The temporary exhibition ‘A Sea of Fire Around Us’, the 11th Daffodils campaign in six cities, workshops with Loesje, outdoor artistic activities, a meeting with Martín Caparrós, academic conferences and numerous educational workshops are just some of the activities that the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is organising in 2023 as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

19 April 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. On the day of the outbreak of the Uprising, on Passover, there were 50,000 people in the ghetto. 

The 80th anniversary is a starting point for the Museum not only to commemorate those who died in the Warsaw Ghetto or to listen to the stories of survivors. The organisers want the 2023 programme to also allow us to take a critical look at history and finally to look at the present and into the future. 

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews wants to do this exactly as Marian Turski advised on 27 January 2020. At that time, he recalled the so-called 11th commandment – the message of his friend Roman Kent: “Do not be indifferent”.

Through an exhibition, a series of events, activities and publications, and the involvement of many people from the world of art or science, we will try to bring the 11th commandment into our everyday life – symbolically and practically. We are committed to being faithful to that commandment: “because if we don’t, we won’t even notice when ‘some kind of Auschwitz’ suddenly falls from the sky on us, as on our descendants”, emphasises the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The series of commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins this month. On Saturdays (4 and 18 February), the Museum is organising creative writing workshops with Loesje. They will be focused on the message “Don’t be indifferent”. The most inspiring slogans will become posters signed with Loesje’s name and will go viral in public spaces.

Adrian Andrzejewski