Selmar Cerini – the Polish/Jewish Jan Kiepura from Breslau

An installation by the American artist  Kitty Hubbard, was unveiled in Breslau in 2016 as part of the “March of Mutual Respect”. It was dedicated to Selmar Cerini (1860-1923), the Breslau opera singer and Chief Cantor at the Breslau New Synagogue. Kitty Hubbard used a part of the wall that was the only remains of the New Synagogue. It is now a monument to the memory of the sacred building that was destroyed. Cerini and his family lived here from the end of the 19th century. 

The ceremony was accompanied by recordings from the Cerini’s archive, and a song from his repertoire performed by Marek Belko, a singer from the Breslau opera house. This project revived the memory of an important personality in the Jewish history of Breslau. But who exactly was this unusually dramatic tenor