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Fred Iltis - 100 - South and North of the Border

Fred Iltis - 100 - South and North of the Border Opening of the photography exhibition Fred Iltis (1923 Brno - 2008 San Jose) was born Willfried Gregor, the first-born son of botanist and mendeologist Hugo Iltis and his wife Anni. He entered the adult world prematurely. At the age of fifteen, he experienced the forced departure of his family to the United States in the face of the threat of Nazi persecution. He spent two and a half years serving in the army in the South Pacific. After the war, he earned a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, where he settled and taught in the biology department in San Jose. His own life's journey shaped him into a man very sensitive to minority issues, acts of injustice, and the devastation of nature. He began documenting the activities of the civil rights movement through black and white photographs. He took dozens of pictures of student protests against the war in Vietnam or of farm workers of Mexican origin for better working conditions. Fred Iltis could be funny and kind. As time went on, he simultaneously grew more pessimistic, reflecting the experiences that marked him, and a certain bitterness at the way the enthusiasm, dreams and illusions born in the 1960s were fading from society. He developed, printed and carefully archived his photographs himself at home. With a modesty all his own, he rejected his friends' proposals to display them. It was not until 2008 that he gave his consent for the exhibition Fred Iltis - South and North of the Border, which unfortunately did not live to see its opening in Milan. Symbolically, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, we present the photographic work of Fred Iltis in his hometown, where he wished to return once more. The exhibition closes on 21 December 2023.

CNFB SUPPORT

CNFB SUPPORT The Czech-German Future Fund is one of the important supporters of our activities and a major partner since 2021. We appreciate this support!

David Placzek - Memoirs (book launch)

David Placzek - Memoirs (book launch) David Placzek's niece, Rachel Alon, will come to the Czech launch of the book, which she helped to get published in English in Israel (2016) and which is now being published as the first title in the Mehrin edition. David Placzek - the son of Jewish pioneers in Palestine - finished writing his memoirs in 2004 in Melbourne, Australia. He and his brother Joseph were among the children who left for England in June 1939; they never saw their parents or grandparents again. Rachel Alon summed up the contents of the book most succinctly: 'This is the story of David Placzek, the eldest son of Jewish idealistic pioneers in Palestine - a German mother and a Czech father. Here, in rich and unique language, David describes what his daily life was like and how he survived the Holocaust far from his homeland and home. He interweaves his personal history with the history of the world, a memoir that contains both first-hand impressions and historical facts. It is a testament to the goodness and evil of humanity, to its terrifying capacity to create or destroy. It is a story that shows how simple decisions, whether rash or rational, ruthlessly determine the course of human life..." The entire evening is highlighted by the Café Kaprál Residence, which is intertwined with Jewish history...

Opening of the exhibition Traces of Light by Werner Mally

Opening of the exhibition Traces of Light by Werner Mally Werner Mally, who was born in 1955 in Karlovy Vary to Czech parents, has lived in Germany since 1966, where he has been a renowned artist for many years. The sculptor, visual artist and author of numerous public space projects will present his metal sculpture Restlicht, which will be on display at Svobody Square for the duration of the festival, to the Brno audience as part of the Meeting Brno festival, inspired by the book by Werner's Jewish grandfather, Hunger March. At the same time, Werner Mally will have an exhibition of his sculptures, paper cut-outs and also models of several public installations, including Restlicht, at the Maly Mehrin on 14 Vienna Street. The exhibition will run until mid-September (the museum will be closed from 15 July to 13 August) and you can see, among other things, a very interesting 15-minute documentary on how this chupa (חופה) with the years "tattooed" into the metal roof was created.

Milan Kundera and the Jews; lectures and discussion by PhDr. Mojmír Jeřábek and PhDr. Milan Uhde

Milan Kundera and the Jews; lectures and discussion by PhDr. Mojmír Jeřábek and PhDr. Milan Uhde The writer Milan Kundera, who grew up in the cultural "tripolis" of Brno, never made any secret of his love and admiration for Jewish artists. Mojmír Jeřábek, one of Kundera's close circle of friends in Brno, believes that Kundera's boyhood encounter with the composer Pavel Haas played a significant role in this regard. Kundera came from a musical family, so it is not surprising that he often liked to write about music. His essay on one of the greats of modern classical music, Arnold Schönberg, is brilliant - and it will also be one of the main topics of our evening. But there will also be a discussion of Kundera's relationship with Franz Kafka, and another of his old friends, the playwright Milan Uhde, will discuss Kundera's famous Jerusalem speech. Photo Guest

The one who didn't know whether he wanted to be a priest or a husband

The one who did not know whether he wanted to be a priest or a husband Accept our invitation to an evening with a rare and distinctive guest, Jan Špilar, a well-known Brno hairdresser and clergyman. As a trained hairdresser, at the age of 18 he got a job as a make-up artist at the National Theatre and from there to make-up the actors in Forman's Oscar-winning film Amadeus. He was awarded a gold medal for starting the Czech section of Haute Couture Francaise. For thirty years he has been running the successful hairdressing salon Střihoruký Edward. He has also come a long way in his quest to become a priest. It culminated in his ordination as a deacon in the Diocese of Brno, where he prepares fiancés for marriage and provides spiritual support to families. He is one of the people who enter into the lives of many people and in his unique way brings God into the public space, even over the hairdresser's chair. May's discussion will also touch on the topic of the Jewish roots of the Shpilar family on Dad's side or the story of the Kytlic family, relatives on Mom's side who were honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations for their selfless assistance and protection of the persecuted during the Holocaust. The book that did not disappoint, Kadas Mana, will be available for purchase at the event. Five Conversations About God Outside the Church, published last year by Cesta. One of the interviews is conducted with Jan Spilar. The evening will be live streamed on Little Mehrin's FB.

Rabbi Feder and his approach to living in trauma

Rabbi Feder and his approach to living in trauma The May commemoration of the end of the Second World War can be understood in different ways. We are very happy that PhDr. Zuzana Peterová accepted our invitation. She is personally and professionally close to the topic of the return of survivors and the transmission of their trauma to the next generation, as her family lost around sixty members during the Holocaust. She works as a psychotherapist at the Prague Jewish community and is the author of a number of books, including one on Rabbi Richard Feder. The name of Dr. Richard Feder is inseparably linked with Brno. He was born at the end of the 19th century and lived to the venerable age of 95. There are still those among us who remember his educated and kind personality. At the age of sixty he was assigned with his entire family to the transport to Terezín. Even there, as a rabbi, he tried to maintain a religious life in difficult conditions, contracting marriages and supporting his surroundings with his wisdom. His wife perished in Terezín, his sons and daughter, together with their families, were murdered in Auschwitz. He was the only one of his extended family to live to see the liberation. In 1953 he was elected regional rabbi of the Moravian-Silesian religious communities and moved to Brno. He remained there after 1961, when he became the regional rabbi. From the stories of those who met him, we know that he never outwardly succumbed to his grief. It was he who visited the families of the survivors and gave comfort and hope in conversations. He died in 1970 and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Brno.

I'll bring Grandma home...

I'll bring my grandmother home... Friday, April 14, 6 p.m., Malý Mehrin Museum, 14 Vídeňská Street I'll bring my grandmother home... Ann Altman wrote to us unexpectedly this February. She talked about the portrait of her grandmother Anna Wotzilka, after whom she was named Ann, and her plan to dedicate the painting to the future exhibition of the Mehrin - the Moravian Jewish Museum. She married Emil Löwy from Slavonice, who ran a mill in Znojmo. In Brno, the couple built two houses on Botanická Street, where they moved with their two children in the autumn of 1938 after the Nazis occupied Znojmo. They find a way for their daughter Isyna to escape to Britain, but not for themselves.An extraordinary lady, Ann Altman, granddaughter of the Löwy and Körner families, wife of Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Sidney Altman, successful scientist in the field of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, awarded for her long-standing support for the development of democratic processes in Mongolia, will guide us through the story of her Moravian family, which passes through Brno and Znojmo.The debate will be simultaneously interpreted into Czech. The stream of the programme can be watched on the Little Mehrin FB, and the recording will be available on the YouTube portal ofMehrin.

Yom ha Shoah - Public reading of the names of Holocaust victims.

Yom ha Shoah - Public reading of the names of Holocaust victims Tuesday, 18 April at 14.00, Náměšt' nad Oslavou Square Organised by the Municipal Cultural Centre in Náměšt' nad Oslavou in cooperation with the Terezín Initiative Institute and Malý Mehrin. The accompanying event will be a lecture by the historian of the Jewish Museum in Prague, PhDr. JanaŠplíchalová, entitled Where did they go?, which will focus on the position of Jews during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the organisation of transports, the subsequent extermination process, with reference to specific persons from Náměšt' nad Oslavou and the surrounding area. The lecture will take place in the local Sokol Hall from 5 pm.

Warsaw: A divided city

Warsaw: A City Divided Wednesday 19 April 2023 at 8 pm, ART Cinema, Cihlářská 19, Brno During World War II, occupied Warsaw was divided by a wall - a Jewish ghetto grew up there, where not only Jews from Warsaw but also from other parts of Poland and Germany were forcibly relocated. Conditions were inhumane, and in 1942 regular deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp began. Some of the ghetto inhabitants decided to make a desperate and heroic gesture - to die in battle. On 19 April 1943, exactly eighty years ago, the uprising broke out. It was brutally suppressed by the German soldiers and the ghetto was razed to the ground. Warsaw was to become a model Nazi city, and German architects were working on plans for a massive rebuilding. Canadian filmmaker and historian with Polish roots, Eric Bednarski, discovered by happy accident a unique documentary - amateur footage from the ghetto, shot by a young Polish man who risked his life in the process. Apart from the Nazi propaganda films, this is the only surviving material depicting the daily life of the ghetto's inhabitants.Bednarski became interested in the wartime fate of Warsaw and decided to map it. In addition to the unique archival footage, his film also features survivors, as well as architects and urban activists. We follow the destruction of the city as well as its post-war reconstruction and the efforts to embody the memory of the vanished Polish-Jewish metropolis in its streets, not only in the form of monuments and museums.Directed by Eric Bednarski, 2019, 71 minutes, Polish with Czech and English subtitles.The discussion after the film will be attended by Martin Reiner from Mehrin - Moravian Jewish Museum and Lucie Zakopalová from the Polish Institute in Prague.The screening is co-organized by Kino Art, the Polish Institute in Prague and Malý Mehrin as part of the Days of Polish Culture in Brno: https://dpk.brno.cz/