Trude Sojka’s daughter (Anita Steinitz) and grand-daughter (Gabriela Steinitz), Director and President of the Trude Sojka Cultural House Corporation in Ecuador, a non-profit cultural foundation, as keepers of her legacy, are trying to make an exhibit abroad come true.
Indeed,Trude Sojka never returned back to her beloved Czech Republic, but we know it would have been one of her most desired wishes. Most of all, we think it is very important to promote her life-story as a symbol of hope and resilience, as many Holocaust survivors who emigrated to Ecuador, and of many Jewish artists who depicted something different from the horrors of the war. Furthermore, for us, this exhibit should act as a cultural bridge, to show that a country as small as Ecuador, with a very special cultural background, can achieve international recognition.
As a non-profit organization, with almost no income, we need to collect funds to finance the shipping and insurance of these valuable and very heavy paintings and sculptures from Quito to Terezin, which will cost about 20 000 dollars.
Besides, we need to pay our trip to the Czech Republic and back to Ecuador, as well as our stay in Europe, amounting to, at least, 4 000 dollars,
The Terezin Memorial will help us with the exhibit hall and the installation, as well as with publicity and refreshments for the opening.
We sincerely believe in the power of culture. Artists can transmit a lot more than their feelings, they can radically change prejudices or bring more conscience to other human beings. Transmission involves as well movement, that means the circulation of art through the world. How great it is, for example, to be able to see a Cézanne or to discover a new artist in our own country! How great it is also to know that an artist returns to her country of origin, to her home, even posthumously! How interesting to know that there has been a fusion of cultures (the Ecuadorian and the Czech cultures). What a nice and well deserved act of recognition to a Holocaust survivor!
If we do not reach the goal of 24 000 dollars, the project will fail, and who knows when we will have another opportunity to make this expected exhibit.
Your help is extremely valuable to us, and perhaps, you too, will be able to appreciate these artworks.
Your generosity will be contributing to universal culture and helping to connect two continents, to keep the memory of the Shoah, in order to prevent other genocides of this type. You will be helping to make the message of peace travel around the world!
We don’t want this project to begin and then simply end. We want to open its borderlines, so it can be the first step of a worldwide traveling exhibit, throughout Europe, Israel, United-Stated, and more. Perhaps, with your valuable help, one day it could arrive to your country, city or town!
If you cannot donate money,this is what you could do:
- Give us ideas of people, companies or organizations that could perhaps help financing the project
- If you live in Quito, Ecuador, you could come to the Trude Sojka Cultural House and volunteer, helping us to promote the cultural house, or with our sales (books, artworks, Czech pastry, postcards), or come to our cultural activities (artistic workshops, conferences, etc.)
- Make some noise about this campaign around you, and use the Indiegogo share tools!
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