Historic Photo Exhibit Opens at PJCC

The opening reception and presentation for the Peninsula Jewish Community Center's new photo exhibit will be held today to officially reveal the collection of historical photographs of Polish Jews..

Entitled Jewish Witness to a Polish Century, the roughly 50 black and white photographs depict Polish Jews in various stages of life, including school pictures dating back to 1925, holiday snapshots, leisure pictures of family and friends, pictures at work and portraits.

The opening event will be held at the PJCC today at 7 p.m. and will include a presentation by Photographer Edward Serotta and a short film.

Rather than focus on the horrors of Holocaust, the show focuses on everyday life before, during and after the Holocaust. Given the large scope of the project, the current exhibition has been years in the works.

"The family photos and accompanying narratives that comprise the PJCC's portion of Jewish Witness to a Polish Century allows for the visitor to piece together a daily life and sense of community in pre-war Poland," said Kimberly Gordon, PJCC Cultural Arts Director. "I'm particularly fond of the section on "leisure" and like to imagine that perhaps my great-grandparents enjoyed many of the same pastimes depicted."

Centropa, a Jewish historical institute in Vienna started by American photographer and filmmaker Edward Serotta and historians Eszter Andor and Dora Sardi, spent eight years training young historians in 15 European nations on how to create a history project of a different kind. The result is a collection of over 20,000 pictures and stories from interviews of some of the oldest Jews conducted between 2001 through 2008 in Poland.

Historians spent seven years interviewing the participants about varied aspects of twentieth century life. The institute then digitized 1,600 privately held family snapshots that the interviewees provided. Each picture also has a story accompanying it.

San Jose-based software company Adobe has donated its software programs to preserve the oral and visual memories collected by Centropa. The pictures are currently also available in a searchable database on Centropa's web site.

The initiative and exhibition were funded by the Koret-Taube Initiative for Jewish Peoplehood  and the Jewish Community Endowment Fund.

There are other photos from the Centropa project on currently on display at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

"We feel fortunate to be partnering with the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco in collectively showing the complete collection of banners, and are in admiration of Edward Serotta his team at Centropa for the important work they have done collecting these first-hand anecdotes."

The exhibition will be at the PJCC in Foster City through Nov. 28 in the Art Gallery during PJCC operating hours. For more information, visit the PJCC's web site.