The 7th annual ‘Singer’s Warsaw’ Jewish culture festival opens Saturday with a series of events dedicated to Poles – recipients of the Righteous among the Nations medals for helping Jews during World War II.
They include a meeting with Janina Zgrzembska, the daughter of the late Irena Sendler, who saved some 2,500 Jewish children from the Holocaust, as well as an exhibition of photo portraits of some of the Polish recipients of the medal.
On Sunday, a group of American and Israeli cantors will perform in the Nozyk Synagogue.
Highlights of the week-long festival include a symphonic concert in All Saints Church in tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and the Righteous among the Nations.
One of the main attractions is a screening of Yael Hersonski’s A Film Unfinished. The movie uses previously unseen footage taken by a Nazis film crew just before they liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.
In other events, Sinfonia Varsovia under the baton of American conductor John Axelrod, will perform Kaddish, a piece dedicated to the victims of the Jewish Ghetto in Lodz and penned by renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The Kaddish from Leonard Bernstein’s 3rd Symphony is also to be performed.
British violinist Nigel Kennedy is billed give an open-air concert with the Polish group Kroke. The programme also includes theatre performances, music workshops and art exhibitions.
The atmosphere of pre-war Warsaw, with its sizeable Jewish population, is to be reconstructed along Prozna Street, with Jewish cafés, shops and workshops.
The name of the festival, now in its seventh year, refers to the Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Singer (1902-91), who was born in Leoncin, near Warsaw. The festival lasts until 5 September.(mk/jb)
A full list of events can be found here (PDF).
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