polski

 

AFTER JEDWABNE

2003. Video installation, sound, mirrors.

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4 videos displayed on two opposite walls; other perpendicular walls covered with large mirrors; 2 loudspeakers allow visitors to listen to the testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn (from the book by J-T. Gross Neighbors. The destruction of the jewish community in Jedwabne. Poland. Princeton University Press 2001. USA.). The videos show the faces of 75 people of different nationalities and generations while listening to this testimony.

 

"Here we watch ourselves, we must ask about our attitude regarding the genocide that Poles committed on Jews, listening to probably the most moving and frightening fragment of "Neighbors" by Jan Tomasz Gross - testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn about the events in Jedwabne. The voice of Andrzej Seweryn, who reads this fragment, breaks through the difficult to identify but irritating noise (the sound of the plane ?, the sound of engines?, The information noise?), But after a while we basically don't hear that noise anymore.

Reading the Wasersztajn report quite a long time ago, my imagination has created unbearable images. It is so strong that even after closing the book, these words and images keep coming back. They still hurt. And now this image has returned with multiplied strength."

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Iza Kowalczyk. "History as a simulation or history as a wound?" in Obieg. 27.03.2008.