“We are eternal trees…” The Polish Jews - history-tradition-culture

The main matter of the course is to present students the history and culture of Polish Jews with the special attention to the Jewish Lodz. During our classes students will read literature, watch movies, visit places and discuss the problems of coexistence of Poles and Jews in XIX and XX century in Poland, assimilation, anti-Semitism, Holocaust, emigration, memory trails. We will visit important places connected to the Jewish life, see museums (specially Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw) and following tracs of Jewish life before and after the II World War. We will also study wartime documents (diaries and testimonies witnessing everyday life during the war), post-war memories of survivors (specially the Lodz Ghetto survivors), traces of Holocaust and memory places but also the impact of history on the contemporary society.