He said the decision “contradicts” the legacy of the town’s famed “Września children,” who protested in the early 1900s for the right to speak Polish in class.
The October 26 vocal-instrumental concert was to honor Louis Lewandowski, a 19th-century composer of synagogue music born in Września (then Wreschen) in 1821. Performers were due to include Berlin’s Pestalozzistrasse Synagogue Choir, a youth choir from the Września Culture Center, and the county music school choir. The venue was the Parish Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Stanislaus.
The Children of Września Foundation, the organizer, said it called off the event after “numerous threats and announcements of disruption.” Artistic director Jakub Stefek blamed what he called an “hysterical, antisemitic campaign,” first spread on a far-right YouTube channel and then amplified by MEP Grzegorz Braun.
“We made this decision for the safety of performers and the audience,” the organizers wrote. They added that the “wave of hate and threats” clashed with Christian culture, and said critics wrongly linked Lewandowski and the concert with the historical Września children strike.
Archbishop Polak had granted the concert honorary patronage. In a letter to the foundation, he said he was surprised by the cancellation, and more so by its circumstances. He wrote that the protest campaign, triggered by “extreme circles,” relied on “lies and half-truths” and distorted Catholic teaching.
He noted that organizers had submitted the full program and obtained approval from the Archdiocesan Commission for Church Song and Music.
“The hymns, in text and melody, fully matched the character of the place,” he wrote. He added that the repertoire met the norms of the Holy See’s 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram and the 2017 instruction on church music by the Polish Bishops’ Conference.
The primate addressed two common accusations, the first of which was that Lewandowski was Jewish and wrote for synagogues. He pointed to the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra aetate, which encourages mutual respect between Christians and Jews and rejects antisemitism.
“A Christian should see in a person of the Mosaic faith a brother, not an enemy,” he wrote. Commenting on the second accusation, that some pieces would be sung in German, Polak said it was entirely reasonable to expect hearing a composer’s work in the original language.
He also rejected claims that such a program should be confined to a secular venue. “Hymns praising God can, and should, be performed in a church,” he wrote, noting that Września’s synagogue, where Lewandowski began his musical path, no longer exists because it was destroyed by German soldiers during the war.
Archbishop Polak tied the episode to the town’s history. The Września children strike of 1901 to 1904, a decade after the death of Louis Lewandowski, was a protest by Polish schoolchildren and parents against enforced Germanization, including a ban on using Polish in religion classes.
“The Children of Września stood for the right to live in true freedom,” he wrote. “For the right to speak as one wishes and to pray as one wishes. Forcing someone to cancel a concert denies that desire for freedom.”
He expressed hope the incident would remain isolated and would not derail cultural life in Września, which next year marks the 125th anniversary of the strike.
Prominent political scientist and economist Henryk Szlajfer also criticized the cancellation. In a statement, he said he was “astonished” that “Polish antisemites, including Grzegorz Braun,” had led to the decision, and he faulted authorities for what he described as a lack of support for the organizers.
Lewandowski, widely recognized for shaping synagogue liturgy, served as music director of Berlin’s New Synagogue from 1866. His works are considered masterful examples of liturgical music, and are considered central to synagogue service in Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jewish communities worldwide.
The canceled Września concert had aimed to bring his life and music back to his birthplace.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP