Helena Czernek and Aleksander Prugar have been trekking around Poland both as artists and as archaeologists: They’re searching for traces of mezuzas on Jewish homes that were abandoned or destroyed during the Holocaust.
For the artists’ project, “Mezuzah From This Home,” the duo first identifies what Prugar calls “marks of existence” on doorframes across the country. In many cases these marks are now nothing more than empty, hollow holes in the wood. The artists then craft bronze mezuzas which re-create the originals. The mezuzas, many commissioned by relatives of the Polish Jews who lived in those very homes, are meant to transform a story of family loss into one of survival and revival of Jewish tradition.
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