Grodzka Gate Theater NN

Grodzka Gate Theater NN has worked for more than 25 years to uncover the memory of Lublin’s Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This was not their original plan, however. When they set out to restore a building to create a theater in the old ruins of a city gate, they discovered more about its past.

Grodzka Gate

Grodzka Gate, also known as the Jewish Gate, used to be a passage from the Christian to the Jewish part of the city. In the early 1990s theater founders did not know the history of Jews in Lublin. They did not know the enormous empty space on one side of the Gate was the Jewish Quarter –  the parking lot, grassy areas and new roads used to be houses, synagogues and streets. They did not know 43,000 Jews, a third of the city’s residents, were murdered during the Holocaust. 

After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, Lublin, along with other Polish cities, started to face their forgotten past. Today, the 30+ members of Grodzka Gate's team extensively researches and archives information about people and places in pre-war Lublin which led to the Lublin-Antwerp project. In addition, it serves as a cultural arts center dedicated to share the history of Lublin's Jews.

Former Jewish District

Jackie shared a link to information about a summer meeting hosted by Grodzka Gate Theater NN. The gathering was to take place in Lublin as part of the city’s 700th anniversary celebration with the hope of bringing together descendants of Lublin’s Jewish residents.

The reunion program was impressive. Five days of activities ranging from walking tours of Old Town to day trips to shtetels, the Renaissance city of Zamosc and Belzec death camp. There were concerts, films, scholars discussing Jewish studies in Lublin, genealogists and families sharing their stories. 

After Jon said we ought to go. I started making plans.