Sharing JDC’s Story in Warsaw and Around the World

The two organizations have partnered before. A 2018 exhibition about a major antisemitic attack in 1968 included photographs of the Polish Jewish transmigrants we assisted in Vienna and Rome, and in 2019, the Archives co-sponsored a workshop at the museum exploring our role in helping the region’s Jewish communities survive the Cold War.

Additionally, to reach a global audience, JDC Archives and POLIN co-presented a webinar series in early 2025 that featured experts on various aspects of JDC’s 20th-century history in Poland centered on the topic of “American Jews Extending Their Hand to Brethren in Poland: The JDC in Poland, 1914-1950.”

“1945. Not the End, Not the Beginning” spotlights a seemingly simple photograph that shows boxes of humanitarian aid being transported to a Warsaw warehouse in 1946. This image, along with the accompanying description, tells the story of the nearly $7 million allocated by JDC that year alone — $115 million in today’s terms — to provide for Poland’s remaining Jews through cash assistance and support for hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages, homes for the elderly, and more.

“Working in partnership with public-facing institutions is one of the many ways that we draw from our rich collections to help people around the globe learn about both the seismic events affecting the Jewish people since 1914 and the impact of these events on individual lives in the context of the work of JDC,” said Abby Lester, the organization’s Director of Global Archives. “One photo, document, or object can simultaneously personalize history and shed light on a much wider story.”

Recently, the Archives has also collaborated with the Brandeis University Initiative on the Jews of the Americas, the Latin American Jewish Studies Association, the Jewish Museum of Greece, and the Jewish Book Council.

Another JDC item in the POLIN exhibition cut to the heart in capturing the postwar experience of many survivors. A cablegram sent on July 14, 1945, from Luba Mizne in Warsaw to JDC’s New York office contains a simple, powerful message: “I Live. Require Help.”

“Since JDC is not only one of the world’s most important institutions but also one of the longest-established, we felt that there would certainly be objects in its collection directly related to the story we were telling,” said Joanna Fikus, who heads POLIN’s exhibitions department. “Being a history museum, we already know that the personal stories of individual people speak most clearly to visitors. Thanks to the excellent cooperation with the Archives’ staff, we looked for objects to illustrate them.”

One example was a very special Chanukah menorah produced in a JDC ceramics workshop in 1947 by liberated Jews for use among displaced persons (DPs). Today very rare, 351 were assembled in Marktredwitz, Germany, between June 1947 and September 1948. The manufacturing of ritual objects equipped Jewish DPs with new job skills and a fresh sense of purpose, while also effectively furnishing survivors with the religious materials they needed to lead an active Jewish life.

“It is precisely such objects that make history come alive and evoke emotions,” Fikus said. “Let the best proof of this be the fact that this exhibition was already visited by nearly 50,000 people in the first four months since its opening.”