STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A powerful new musical composition honoring Christian rescuers during the Holocaust will debut Sunday, Oct. 26, at 2:30 p.m. at Wagner College\u2019s Campus Hall Musical Performance Center, One Campus Road.<\/p>\n
The event, titled \u201cEthical Choices in the Holocaust: Music and Testimony,\u201d is hosted by the Wagner College Holocaust Center and will feature the premiere of \u201cPostcard from the Avenue of the Righteous,\u201d by Polish-American composer Jakub Polaczyk. <\/p>\n
The work is dedicated to Christian upstanders, including the family of Dr. Henryk Cioczek, who risked their lives to save Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland.<\/p>\n
Cioczek, an oncologist who now consults at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, will deliver a personal account of his Catholic family\u2019s wartime bravery \u2014 an act for which they were honored by Yad Vashem as \u201cRighteous Among the Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these times when Jewish allyship is particularly critical, we need to remember and retell when the strength of allies was not only important, but truly a matter of life and death,\u201d said Sadie Khodorkovsky, a member of the Wagner College Holocaust Center advisory board. <\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThat is why we continue to retell stories of the Holocaust, when empathy wasn\u2019t just critical to those they protected, but a testament to the sheer bravery of those heroes in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The program will open with remarks from Holocaust scholar Dr. Laura Morowitz, who will speak about the role of medical professionals in Holocaust rescue. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the vast majority of non-Jews remained indifferent or attempted to profit from the persecution, some courageous, compassionate Poles risked their own lives to save Jews,\u201d Morowitz said.<\/p>\n
Cioczek is the author of \u201cThe Polish Jerusalem: A History of Endurance,\u201d which chronicles the Jewish and Christian pre-war community in Lublin, Poland \u2014 located near the Majdanek death camp.<\/p>\n
Composer Jakub Polaczyk, who served as the 2023 artistic director of the International Chopin & Friends Festival in New York City, has received multiple awards from the Polish government. <\/p>\n
His new piece is a tribute to Cioczek\u2019s family and other righteous gentiles, as well as to the victims of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
Polaczyk\u2019s composition underscores a broader effort by the Wagner College Holocaust Center to educate and inspire. <\/p>\n
In November 2025, Professors Morowitz and Lori Weintrob will present their research on \u201cMusic, Violence, and the Holocaust\u201d at Auschwitz-Birkenau, continuing the Center\u2019s global work in Holocaust education.<\/p>\n
To attend the Oct. 26 event, guests are asked to email holocaust.center@wagner.edu<\/a> or pre-register here.<\/a><\/p>\n STATEN ISLAND\u2019 FIRST PERMANENT HOLOCAUST EXHIBIT <\/p>\n Since its founding in 2014, the Wagner College Holocaust Center has reached more than 30,000 students from third grade through college. It is affiliated with the Staten Island Hate Crimes Task Force and the Mayor\u2019s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes.<\/p>\n In the spring of 2022, the Wagner College Holocaust Center opened the Education and Action Gallery, Staten Island\u2019s first permanent Holocaust exhibition. <\/p>\n Located in the Union Building, the gallery offers an in-depth exploration of Holocaust history through information panels, timelines, maps, photographs, archival materials, and interactive displays. <\/p>\n Exhibits trace the events from life in pre-war Europe to contemporary genocides, with special sections honoring Staten Island survivors, highlighting the bravery of rescuers and resistors, and centering the often-overlooked experiences of women. <\/p>\n The gallery also houses a unique archival collection that includes original documents, passports, letters, posters, and artwork that bring individual stories of the Holocaust to life. <\/p>\n School group tours, from fifth grade through college, are available by appointment, and the gallery is open to the public during drop-in hours on the last Sunday of each month from noon to 2 p.m. For more information or to schedule a visit, contact holocaust.center@wagner.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A powerful new musical composition honoring Christian rescuers during the Holocaust will debut Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-6640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}