A Polish Weininger? The Case of Julian Unszlicht (1883–1953)

2010 ◽  
pp. 227-243
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Krzywiec

The life of Julian Unszlicht (1883–1953) illustrates the case and process of the assimilation of Polish Jews. However, Unszlicht’s case is special as it shows that holding anti-Semitic views, which were to be a ticket to a Catholic society, guaranteed neither putting the roots down permanently nor gaining a new identity. The biography of a priest-convert allows to look closer at the processes of effacement and convergence of anti-Jewish rhetoric. The modern one, of the turn of 19th and 20th centuries, with Catholic anti-Judaism, which was constantly excused by religious reasons and at the same time, it often spread to the ethnic-racial mental grounds. Contrary to common definitions and distinctions, those two ways of thinking perfectly complemented and strengthened each other, both living using the other’s reasoning. The Holocaust added a tragic punch line to the embroiled story of the priest-convert

2015 ◽  
pp. 90-130
Author(s):  
Pim Griffioen ◽  
Ron Zeller

At the beginning of the occupation, France, Holland and Belgium found themselves in a similar situation. But when we look at the ratio of victims and survivors during the Holocaust in Western Europe, France and Holland are polar opposites: in France 25 percent of around 320,000 Jews did not survive the persecutions, whereas the ratio in Holland was 75 percent of 140,000. Belgium lies in the middle of the scale – 40 percent dead out of 66,000 Jews. In order to understand the source of these differences, the authors compare the methods applied by the occupation authorities and their anti-Jewish policies, the involvement and the size of the local police forces and German police, as well as the jurisdictional disputes between these formations.


2019 ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Izabela Olszewska

The Language of Cruelty of the Holocaust on the Example of The Ringelblum Archive. Annihilation – Day by DayThe Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto is one of the most significant testimonies of the annihilation of Polish Jews to be preserved in social life documents, mainly written reports and photographs. The founder of the Archive, Emanuel Ringelblum, described the purpose of the collected materials as follows: “We wanted the events in every town, the experiences of every Jew – and every Jew during this war is a world unto himself – to be conveyed in the simplest, most faithful manner. Every redundant word, every literary addition or embellishment, stood out, causing a sense of dissonance and distaste. The life of Jews during this war is so tragic that not a single extra word is needed”. The aim of the paper is a linguistic analysis of the drastic language of the Holocaust on the basis of The Ringelblum Archive: Annihilation - Day by Day. Język okrucieństwa Holokaustu na przykładzie Archiwum Ringelbluma. Dzień po dniu ZagładyPodziemne Archiwum Getta Warszawskiego jest jednym z najważniejszych świadectw zagłady polskich Żydów zachowanych w dokumentach życia społecznego, głównie w reportażach i fotografiach. Założyciel Archiwum, Emanuel Ringelblum, następująco opisał cel zebranych materiałów: „Chcieliśmy, aby wydarzenia w każdym mieście, doświadczenia każdego Żyda – a każdy Żyd w czasie tej wojny jest światem dla siebie – były przekazywane w najprostszy, najwierniejszy sposób. Każde zbędne słowo, każdy dodatek literacki czy ozdoba wyróżniały się, powodując poczucie dysonansu i niesmaku. Życie Żydów w czasie tej wojny jest tak tragiczne, że nie potrzeba ani jednego dodatkowego słowa”. Celem artykułu jest analiza lingwistyczna drastycznego języka Holokaustu na podstawie książki Archiwum Ringelbluma. Dzień po dniu Zagłady.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-112
Author(s):  
Lukasz Krzyzanowski

The rapidly growing historiography on the aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland has focused primarily on post-war anti-Semitism. Scholars have traditionally concentrated on the post-war death, community destruction and emigration of Holocaust survivors rather than their attempts to return to their former homes. This article explores who these survivors were and what their return was like. Using the medium-sized industrial town of Kalisz in western Poland as a case study, the article argues that the composition of survivors' communities and the difficulty of adapting to the new economic reality, together with the already well-researched anti-Jewish violence, played a significant role in preventing a revival of Jewish communal life in provincial Poland in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.


Author(s):  
Adam Teller

This chapter focuses on the Jewish refugees in the Holy Roman Empire in 1648–1654. Though the vast majority of the Jews fleeing the Khmelnytsky uprising preferred to remain within the Commonwealth, there is evidence of Polish Jewish refugees in the empire from as early as 1649. There are no relevant data concerning Jewish refugees in Silesia before 1654, but it seems clear that Jewish refugees from Poland, together with displaced local Jews looking for a new home, were active in repopulating the towns in Bohemia and Moravia at that time. Since Jews had long been seen as important sources of income for their lords, there had often been power struggles for control over them between the monarch and the nobility. Thus, there was more going on than anti-Jewish legislation. In his orders of 1650, the king of Bohemia may have been continuing his efforts to put a brake on the nobility by depriving it of one of its sources of income: Jews. The chapter then considers the relationship between the Jewish refugee society and the local Jewish society. It also shows the limits of mercantilism, looking at the Polish Jews in Brandenburg.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
Anastasia Felcher

Abstract Efforts to commemorate the victims of the 1903 Chişinǎu (Kishinev) pogrom and the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria have achieved varying degrees of success in the Republic of Moldova. Gaining public recognition for these experiences has proven a convoluted process. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the local Community has led an enduring memorialization campaign, which has steadily evolved with the shifting political climate. Though Community representatives have at times had a fraught relationship with Moldovan officials, they have continuously sought official acknowledgment of their efforts. This article analyzes how both the government and the Jewish Community have handled memory in public spaces and the local media of Chişinǎu.


Author(s):  
Na'ama Sheffi

This chapter examines the controversy surrounding the Wagner affair in Israel: the ban on composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883) by Israeli authorities following Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish pogrom that took place in Germany in November 1938. After the State of Israel was created in 1948, Wagner became identified with the racist views of National Socialism and vicious anti-Semitism and his work emerged as one of the explicit symbols of the Holocaust and its atrocities. This chapter considers the fundamental reasons for the opposition to performing Wagner’s work in Israel within a broad cultural and political context, suggesting that his music served as a stark reminder in Israel of the Holocaust of European Jews. It also discusses the cultural, historical, and educational implications of the ban on Wagner.


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