The exhibition presented at Oskar Schindler’s Emalia Factory, a place of living memory, immensely important to the history of Krakow during World War II, faces the difficult challenge of trying to show the war and occupation from the perspective of children who were no more than 11 years old when the war broke out on 1 September 1939.
The micro-stories of more than a dozen characters – who differ in terms of their cultural background, national affiliation, religion, social and economic status – form a broad landscape of personal experiences and behaviour of children of war. Most of the characters in the exhibition survived the war, but it left an indelible mark on them – they were marked for life by mental and physical suffering.
The exhibition is multi-threaded and based on a broad spectrum of text and graphic sources, from photographs, to drawings and accounts, to recorded audio and video memories created just after the war and later, in our times. We will also show – which is extremely valuable for a museum exhibition – artifacts belonging to the characters or artifacts from the period illustrating the fate of the characters. The archival materials and artifacts come from state archives and private collections from Poland, England and Israel.
The titles of the parts of the exhibition (and at the same time the topics covered) are: From playing to clandestine activities; Normal life; Home as a shelter, home as threat; On the Aryan side; Prisoners of camps; Deportees; and Traces of life and memory (the part dedicated to children who did not survive the war). The last part of the exhibition is called Children document and presents a shocking picture of the war and occupation based on children’s accounts and drawings.
The exhibition is accompanied by a rich educational programme, tailored for all age groups, including persons with special needs.
