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November
19th, 2002 at 6:30 PM The
60th anniversary of the assassination of Bruno Schulz |
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BOOK
LAUNCHING
By
Henryk Grynberg
Penguin
Books
Regions of the
Great Heresy, Bruno Schulz: A Biographical
Portrait
By
Jerzy Ficowski
W.W.
Norton & Co.
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FILM,
WORLD PREMIERE
by Benjamin
Geissler
For Immediate
release
The
Center for Jewish History
15
West 16th Street, NYC 10011
Program information:
212-294-8314
Reservations: 917-606-8200
PROGRAM
& PANEL
The
Center for Jewish History dedicates
A
TRIBUTE TO BRUNO SCHULZ
Commemorating
the 60th anniversary of the death of Bruno Schulz,
the
renowned Polish/Jewish visionary author and painter who was killed in the
Holocaust.
NOVEMBER
19, 6:30 PM-10:30 PM
THE
CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY
Reservations:
917-606-8200 Program information: 212-294-8314
Presented
by: The Center for Jewish History, The Jewish Heritage Project, and YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research. In association with: Goethe-Institut
New York,
The Polish Cultural Institute, NY, The Institute for the Humanities at New York
University, PEN
American Center
PROGRAM
6:00
PM
– VIRTUAL EXHIBIT. The life and
visual work of Bruno Schulz with images from the archive of YIVO and the academy
of Literature in Warsaw, Poland.
6:15
PM –
VIDEO SCREENING "Street of
Crocodiles," an animation by the Quay Brothers.
7:00
PM
– READING, BOOK PRESENTATION,
ROUNDTABLE
Bruno
Schulz: His Life, Work, World and Afterlife
Host
and Moderator:
Alan Adelson. Mr. Adelson is the Executive Director of the Jewish Heritage
Project, sponsor of the International Initiative in the Literature of the
Holocaust.
Participants:
Henryk
Grynberg,
author, "Drohobycz,
Drohobycz" (Penguin Books). Henryk
Grynberg's writing has been acclaimed throughout Europe where he has been
short-listed three times for the Nike Award, Poland's highest literary
honor. His most acclaimed titles
include "The Children of Zion," "The Jewish War," and "Memorbuch."
Theodosia
Robertson,
editor and translator, "Regions of the
Great Heresy, Bruno Schulz: A Biographical Portrait" (W.W. Norton &
Co.)
Lawrence
Wechshler,
Lawrence
Weschler recently resigned after twenty years as a staff writer at the New
Yorker to become director of the NY Institute for the Humanities at NYU. His
reprotages from Poland have been collected in the anthology "The Passion of
Poland".
Readings
by film
and Broadway actress Elzbieta
Czyzewska
8:30
PM – FILM World
Premiere. "Finding
Pictures" by Benjamin Geissler. Mr. Geissler is the film maker who
discovered Bruno Schulz’s murals and followed their fate from the time of
discovery to their sudden disappearance from Drohobycz in one of the most
controversial museum acquisitions of recent years. A short talk with the
director, Benjamin Geissler will follow.
For Immediate
release
The
Center for Jewish History
15
West 16th Street, NYC 10011
Program information:
212-294-8314
Reservations: 917-606-8200
BOOK
LAUNCHING
Regions of the Great
Heresy
By
Jerzy Ficowski
Translated and Edited by
Theodosia Robertson
“Bruno
Schulz was one of the great writers…[his] verbal art strikes us – stuns, even –
with its overload of beauty.”
--
John Updike
In the years since his
tragic death in the streets of Drohobycz, the Polish town where he was Born,,
Bruno Schulz (1892 – 1942) has been the subject of intense curiosity and
speculation. Writers like Cynthia Ozick and Philip Roth have kept the interest
in Bruno Schulz alive through their portrayals of the inscrutable author. When
Israeli officials removed his artwork from Ukraine in 2001 and transported it to
Israel, Schulz became the subject of front-page controversy in newspapers around
the world.
Now,
exactly sixty years since his death, publication of REGIONS OF THE GREAT HERESY is a cause
for literary celebration. In it, the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, widely regarded
as the world’s foremost authority on Schulz, reconstructs the enigmatic life
story of this prodigiously gifted man.
REGIONS
OF THE GREAT HERESY
was first published in Polish, as a series of biographical portraits of Bruno
Schulz. This complete edition, translated and with a foreword by Theodosia
Robertson, is the first American edition of the book. Included are reproductions
of many of Schulz’s paintings and personal letters, provided by the Schulz
estate. The book also presents information on the fate of the missing novel Messiah.
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Born
in 1892 in the small Polish town of Drohobycz, in which he would spend
most of his life, Schulz earned his keep teaching art to young students.
His short stories and is darkly erotic were first sent out only to his
close friends. His talent, however, was soon recognized and his writings
began circulating in Polish literary circles and were eventually
published, to international acclaim. In his story collections, The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the
Hourglass Schulz employs a baroque poetic style with a stunning,
surrealistic edge, portraying a world torn between the traditions of the
shtetl and the harsh realities
imposed by modern society. As his fame grew, Schulz struggled to write The Messiah, the novel that was to be his
masterwork. The tragic
disappearance of this, his final work, which Ficowski discusses in REGIONS OF THE GREAT HERESY in
considerable detail has seized the literary imagination of a generation of
writers and is still the subject of intense speculation
and. |
Schulz, however, did
not live to complete his work. The Nazis occupied Poland in the fall of 1939.
Schulz was first placed under the protection of a Nazi officer who obliged him
to paint fairy tale figures on the walls of his son’s bedroom. Caught in an
escalating feud between his protector and another Nazi official, Schulz was shot
on November 19th 1942.
With
unique insight, REGIONS OF THE GREAT
HERESY examines Schulz’s
extraordinary life and imaginative world. Jerzy Ficowski’s book is a work of
invaluable literary heritage.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Jerzy
Ficowski is
one of Poland’s leading poets, essayists, and translators. Renowned for his work
in resurrecting the works of Bruno Schulz, Ficowski is also the author of one of
the most distinguished histories of the gypsies of Eastern Europe. He lives in
Warsaw.
Theodosia
Robertson is
a scholar of Slavic languages and literature who has specialized in Polish
literature and culture. She teaches
at the University of Michigan at Flint.
Regions of the Great Heresy
was developed for publication by the Jewish Heritage Project’s International
Initiative in the Literature of the Holocaust.
For Immediate
release
The
Center for Jewish History
15
West 16th Street, NYC 10011
Program information:
212-294-8314
Reservations: 917-606-8200
BOOK
LAUNCHING
Drohobycz,
Drohobycz
And
Other Stories
True
Tales from the Holocaust and Life After
By
Henryk Grynberg
“An
attempt to bring to life innumerable Jewish existences lost in the Shoah.
The passion of the author deserves a
large readership in many languages and
countries.” — Czeslaw Milosz
“Grynberg
is one of the most articulate witnesses to the Holocaust. His writings
convey to today’s audience the meaning
of these exceptionally dark times as few
other documents and literary works have
managed to do.”
—
Jan T. Gross, author of Neighbors: The
Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, A Finalist for the
National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle
Award.
“With
every new book Grynberg confirms his original and powerful
literary
talent… I am truly and profoundly convinced that
the publishing of Drohobycz,
Drohobycz in the U.S. will be a major
literary event.”
—
Ryszard Kapúsciñski, author of The Shadow
of the Sun
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For
Jewish History month this year, Penguin is proud to publish thirteen
stories from preeminent Polish writer, Henryk Grynberg. In DROHOBYCZ, DROHOBYCZ AND OTHER
STORIES: True Tales from the Holocaust and Life After (Penguin Paperback Original)
Grynberg weaves haunting, authentic tales of the Holocaust, including
the riveting title story, which reconstructs the assassination of the
celebrated writer and artist Bruno Schulz. In each of these stories, it is
not only the devastation of the Holocaust that resonates so clearly, but
also the trauma that endures among its victims and survivors today. Going beyond individual crime and
punishment, Grynberg explores collective guilt and the impunity of the
twentieth century’s two most genocidal political systems—Nazi Germany and
Stalinist Soviet Union—in a profound investigation of bravery, baseness,
and vulnerability. |
DROHOBYCZ,
DROHOBYCZ
was
shortlisted for the NIKE Award,
Poland’s Highest literary prize
November
19, 2002
will
mark the 60th Anniversary of the assassination of Bruno
Schulz
DROHOBYCZ,
DROHOBYCZ was developed for publications by the Jewish Heritage Project’s International Initiative in Literature
of the Holocaust
About
the Author:
Henryk
Grynberg is the author of twenty-five works of fiction, poetry, essays, and
drama, and has been the recipient of many Polish literary prizes. After
surviving the Holocaust, he sought refuge in the United States because of
Poland’s anti-Semitic campaign and censorship of his writing. He lives in
McLean, Virginia.
For Immediate
release
The
Center for Jewish History
15
West 16th Street, NYC 10011
Program information:
212-294-8314
Reservations: 917-606-8200
FILM
Bilder finden – Finding
Pictures
(Germany,
2002, 106 min. color, 35 mm , stereo)
a
film by Benjamin Geissler
Synopsis
“Poetry
happens when short circuits of sense occur between words”—Bruno
Schulz
Bruno
Schulz, the world-renowned writer and painter and a Polish Jew, experienced the
terror of German occupation in the Galician city of Drohobycz in 1941-42. He
initially survived by painting frescoes for the children of the SS officer Felix
Landau, on the walls of the villa they had occupied.
Bruno
Schulz was shot and killed by the SS on November, 19, 1942. Despite an intensive
search after WWII, his frescoes were not found until February 9, 2001 when, the
documentary filmmaker Benjamin Geissler discovered the long lost pictures. In
May 2001 representatives of the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem removed fragments of
these murals from Ukraine, sparking an international controversy.
The
search for the murals, their discovery, and local reactions to their removal
have been meticulously documented on film by Benjamin Geissler. In his film
Geissler has also recorded some new testimonies about Bruno Schulz and his last
days.
“Geissler’s
documentary enables viewers to follow the filmmaker through a process of
discovery and loss. That controversy continues to swirl around the work of Bruno
Schulz is no surprise. His fictional vision as well as his very life were
embedded in issues which continue to resonate in a world now all too close to
Schulz’s most fearful visions.”—Alan Adelson.
ABOUT
THE DIRECTOR:
Benjamin Geissler
was born in 1964 in Germany. He began his career as a film and documentary
editor working on films of
the caliber of "Broadway Bound" by Neil Simon, "Simple Men" by Hal Hartley, "Bad
Lieutenant" by Abel Ferrara. Geissler went on to produce his own documentaries
and specializing in long-term research projects. His works include "Vincenzo
Floridia or the last Rose of Noto"
(1994), "Time Warp" (1997), and “Finding Pictures” (2002). Geissler lives and
works in Hamburg.
A Benjamin
Geissler Filmproduktion
with financial support
by
Filmförderung
Hamburg
kulturelle Filmförderungdes
Bundes (BKM)
Mitteldeutsche
Medienförderung
kulturelle Filmförderungdes
Mecklenburg – Vorpommern.
In co-operation with arte /
mdr