100th anniversary of regaining independence by Poland is in Kielce connected with sad recollection. On November 11, 1918 the first pogrom took place in Kielce in which 4 Jews were killed and about 100 were injured. In order to commemorate this ambiguous anniversary at the Institute for the Culture of Encounter and Dialogue we organized a meeting comprising two parts.
First, our guests participated in a unique concert entitled ‘Space’ performed by Grzegorz Rogala, a graduate of the Berlin Jazz Institute and a scholar of the Berklee College of Music – trombonist, arranger, improviser and composer searching for new directions in music. During the concert, apart from jazz standards, the artist played traditional melodies from Poland and the world, jazz interpretations of early music and his own compositions.
The second part included a lecture on ‘Jews and Independence’ delivered by Jolanta Maria Żyndul, PhD, hab. – a Polish historian specializing in modern history of Polish Jews and Polish-Jewish relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is also the head of the Mordechaj Anielewicz Centre for Research and Teaching of the History and Culture of Jews in Poland, Institute of History of Warsaw University. In the lecture, she discussed Polish-Jewish relations during the partitions of Poland, the attitude of Jews from different partitions to the idea of the independent Polish state, the involvement of Jews in the war of 1918 and the formation of the Polish state after regaining independence.