My mother did everything she could to make sure that I didn’t grow up feeling like a child of the Holocaust
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Mira Zelechower-Aleksiun was born in 1941 in Millerovo in the Rostov region of the Soviet Union to a Jewish family. Her father was murdered by the Germans. After the war, she and her mother moved to Lower Silesia in Poland. Her mother then married Henryk Żelechower, a Polish Jew, and Mira took his family name. She has lived in Wrocław since 1947. She studied at the State Higher School of Fine Arts. She worked as a theatre set designer and artist. She was involved in the independent cultural movement, including as co-organiser of the ‘Droga i Prawda’ Youth Biennale in Wrocław. She grew up in a home that was not strongly Jewish. She chose Catholicism for herself and was baptised. During her first visit to Israel, she found inspiration in the Jewish tradition, which has since become an important influence on her artistic and private life. Mira Żelechower-Aleksiun is a renowned painter and is involved in the life of the Jewish community in Wrocław.
