Lecture in New York – Fundacja Brama Cukermana

You are invited to join us for a special meeting with Karolina and Piotr Jakoweńko, dedicated Polish researchers, educators, and guardians of Polish Jewish heritage. The event will focus on their latest historical project: the Będzin Ghetto Fighters House.

Wednesday, October 22 at 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College
1 W 4th St, New York, NY 10012

Registration required, please write to
bartek.remisko@instytutpolski.pl to RSVP

The meeting will be chaired by Menachem Z. Rosensaft — general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School.

In 1943, the Będzin Ghetto Fighters House was the home of the Jewish Combat Organization, Zionist Youth groups, and a center of resistance in the Będzin Ghetto. Because of Karolina and Piotr’s efforts, this critical site of Jewish memory has become a Living Memorial to Jewish rural resistance and a vibrant Educational Center, with well over 10,000 student visits projected for 2025. Common knowledge about Jewish underground resistance during the Holocaust is limited to the history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In their applied research, Karolina and Piotr focus on less well-known narratives of Jewish struggle in rural Poland. Their pioneering research explores themes of resilience, inspiring stories of armed resistance by youth, often young women, fighting and living in the Ghetto. These fighters were ready to resist deportation against all odds. Despite modest weaponry, they fought the Nazis by armed fire, building bunkers, organizing escapes, and aiding the Jews of Bedzin. Karolina and Piotr will talk about the multifaceted significance that this remarkable story can have in the contemporary struggle against anti-Semitism, engaging and inspiring different voices: from local Polish audiences to young Israelis and Jews around the world.

Karolina and Piotr Jakoweńko co-founded the Brama Cukermana Foundation in 2008 in Będzin (Poland), where they discovered and renovated a shtiebel (Jewish prayer house), opening it for visits. Their work, continuous for 16 years, includes historical research, collecting survivor and local non-Jewish Polish testimonies, organizing Holocaust Commemoration activities, and publishing books and educational programing. Their work has been recognized by The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage; The Embassy of Israel; The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw; The Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow; The Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN; and B’nai B’rith International. They received The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Medal in 2024.

The event is co-organized with the Polish Cultural Institute New York.

fot. Jola Staszczyk