“The Thank You” by Stormie Mills in Lodz, Poland

Stormie Mills was invited to paint this mural by Urban Forms as part of the City of Lodz festival “Energy of the City” in Poland.

The name of the work is dziękuję” (the thank you) and Stormie created the piece on Mlynarska Street in Baluty. A site of that represents a painful history. During WW2 Baluty was the Jewish ghetto, from here approximately 250,000 people lost their lives when they were transported from Baluty to Auschwitz. At the end of the war only 877 people remained. Nothing can be done to turn back the tide on those horrors but the people that now live in Baluty have a spirit and kindness underwritten by a strength, perhaps this is why these two “lost giants” seem to have found each other in this place, a place with such a history of sadness, but a strength within their bond that they can face their history.