We invite you to watch an interview with Aviva Blum-Wachs – Israeli painter, co-author of the exhibition "And Yet Life", prepared together with the artist Wojciech Cieśniewski.
Aviva Blum-Wachs is the daughter of Abrasza Blum – one of the leaders of the Bund in the Warsaw Ghetto, a member of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB), and a participant in the Ghetto Uprising – and Luba Blum-Bielicka , the head of the Jewish Nursing School . The school operated in the ghetto at 1 Mariańska Street until the summer of 1942, and later at 6 Gęsia Street. Abrasza Blum was murdered by the Gestapo in May 1943 after leaving the ghetto; his wife and children escaped to the so-called Aryan side before the uprising began.
After the war, Luba Blum-Bielicka was the head of an orphanage in Otwock, and in 1949 she moved back to Warsaw, where she became the director of a nursing school. In 1950, Aviva moved to Israel, where she studied drawing and painting, also completing a course in artistic engraving. Today, she works primarily in the abstract genre, and her works have been exhibited numerous times in Poland, including Warsaw, Krakow, and Poznań.
Wojciech Cieśniewski is a painter and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He practices figurative painting, and in his paintings, he draws on the work of the greatest European masters. He also draws on historical themes, including his interest in the history of the Polish Jewish community. In August 2022, in conjunction with the 80th anniversary of the extermination of the Otwock Ghetto, Cieśniewski presented the exhibition "And Yet Life" in Otwock, consisting of portraits of the city's Jewish residents who were deported to the Treblinka concentration camp on August 19, 1943. Among the works on display was the painting "Spring of the Nation 1948," based on a photograph of three girls sitting on a bench in an orphanage in Otwock. One of these girls turned out to be Aviva Blum, whose mother was the director of an orphanage in Otwock. The Israeli painter learned about the painting from an online publication. This led to a meeting between the artists—representing two generations. Later, the idea of a joint exhibition was born.
The interview was conducted by Hanna Wróblewska, deputy director of MGW, and Masza Makarova from the Education Department of MGW with the participation of artist Wojciech Cieśniewski.
