Warsaw, Poland

"I didn’t always known I was Jewish, I actually found out only ten years ago. I’m a photographer, and I was working at an event. I took a photo of Karina, the JDC director in Poland who I didn’t know at that time, together with a very well known person. The photo was very nice and I offered her to send it to her. She told me that where she works they are also holding events and they might need my services. In one of their events my mother came along. When Karina saw the number on her arm, she told me that she didn’t know that my mother and I are also Jewish. I told her we aren’t, and she told me that according to the number on her arm and the fact that my mother is Hungarian, we must be Jewish. I was very confused at that time, and I decided to confront my mother. I started asking her questions. At first she would try to resist, but slowly came out memories. She began to remember her childhood, and memories kept on coming up. She started to feel upset and angry about my dad, that already past away, keeping her past silent all these years. You see, my mother married a Polish man after the war, and they though at that time that it would be better this way. Being Jewish was always something you should hide, and so she did. Since that time, the Jewish community centre became an integral part of my life, and I started working exclusively with them. There are more and more stories similar to mine. These days I’m doing a project in which I take photos of different people from the Jewish community - with the short answer the question: "What does it mean to you to be Jewish in Poland?" . They will all be presented in an exhibition soon."