JDC Archives Partners with POLIN Museum for Exhibit and Online Mini Course

The JDC Archives is honored to have loaned six archival works to the POLIN Museum in Warsaw for its new exhibit, “1945. Not the End, Not the Beginning,” running through September 2025. On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the exhibition illustrates the postwar reality of Polish Jewry as they tried to rebuild their lives.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, JDC allocated nearly $7 million to Poland in 1946 alone. These funds were instrumental in delivering cash assistance and essential relief supplies, while also financing hospitals, medical services, soup kitchens, orphanages, children’s homes, and homes for the elderly. Additionally, JDC supported schools, religious and cultural institutions, vocational training programs, and hachsharot (agricultural training for Palestine). It also established loan kassas and credit cooperatives and organized a tracing service to reunite survivors with their families.

Among the JDC Archives materials featured in the exhibit are:

• A ceramic Chanukah menorah, produced by displaced persons in the ceramic workshop of the Joint in Munich, Germany, ca. 1947. Artifact_00580 (pictured below);
• An incoming cable from Luba Mizne, Warsaw, to Samuel Finkelsztein, JDC New York with the sole message “I Live. Require Help.” on July 14, 1945. Artifact_00549;
• A photograph by John Vachon of Polish Jews who spent the war years in Asiatic Russia in the doorway of the train car that returned them to Poland, ca. 1946. NY_07674;
• A photo of boxes labeled “Joint” being transported to a warehouse in Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1946-1947. NY_11207 (pictured above);
• The cover of JDC’s 1948 Haggadah—published for Holocaust survivors—featuring an illustration of Moses leading the Jewish people into Israel. Artifact_00019 (pictured above);
• A map of DP operations in Germany, ca. 1945. Artifact_00455.

Accompanying the exhibit, the JDC Archives and POLIN hosted a four-part online mini course entitled “American Jews Extending Their Hand to Brethren in Poland: The JDC in Poland, 1914–1950,” which was held every Sunday in May. The hourlong sessions explored JDC’s relief efforts dedicated to the Polish territories during the years 1914 to 1950. During this time, the organization assessed the social, economic, and sanitary conditions of Jews on the Eastern Front, offering critical aid to those who had lost their homes and livelihoods. Throughout the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the early postwar years, the JDC remained steadfast in providing essential support to Jewish communities in Poland.

The topics and speakers were as follows:

• Sunday, May 4, 2025: War, Hunger and Pogroms: The JDC Serving Jews in Eastern Europe, 1917-1921, with Zachary Mazur (POLIN Museum/Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences).
• Sunday, May 11, 2025: Teaching Hygiene, Child Welfare, and Modern Motherhood: The JDC in Interwar Poland, with Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska (University of Warsaw).
• Sunday, May 18, 2025: The Activity of the JDC and New Research Perspectives on Jewish Life in Poland in the First Years after the Holocaust, with Kamil Kijek (University of Wroclaw).
• Sunday, May 25, 2025: The JDC in German-Occupied Poland, with Maria Ferenc (University of Wroclaw).

This is not the first time that the JDC Archives has partnered with POLIN. In 2018, the Museum hosted a temporary exhibit entitled “Estranged: March ’68 and its Aftermath,” which analyzed the root causes, chain of events, and consequences of this antisemitic campaign on its 50th anniversary. Many JDC archival photographs were showcased in this exhibit, with images depicting Polish Jews assisted by JDC in Vienna and Rome as they sought refuge in the West.

In August 2019, the JDC Archives cosponsored a workshop on “The Activities of the Joint in Poland and Neighboring Countries 1945-1989: Reality and Perceptions.” Held at POLIN, the program examined JDC’s role in supporting the survival of the region’s Jewish communities and its navigation of the political constraints of Eastern and Central Europe during the cold war.

Now, in 2025, the JDC Archives is thrilled to be part of POLIN’s newest exhibition. Through archival materials, personal testimonies, and contemporary art, “1945. Not the End, Not the Beginning” seeks to portray the dramatic choices of survivors following the war as they endeavored to rebuild their lives on the ruins of the old world. We invite you to visit this groundbreaking exhibition.