Print shop employees are shown in front of political, movie and theater posters they produced in the 1930s in Luboml, Poland. At right, a synagogue and prayer houses are shown from the same period in Luboml. The photo exhibit "Remembering Luboml: Images of a Jewish Community" is on display at the Institute of Texan Cultures through Feb. 24.
ITC features photos of town eradicated by Holocaust
(Jan. 14, 2002)--The Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) invites you to experience a world that no longer exists through "Remembering Luboml: Images of a Jewish Community." The photographic exhibit will be on display in the ITC Photo Gallery through Feb. 24. The exhibit, a photo essay of archival prints, offers a poignant glimpse of daily life in a shtetl (market town) that is representative of many others destroyed in World War II. The exhibit re-creates life between the wars in the Polish village of Luboml.
The Jewish community of Luboml, dating to the fourteenth century, was one of the oldest in Poland. By the 1930s Luboml had a vibrant community of at least 4,000 Jews. The interwar years were a period of astonishing cultural ferment and change in this shtetl. While the family and traditional religious institutions continued to play a central role, they were joined, and sometimes challenged, by modern intellectual attitudes and styles of dress. Jewish life in Luboml came to an abrupt end in October 1942 when the Germans murdered almost all of the town's Jews.
Only 51 of the Jews inhabiting the town survived the Holocaust. The people of Luboml were forced to obey a curfew, wear white armbands with blue Stars of David and were ordered to report for forced labor, under penalty of death. The Germans periodically assembled groups of 300 to 400 Jews and massacred them.
Finally, on October 1, 1942, the Germans, assisted by the Ukrainian police, rounded up Luboml's Jews, marched them out of town, lined them up by open pits and shot them. An estimated 8,000 Jews from Luboml and the surrounding area were killed.
Aaron Ziegelman, a New York businessman, immigrated in 1939 at the age of ten with his family to the United States from Luboml. His effort to find out more about a way of life lost in the Holocaust led him through more than two years of research which uncovered nearly 2,000 photographs and a list of survivors, resulting in the current exhibit.
ITC, one of the three campuses of the University of Texas at San Antonio, is an educational center concerned with the history and diverse cultures of Texas. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ITC is located in downtown San Antonio.
Admission is free for UTSA students and employees with a UTSA card. For the general public, the cost is $5 for adults, $2 for children (3-12), $3 for seniors (65+) and military (with I.D.), and free for children 2 and under.
For more information call (210) 458-2300 or visit the Institute of Texan Cultures Web site.
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