Fragments & Memories: A Re-Imagining of the Czestochowa Synagogue

The Melbourne Holocaust Museum invites you to a lecture by Dr Anna Hirsh, Manager of Collections and Research.

How can Jewish cultural and religious heritage and life before the Holocaust be understood now, after so much was destroyed?

The MHM’s new permanent exhibition, Everybody had a Name features an artistic reimagining of Perec Willenberg’s elaborate ceiling mural from the Old Czestochowa Synagogue.

Dr Anna Hirsh, MHM’s Manager of Collections & Research, created a reconstruction of the elaborate mural guided by a handful of photographs of the ceiling, Willenberg’s surviving artworks, and other historical and artistic references.

As part of the museum’s Czestochowa Room, this recreation is a tribute to the beauty and meaning of Europe’s destroyed synagogues, inspiring a visual understanding of pre-war Jewish religion and culture to Australian audiences. In this lecture, Anna will describe the design processes of the recreation, and explore the symbolic imagery embedded in Willenberg’s intricate artwork. Merging the historical, religious and artistic, the ceiling project encapsulates the role of art and heritage in the preservation of memory and Jewish culture. Mark Ashkanasy, eminent art and architectural photographer and digital artist, will join Anna to describe his contributions to this ceiling project: photographing the work, and his methodologies and philosophies of the digital post production in preparation for its installation. 

With an introduction on the Czestochowa Room by Dr Breann Fallon.