Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN
This project was undertaken in cooperation with Ośrodek Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN (or the Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Centre), a municipal organization in Lublin, Poland whose core mission is to preserve the memory of the Jews of Lublin. Before the outbreak of World War II there were 43,000 Jews living in Lublin—among them many members of my family—and most of them were murdered during the war. My mother and many generations of my family were born in Lublin, but I had never felt a pull to travel there, so when I discovered Brama Grodzka in 2005 (when my mother Nechama Tec's memoir Dry Tears was translated into Polish and we traveled to Poland for the book tour) and learned about these amazing people who were preserving the memory of my family members, I was extremely moved. Since then I have gotten to know many of the over sixty non-Jewish Poles who work at Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN and have made educating people about them my mission. I created Bridge To Poland in order to shed light on the non-Jews in Poland doing this work of remembrance.
I am proud to be the American Ambassador to Brama Grodzka as well as their Special Projects Partner.
A number of the interviews I conducted were with members of the Brama Grodzka staff including Director Tomek Pietrasiewicz and Deputy Director Witek Dąbrowski. On this page you will find all the people who work at Brama Grodzka; you can also find them on their individual pages.
Photo courtesy of Archiwum Ośrodka "Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN" and Kurier Lubelski
Founder and Director
Tomek Pietrasiewicz is the founder and director of Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN. He is one of Poland's pioneers in Jewish remembrance. Art is a key element of the commemoration work…
Deputy Director
Witek Dąbrowski was one of the first rescuers of memory that I met when I first visited Poland in 2005 and he gave me and my parents a tour of Jewish Lublin.
Tadeusz, a historian and genealogist, has helped me find lots of Lublin ancestors and for that I am very grateful. In this interview he discusses the different types of people who come to him for genealogy help.
Teresa Klimowicz is one of several people I interviewed (along with Agata Radkowska and Krzysztof Banach) who are founding members of an organization called, "The Well of Memory" that works to preserve Jewish memory in Lublin.
Piotr Nazaruk describes himself as a Yiddish Enthusiast. He’s one of the few people at Brama Grodzka who has a working knowledge of Yiddish.
Agata is one of several people whom I spoke to who mentioned the late Robert Kuwalek—to whom this archive is dedicated—as an inspiration for her work in Jewish remembrance.
Emil Majuk is a cheerful and modest guy, who's always willing to lend a helping hand and almost always sees the positive in people. He is the founder of Shtetl Routes…
Joanna Zętar has worked at Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN almost since its beginning, lending her expertise as an art historian. She wrote a book called, "Lublin that No Longer Exists," which chronicles places that have disappeared from the cityscape.