, he draws the scenes he witnessed as one of the first prisoners of the camp.
4:00 JOANNA (Drama, 2010). WWII under Nazi rule. Gripping story about Joanna, a Polish woman to whom fate presents a split-second choice: whether to hide a young Jewish girl she finds sleeping in a church.
MEET THE DIRECTOR: Feliks Falk
Sunday’s events co-sponsored by: The Joseph J. Naples Conversations in Christ and Culture Lecture and Performance Series and The Polish Legacy Project-WWII
Free Parking across Main Street, Lyons Parking Lots #1, 2, and 4. For information contact the Canisius College Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at 716-888-2835.
California Experiences to be Discussed at Yale
By Raymond Rolak
New York — A celebration and conference will be at the Czeslaw Milosz archive at the Bienecke Library on the Yale campus November 4-5, in New Haven, CT. An exhibition will be on display thru December 17, 2011, titled Exile as Destiny: Czesław Miłosz and America. The manuscripts, documents, and photographs on display are lesser-known aspects of Milosz’s relationship with America. What will be especially analyzed will be the multifaceted relationships with his adopted home in California and fellow émigré authors. How he embraced and distained his translations with the English language will also be discussed.
An academic poetry conference at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles regarding the celebrated author just concluded.
Centennial and Poetry of Milosz Featured in N.Y.
An evening of remembrance and poetry will be held at Columbia University on Saturday, October 27, 2011 at 5:30 pm., in the Butler Library. It will be a celebration of the memorabilia and poems of Czeslaw Milosz.
He died in 2004 at the age of 93 and had previously been a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California-Berkley from 1961 to 1998.
Milosz gained recognition for his poetry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980. There will also be an exhibition of artifacts and letters opening at the Butler Library.
Controversy always followed him. He refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He defected to France in 1951 and immigrated to the United States in 1960.
A collection of his essays published as “To Begin Where I Am” and “The Captive Mind” in 1953 brought him great notoriety. The author will be honored with comments by Professor Helen Vendler of Harvard University. The event will coincide with other multilingual readings of his poetry by members of the Colombia University community. Also featured will be Colombia’s Alan Timberlake and Dr. Anna Frajlich, who will both do readings.
Readings Also in San Francisco
In California, another celebration will be hosted by the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation of San Francisco when they present A Celebration of Milosz on Saturday October 29, at 2:00 PM. at the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium. A panel of literary notables, friends and family will read some of his works representing his European experiences and influences.
Miłosz at Central Connecticut State University
A Miłosz event at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU): “Czesław Miłosz: A Poet of Both Nations.” Yale professor Tomas Venclova will present on Wednesday, November 9th at 7pm in Founders Hall, Davidson Bldg, CCSU, New Britain CT. Professor Venclova is one of the outstanding scholars of Slavic Studies in the world. He was a friend of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. Professor Venclova is an author of collections of poems, poetry-translations, essays, articles. His poetry has appeared in many languages. He is a recipient of numerous international poetry prizes including Valencia (Slovenia, 1990) and Qinghai (China, 2011), as well as of the Lithuanian National Prize (2000). The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in campus garages. For more information, please contact the CCSU Polish Studies Department at 860-832-3010, or via E-mail.
The S. A. Blejwas Endowed Chair of Polish and Polish American Studies at CCSU will also be presenting “The Magic Mountain: an American portrait of Czesław Miłosz” on Sunday, November 13th at 4pm in the CCSU Vance Academic Center, Room 105. Celebrating 100th anniversary of Czesław Milosz’s birth, Polish Studies Program presents a documentary about American years in the life of Polish poet and 1980 Nobel Prize winner. Milosz’s own reminiscences and remarks by his friends and students, some of them the most prominent 20th century American intellectuals, complete the portrait of nearly 40 years the poet spent in Berkley, California. This event is also free and the public is cordially invited. For more information, please contact the CCSU Polish Studies Department at 860-832-3010, or via E-mail.