The Gulag of Poets: The Experience of Exile, Forced Labour Camps, and Wandering in the USSR in the Works of Polish-Yiddish Writers (1939–1949)

The literary output of the Polish-Yiddish writers who survived WWII in the Soviet Union is mostly a literary mirror of the times of exile and wartime wandering. The two major themes that reverberate through these writings are: the refugees’ reflection on their stay in the USSR, and the Holocaust of Polish Jews. After the war, some of them described that period in their memoirs and autobiographical fiction, however, due to censorship, such accounts could only be published abroad, following the authors’ emigration from Poland. These writings significantly complement the texts produced during the war, offering plentiful details about life in Poland’s Eastern borderlands under Soviet rule as it was perceived by the refugees, or about the fate of specific persons in the subsequent wartime years. This literature, written in – and about – exile is not only an account of what was happening to Polish-Jewish refugees in the USSR, but also a testimony to their coping with an enormous psychological burden caused by the awareness (or the lack thereof) of the fate of Jews under Nazi German occupation. What emerges from all the literary texts published in post-war Poland, even despite the cuts and omissions caused by (self)-censorship, is an image of a postwar Jewish community affected by deep trauma, hurt and – so it seems – split into two groups: survivors in the East (vicarious witnesses), and survivors in Nazi-occupied Poland (direct victim witnesses). The article discusses on samples the necessity of extending and broadening of that image by adding to the reflection on Holocaust literature (which has been underway for many years) the reflection on the accounts of the experience of exile, Soviet forced labour camps, and wandering in the USSR contained in the entire corpus of literary works and memoirs written by Polish-Yiddish writers.

Nathalie Skowronek « a la recherche de Max » : Construction litteraire et autometatextualite dans les ouvrages de la 3e generation de la Shoah

The third generation survivors of the World War II genocide of the European Jews withstand, analyse and create literary texts about the Holocaust, a historical event, which was not endured by them directly but experienced through scientific papers and creative literature. Thanks to Nathalie Skowronek, a novelist living in Brussels, and her publication of Max en apparence (2013) and La Shoah de Monsieur Durand (2015), we can gain some insight into the social and literary reality of Jewish genocide memory and into its intergenerational transmission. Firstly, we will carefully analyse the approach used by this author in the composition of a biographical text about her grandfather’s reconstruction of events. After that, using an intertextual approach, we will analyse formal and moral narrative considerations of the authoress which govern the literary reconstruction grandfather’s biography.

Various Aspects of the Charitable Activity of Jews in Drohobych in the Early 20th Century

The article describes the charitable activities of Jews in Drohobych during the Habsburg monarchy and at the beginning of the Polish state. The associations described, run mainly by women, worked mainly for the benefit of Jewish orphans and children of impoverished families. The significant presence of Jews among the owners of oil companies largely contributed to the development of charity activities in the form of institutions meeting the needs of specific social groups.

Exhibiting Galicia: Problems of Interpretation and Other Reflections on the Permanent Exhibition at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków

The purpose of this article is to offer a critical comment on the permanent exhibition of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków. The exhibition is innovative in museological terms. It is not about the Jewish history of Galicia, nor is it arranged using conventional chronology, nor is it comprehensive. Rather it is divided into five sections, based on a five-part set of ideas, simple ideas intended to help visitors make sense of the complex realities surrounding the present-day situation of the Jewish heritage seventy-five years after the Holocaust. Let me now briefly outline how these five ideas are represented museologically, the five sections in which the exhibition is organized. The opening section directly presents the popular Jewish stereotype that post-Holocaust Poland is nothing but a vast Jewish graveyard. So this section of the exhibition consists entirely of the raw, shocking sight of desolation – for example, photos of ruined synagogues or ruined Jewish cemeteries. The 23 photos on show in this section include the appalling condition of the synagogue in Stary Dzików (a small town near the Ukrainian border) as it looked in the 1990s and of the devastated Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec (a small town near the Slovak border) at that time. Emphasizing what has been lost by showing the Jewish past of Poland in ruins, and how in that sense the effects of the Holocaust on the built Jewish heritage are still visible, even today, is certainly a powerful and provocative way to begin an exhibition in a Jewish museum.

“An Unfinished Story”: Genealogy of the Kielce Pogrom Victims (Selected Problems and New Research Possibilities)

The article examines the usefulness of the genealogical method in research on the Kielce pogrom. An analysis of the stories of individual people – victims of the pogrom will reveal a broader background of this tragic event. In the text, we will also try to answer some important research questions. Is the list of victims complete? Does it include the names of people who did not, in fact, perish during the pogrom? In addition, the article presents new research areas within the described issues.

The Consequences of the Lviv Pogrom on November 22–23, 1918, in Light of the Findings and Actions of the Jewish Rescue Committee

In the areas that became part of the Second Polish Republic, manifestations of antisemitism became more pronounced at the end of World War I and at the beginning of the interwar period. These manifestations often turned into acts of violence against Jews, as became apparent in many towns with Jewish populations. The Lviv pogrom on November 22–23, 1918 was particularly devastating. The Jewish Rescue Committee, established at Lviv at that time, was very active in providing help to the injured, determining the number of casualties and wounded, and determining the extent of material damage resulting from the robberies and acts of destruction, including arson. According to the findings of the Jewish Rescue Committee, 73 people died and 443 were wounded as a result of the pogrom. The estimated material damage amounted to 102,986,839 Kr,[1] with a total of 13,375 people affected. The actions taken by the Jewish Rescue Committee to help the victims were extremely important and effective, but they did not fully satisfy the existing social needs.

Development of the Education of Galician Jews at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries as Exemplified by the City of Lviv

In 19th and the beginning of 20th century Galician Jews left step by step the isolated world of traditional culture for the opened worldwide culture. At the start of this way, they knew only one path of life, based on many centuries of tradition, but, at the end, it provided many paths to self-realization. Some of them were still devoted, other secular, some of them felt Jews, others felt Poles of Mosaic faith or Germans of Mosaic faith, some were involved in the Zionist movement, others in socialism. Many of them considered Galicia to be their own little Motherland and manifested the features of local patriotism. It was possible thanks to the modernization of their lifestyle, and public education turned out to be one of the most important factor in this process.

Between Institutional Antisemitism and Authoritarianism in the Territory of the Former Galicia, 1935–1939: Discussion of the Problem

In the period 1935–1939, following the death of head of state Marshal Piłsudski, the Polish national government adopted a more authoritarian and nationalist stance. Piłsudski had been considered by some Polish Jews as a protector of national and religious minorities. After his death in May 1935, institutional antisemitism experienced a dramatic increase. In the public sphere, certain newspapers regularly featured antisemitic “news reports,” opinion pieces and cartoons of an extreme nature. The newspaper ABC, for instance, advocated boycotts of Jewish businesses and shops, listing them by name, and encouraged Jewish emigration. In universities, the increasing discrimination against Jews has been well documented. Most Polish universities instituted restrictions on the number of Jewish students they would admit, or else barred them altogether. The education ministry willingly turned a blind eye to the admission policies of the university authorities. At the beginning of the academic year 1938–1939, for example, only three students in the first year of medical studies in Lwów (less than 1% of the new intake) were Jews, and none in Kraków. After discussing antisemitism in newspapers and universities in the late 1930s, this article will examine documents held in the State Archive of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (DAIFO) concerning relations between the Jewish communities in the Stanisławów region, and the district, provincial and national authorities, including the national Ministry for Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment. Much of this documentation concerns the town of Dolina. With the backing of the district authorities, an attempt was made to install as assistant rabbi in the town a certain Ksyel Juda Halberstam. This move was strongly opposed by many members of the Dolina Jewish community, as well as by its senior rabbi. The correspondence sheds light on the protracted struggle between the different parties until the assistant rabbi was finally installed in late 1938. These files on the Dolina episode highlight the desire on the part of the authorities to control the rabbis, and through them the members of their communities. Information was systematically gathered on all the rabbis in the province, with particular emphasis on their moral behaviour, their perceived loyalty to the state, and their fluency in the Polish language. These actions, in turn, reflect an underlying suspicion over the extent of the rabbis’ “Polishness” and a fear, in an era of growing nationalism, of “antinational” behaviour. Such suspicions of loyalty were particularly marked where rabbis were thought to have Zionist links.

Resources Concerning the History of Polish Jews in Castle Court Records of the 17th and 18th Centuries in the Central State Historical Archives in Kyiv and Lviv

The article presents types of sources which have thus far not been used, castle court books kept in the archives of the Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Kyiv. The author emphasizes the importance of these sources for research on the history and culture of Polish Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries. He also specifies the types of documents related to Jewish issues authenticated in these books (e.g. manifestations and lawsuits, declarations of the Radom Tribunal), as well as current source publications and internet databases containing selected documents from Ukrainian archives.