Marek Szwarc - Eugenia Markowa. Spaces of Community Museum of the history of Polish Jews

In his early 20s, Marek Szwarc told his wife Gina: "We have our whole life ahead of us to search". (E. Markowa, "Choice", Warsaw 2015, p. 99). Their life together turned out to be a choice of their path of faith, not an easy one as it required a departure from Judaism, as well as a search for a separate path in art, their language of artistic and literary creation. Baptism was a profound religious experience for the artist; Catholicism, which he accepted with his wife in 1920, remained the essential spiritual source for the artist, who defined himself as a Jew-Christian. In Poland, people did not know about his deviation from Judaism, and the artist hid this fact. When the news of his baptism spread, Szwarc's family and friends, following the principles of Judaism but also because of his "betrayal" of the national cause, broke off contact with him completely. His articles stopped appearing in the Jewish press, and probably, for this reason, Szwarc's exhibitions in 1928 – in Kraków (in July) and Warsaw – were his last in Poland. The Szwarcs’ collection of artistic works, exhibition documentation, personal archives, letters and articles, and numerous photographs show an outstanding artist and his wife, Gina (Regina) Szwarc, née Pinkus (1895-1973), a writer and journalist publishing under the pseudonym Eugenia Markowa. Therefore, this is a story contained in works, letters and photographs about the artist, but also about the artistic and marital community of two people firmly rooted in the Polish-Jewish reality, who decided to change their religion and remain in the Jewish world. Thanks to the archive, we can look at the unusual union of two outstanding artists sharing their life, passion and artistic ambitions. The Szwarcs Archive and the collection of works by Marek Szwarc were acquired by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in 2016, thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. RP