ELIZABETH'S BLOG
A Great-Granddaughter's Legacy

Where’s Wednesday?

October 15, 2014 by

We left San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday evening (14 October) and arrived (via a plan change in Zurich, Switzerland) in Warsaw, Poland on Wednesday evening. With all the flying and 9 hour time difference, we’ve somehow lost Wednesday. Alas, that’s the story of international travel. This evening we’ve had a lovely dinner at a vegan restaurant on the same square as our AirBnB rental, and enjoyed a hard cider to go with the meal (the Poles are trying to find lots of creative uses for all the excess apples in Poland since Putin has refused their import into Russia). Then it was a walk along the streets of Stare Miasto – the old town of Warsaw that was rebuilt after the Second World War. We found a lovely bakery and enjoyed watching all the other people out for a pleasant evening stroll.  Tomorrow was to be an interview day, but there was a misunderstanding and so, it’s not to be. Instead, we now have plans to visit the Warsaw uprising museum and to meet with Slawomir Grunberg, the cameraman for the project in Poland!

Here are a few in-transit photos from the journey thus far…

 

 

Filed Under: Documentary Film, Poland trip - October 2014

Bon Voyage and onto Poland

October 14, 2014 by

Today is THE day, the day the Moshe Rynecki documentary film project, Chasing Portraits takes off for Poland! I am packed, I’ve got my dossier with interview questions, lists of the sites we are to visit, and the scenes we are supposed to film. I’ve done my homework and now I’m ready for the journey to begin.

Last night we had a send off dinner party at Lake Chalet, a modern Seafood Bar & Grill along Oakland’s Lake Merritt, to kick off this momentous day! We arrived just as the sun was setting. We had a chance to see the gondoliers ferrying passengers and crew teams practicing before it grew dark. But then as it went black outside, the lake’s sparkling necklace of lights came on to offer a charming view of the waterfront. We enjoyed it all from a lovely window table.

The evening started with toasts and ended with big hugs.

Filed Under: Documentary Film, Poland trip - October 2014

Maps

October 11, 2014 by

I was introduced to this map of Warsaw earlier this year.* The credit on the map reads, “Drawn by the Geographical Section, Polish General Staff. Photolithographed by the War Office 1944.” It is a map of Warsaw. I’ve tried to do a modern day zoom in on the map by taking progressively tighter photographs of the map at the left. The pink arrow marks the address of 24 Krucza Street – the building where my great-grandfather lived and painted and where the family art supply store existed in the interwar years. I will be standing there a week from today.

If you click on one of the maps, it will enlarge and you can see the details a bit better.

 

 

 

[Hat tip and a thank you to Dr. Waitman Beorn who introduced me to this map! I met Waitman in March 2014 when he kindly invited me to the University of Nebraska, Omaha to come speak both to his class and at the Kaneko.]

Filed Under: Documentary Film

Less than a Week Until Chasing Portraits Docfilm Project Lands in Warsaw

October 8, 2014 by
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The working dossier for the filming trip to Poland

Tuesday is the day the Chasing Portraits documentary film project leaves for Poland. I’m frequently asked how I feel about this impending journey. Honestly? I’m both incredibly excited and totally nervous. I am both very much looking forward to the trip and completely dreading it. Two weeks is a long time to be away from family and an incredibly short time to get all that I hope to get accomplished actually done. I have high hopes for the trip but am worried about some of the details coming together. I think there will be great discoveries and disappointments. I think I will meet wonderful, helpful, kind, and caring people and others who will put up roadblocks and make it difficult for me to meet my goals. I am trying to put on my “this is an adventure” hat and to take it all in stride. I am trying to figure out how to take my Americanized self into the land of my ancestors and to navigate my Elizabeth Rynecki identity in a place where people will be more comfortable calling me Elzbieta Rynecka. I am trying to head off on this journey with an open mind and heart. I am trying to focus on the fact that the journey is all about the art of my great-grandfather, his memory, and legacy.

Want to hear about the project while I’m in Poland? Don’t miss out on any exciting developments! I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes photos, stories, and updates here on my blog, as well as on the project’s Facebook page and Twitter feed.

 

In other news… Did you miss the October newsletter that went out in email yesterday? Get the next one by signing up with just your email address!

 

Filed Under: Documentary Film, Poland trip - October 2014

Poland Trip!

October 3, 2014 by

b_0_0_0_00_images_miniatury_plakatow_-_nwsl_moshe_rynecki_02_miniThe Chasing Portraits documentary film project is headed to Poland on the 14th of October! This two week working trip has a packed itinerary. It’s so busy I’ve decided there’s zero time for jet lag because I need to hit the ground running! There are 10+ interviews scheduled with curators, art historians, and private collectors, visits to view Moshe Rynecki paintings at several different museums, site visits in Warsaw (the path of remembrance and sites pertinent to the Rynecki family story), and side trips to the State Museum at Majdanek (Lublin), Kazimierz Dolny (art colony), and Krakow!

Please watch this space over the next few weeks for updates about the trip and filming progress. I promise brief posts with photos, updates, and insights about the trip. Remember, these are behind-the-scenes sorts of peeks at the project. When the documentary film editor goes into post production, not all these stories and footage will make it into the final film! You can also catch updates about the project on Facebook and Twitter.

I am also incredibly excited to announce that I will be speaking at the JCC in Krakow on Sunday October 26th at 17:00 (that’s 5pm!). If you know anyone in Krakow who might be interested in learning more about the art of Moshe Rynecki, my quest to find the lost art, and the documentary film project, please do let them know about the talk. It’s free and open to the public.

 

Filed Under: Documentary Film, Poland trip - October 2014

Perla

October 2, 2014 by

Moshe refused his son’s help to get him out of the Warsaw Ghetto. That decision meant he eventually was deported and that he perished in the Holocaust. The family believes he was murdered at Majdanek. Moshe’s wife, Perla, followed her son’s advice and got out of the ghetto. She survived the war. The two paragraphs below are from the memoir written by Moshe’s son, Jerzy (later Americanized to George). The two photographs are of Perla after the Second World War. The painting is a portrait Moshe made of Perla in in 1929.


The only package found by mother and a cousin, Sophie Binstock, was in Praga, across the river Vistula. They were looking for all the hidden parcels. The only one found was in a cellar in Praga. The people were away, and the paintings, all on paper or parchment, fairly small, were strewn on the basement floor in the cellar. Some damaged, some cut in half with scenes missing. They seemed to have gone through the same fate as the Jewish people—massacred and destroyed.

 

About 12–15 percent of Jews survived the Holocaust. So did my father’s paintings. One hundred and twenty were found out of a count of close to eight hundred works. He was very prolific. Always working, it seemed, day and night for all his life. Never erring, he was always assured of his own knowledge and artful direction. One in millions of his brothers, I understand he was painting and sketching constantly in the ghetto for four years. What a loss to the Jewish people, their history, and culture. The last four years of his life he spent in the Warsaw ghetto, against my advice and wish to save him. He was sent to Majdanek in July 1943, with this sentence said to me a few days before his transport, “I’ll go where my brothers and sisters go, and if it means death, so be it.” He was killed, of course, with the others, DIED = “BEKIDUSH HASHEM.” In sanctification of THE NAME. All his works in the ghetto were never found, most probably destroyed. – From Surviving Hitler in Poland: One Jew’s Story by George J. Rynecki

 

Photos of Perla from after the war. The painting is a portrait done by Moshe Rynecki in 1929

 

Filed Under: War Memories

My Visit to Eureka’s Temple Beth El

September 15, 2014 by

Several months ago I called Temple Beth El in Eureka, California. I told them about my project and explained I visit Eureka fairly often for business and suggested that perhaps we could coordinate so that on one of my visits I might share the Moshe Rynecki story and my quest for my great-grandfather’s lost art with their congregation. They seemed interested and a plan was put in motion to find a date for my visit.

photo 5I am not a member of Temple Beth El, but my call to the Temple was not exactly a cold call to the synagogue. I knew before I phoned that grandpa George (Moshe’s son) was involved in the formation of Beth El. What I did not understand when I made the call was that not only was grandpa George part of the Beth El community, but that he was once the President of the Jewish Community of Humboldt County in 1954 and that he was instrumental in the push for the community to establish a Temple in the city of Eureka.

The Temple is a lovely building and, interestingly, is just down the street from the home grandpa George built in the late 1950s-early 1960s. My father and I are certain grandpa found the land for the Temple as he took a stroll around the neighborhood or while on his drive into work. The property is that close to where the family lived. The property was purchased outright by the original founders and was built without a loan. This is thanks to grandpa George (he died in 1992) who insisted the building be built out of cash. Those who know and remember this detail fondly thank grandpa with the nickname, “no mortgage” George.

photo 3It turns out my family’s ties to the building itself and Temple Beth El are deeper than the purchase of the land and the building of the structure (which, it was pointed out to me yesterday, was done with the finest nails and which used redwood bearing no knots). The Temple’s first Torah was one that came as a survivor of the Holocaust from Czechoslovakia. And, in fact, my father retrieved this Torah from San Francisco airport when it arrived in the late 1960s and personally drove it north to deliver it. This photo shows Rabbi Naomi Steinberg speaking with my father, Alex Rynecki, about the Torah and how my father delivered it to Temple Beth El. There is also a framed certificate on the wall that tells the history of the Torah.

The building of the Temple and the delivery of the very special Torah to the congregation are very important and personally meaningful to me, but there was one other item at the Temple yesterday that really moved me and made me feel like the project had, in a way, come home. On the bimah is an electric menorah (which grandpa George commissioned to be created) and at the base of a menorah is a plaque which reads: “In Memory of Moshe Rynecki, Scholar, Artist, Martyr, killed during World War Second, together with Six Million of his brothers and sisters, IV [April] 1967.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Finding Moshe’s Art

September 12, 2014 by

The Times Standard of Eureka, California ran an article, Finding Moshe’s Art (PDF), about the upcoming Chasing Portraits talk at Temple Beth El.

Finding Moshe's Art

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Moshe Rynecki Project Hits the Airwaves on KHSU

September 9, 2014 by

Through the Eyes of Women is a radio show based out of KHSU in Arcata, California. Several weeks ago they interviewed me about Moshe Rynecki’s art and the Chasing Portraits documentary film project. The interview aired Monday 8 September 2014. Did you miss the show? No problem! The show, “Brenda Starr Welcomes Filmmaker & Archivist Elizabeth Rynecki Discussing The Quest For Her Great-Grandfather’s Lost Art Legacy From Holocaust Poland” is archived on their website.

Filed Under: In the News

j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California – the calendar!

August 25, 2014 by

A big THANK YOU to j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California for not only including my upcoming talk at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in their calendar, but making it their “j.pick.” The talk is Thursday 4 September at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum. The talk begins at 6pm. Please register online with the event sponsor, ArtTable.

Filed Under: In the News
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