Day dedicated to Mayer Kirshenblatt

Thursday, 23.04.2015: Day dedicated to Mayer Kirshenblatt ,,I consider myself a storehouse of memories." (Mayer Kirshenblatt) On Thursday morning our polish exchange students took us to a museum in Opatow, where all the delegations and teachers met. After a hearty address of welcome by the head of the museum, a short summary about the life of the painter “Mayer Kirshenblatt“ followed. Mayer Kirshenblatt was a Juw born in Opatow who emigrated to Canada in 1934 at the age of 17 before the Holocaust started. There he settled down, started a family and a new existence, so Canada became a new and true home. But the memories of his native town didn't get out of his mind. He used to tell his daughter about his childhood in Opatow, therefore she asked him to paint his memories. Although in the beginning he refused to paint, because he had never learnt it, as his daughter told us, he began to paint, inter alia because his wife kept on encouraging him. He was very surprised about the results, which was the reason for him to go on. So he preserved experiences of his childhood in Opatow in words and images. Because of his photographic memory his paintings were very faithful and as a result they became very famous as views of the “old“ Opatow. In the year 2007 he published together with his daughter Barbara Kirshenblatt Gimblet the book “They called me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood before the Holocaust“, which won the Canadian Jewish Book Award, the J.I. Segal Book Award and the American Association of University Presses (AAUP) award for book design. This book reports about the 40-year-long cooperation between him and his daughter. It does not only just provide a graphic about the old Opatow (you can't find any other pieces of art about it anymore), it also gives an overview of the history of the Jewish community in Opatow and Jewish culture. Due to this the pleasure was wide spread when he came back to Opatow together with his daughter and presented his paintings in an exhibition, which served also as a reflection of the “forgotten time“. The documentary film“Paint what you remember“, a report about the life of the painter, conveyed to all the participants a surprising image of an older, bright and humorous man, whose aim it was to put his memories on canvas until he couldn't do it anymore. The film shows important stages in Kirshenblatt's life, beginning with his emigration from Opatow and describing his new life in Canada up to his last visit in Opatow, which is the most important part of the film. As to this visit, the reactions of the town residents take center stage. These were all very postive, because the younger ones could visualize the „old Opatow“ and the residents who lived there even before the holocaust, remembered more and more details of their past. After watching the film we were given the chance to look at some of his paintings. Besides the headmaster also gave a short presentation about the specific backgrounds. Furthermore our group got a short guided tour through the museum of calligraphy, which is in the same building. Later we took a walk through the city with stopovers at the places we had seen in paintings by Mayer Kirshenblatt to discover the painted motives in their present state. There student were given the task to take pictures of the places Mayer had painted in order to compare the objects of paintings and their present state. Afterwards the delegations and the teachers met again at the museum where the excursion had begun. Now a figurative art workshop started which was abot painting a mandala. With the help of these mandalas the participants were to learn to imagine themselves in a situation in which an artist is at the beginning of his work, even better and additionally to express themselves without words, even the less gifted ones. All of the painted mandalas were glued together on a wall. Then another workshop began. Every student got a copy of a painting of M. Kirshenblatt and the task to find a present picture of places or buildings in Opatow which matches his copy of the painting of M.Kirshenblatt. Then everyone cut out the characters in the old painting and glued them on their modern picture in the right postion, so that in the end everyone got a new collage. These collages served to illustrate the connection of the “old“ and „new“ Opatow. The evaluation of this project day was very positive, the participants found the day very creative, inspiring and interesting.