Poles and Jews, children and adults. Who is who in Kotka Brygidy by Joanna Rudniańska and Bezsenność Jutki by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala Cover Image

Polacy i Żydzi, dzieci i dorośli. Kto jest kim w Kotce Brygidy Joanny Rudniańskiej i Bezsenności Jutki Doroty Combrzyńskiej-Nogali
Poles and Jews, children and adults. Who is who in Kotka Brygidy by Joanna Rudniańska and Bezsenność Jutki by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala

Author(s): Maciej Skowera
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: children; adults; children’s literature; ghetto; Holocaust; Poles; Jews; World War II

Summary/Abstract: The article is an analysis of the novel Kotka Brygidy [Brygida’s Cat] byJoanna Rudniańska and Bezsenność Jutki [Jutka’s Sleeplessness] by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala with regard to the way both texts present the relations between Poles and Jews as well as between children and adults during World War II. The author examines these works, among others, in the context of problems connected with historical prose for non-adultreaders and the Holocaust topics. He shows the overlapping Pole-Jew and child-adult relations in both texts, paying attention to the use of a child’s perspective helping to denounce the absurd of the Nazi practice of classification of people as Jewish and non-Jewish. The works under discussion are considered to be mental documents which are not historically faithful accountsof the time of the Shoahbut are intended to raisesensitivity and empathy in readers.

  • Issue Year: 11/2014
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 57-72
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish