ACFNY RECOMMENDS | EXHIBITION OPENING & TALK | Images of a Lost World: Pictures & Stories of Balkan Sephardic Life
This exhibition is based on the family stories and pictures pulled from Centropa’s archive of more than 200 interviews conducted in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Croatia. The pictures and stories take us back into the world of Balkan Sephardic Jewry in its last decades, and through these personal stories of going to school, falling in love and recalling family holidays, Jewish history comes to life. A program follows, moderated by Edward Serotta, Director of Centropa.
6:30 to 7:15 PM
Exhibition in the Constantiner Gallery
7:15 PM
Program: Edward Serotta, Centropa’s director, will speak on using new technologies to preserve Jewish memory
Seventy years ago this spring, Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, then set about destroying the Jewish communities that had been in this region since the expulsion from Spain in 1492 (in some cases, even longer).
Between 2001 and 2008, Centropa interviewed 200 elderly Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey and Greece. Rather than use video in its interviews, Centropa digitized 4,000 family photographs. Rather than concentrating on how Jews were murdered during the Shoah, Centropa’s interviews are much more about how Jews lived–before, during and after the Shoah. This exhibition is comprised of pictures and stories from these interviews. All texts in this exhibition are in both English and Spanish.
Centropa’s founder, Edward Serotta, will give a talk on how his institute has preserved Sephardic Balkan Jewish memory. We will also view Centropa’s multi-media films, now being used in schools (and in adult education classes) in the US, Israel, Germany, Austria and other countries. www.centropa.org
Edward Serotta was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1949 and has lived in Budapest, Berlin and Vienna since 1988. He is the author of three books and three documentary films on Jews in Central & Eastern Europe.
For more information, please visit the YIVO Website.
VENUE
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Tel 212-246-6080
$10 General Admission/$5 for ASF & YIVO members.
RSVP requested: 212.294.8350 x0 or
info@americansephardifederation.org