January 29, 2013

(JTA) — The Jewish Community Center of Krakow has published a calendar featuring three generations of Polish-Jewish families.

The calendar, which was unveiled on Jan. 27 – International Holocaust Memorial Day, shows 12 photos of three individuals, each representing a generation. “The idea was to show how the continuity of the Jewish community has survived despite the Communist oppression and the Holocaust that preceded it,” said Jonathan Orenstein, the center’s New York-born executive director.

One of the families featured in the photos by Julia Pencakowska is that of Juliusz Handwerker, who at 90 is the center’s oldest active member, and who survived the Holocaust in Lviv. His son, Marek, and granddaughter, Joanna, also became active in the center, which was opened in 2008. This year is the third year that the center is releasing a calendar.

Other Eastern European communities also commemorated Jan. 27 – the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Russian soldiers – with celebrations of continuity. 

In Budapest, the foundation stone for a new synagogue was laid for the first time in over 80 years and in Ukraine, leaders of the Jewish community held a ceremony at the Holocaust museum section of a large Jewish center which opened in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk in October 2012.

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