Teatr Polniański

"In Memory - Volhynia" is a performance told from the perspective of Stanisław, an elderly man who, as a seven-year-old boy, survived the tragedy of Volhynia. The starting point is a family album with old, yellowed photographs and a medal that its owner has kept since childhood. Stanisław's grandchildren accidentally discover the album, and their innocent questions open a world that was meant to remain closed. From successive photographs emerges ordinary life: a home, parents, sister Marysia, the smell of bread, fields, neighbors, and childhood dreams. Then fear appears, whispers of adults, night, fire, and events a child should not witness. Music, dance, image, and word guide the audience through a world that first pulses with life, then crumbles before the boy's eyes, only to return in memories years later. The performance is not solely a story about a crime. It speaks of memory passed down through generations, of humanity subjected to the harshest trial, of those who killed and of those who—risking their own lives—saved their neighbors. It does not avoid the truth, but does not lead toward hatred. It asks what to do with the memory of harm so it does not become another source of evil. Stanisław's story ceases to be the history of one family and becomes the voice of those who could not tell their own. The performance returns to these questions: - Can one forgive without forgetting? - Can memory heal rather than divide? - What do we owe to those who do not even have graves? The story begins with a grandchild's question: "Grandpa... why do you cry when you look at your childhood?"