Trzcianne – a case study. The Polish-Polish war over Jews in witness accounts
Trzcianne – a case study. The Polish-Polish war over Jews in witness accounts
Author(s): Łukasz KonopaSubject(s): Political history, Social history, History of Judaism, History of Antisemitism
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: ethnographic interview; the Holocaust; the Righteous; memory; denial; silence; oral history
Summary/Abstract: Łukasz Konopa endeavors to reconstruct the process of the annihilation of Trzcianne, a town where the Jewish population was dominant before 1939. This case study is based on ethnographic interviews conducted presently with members of the Wasilewski family, the Righteous among the Nations, who both witnessed and participated in the events. The paper also refers to the accounts presented after the war by the surviving Jews and witness testimonies given during the trial conducted in 1950–51 against a few Poles accused of murdering Jews. In the course of his analysis, the author reveals the silence and secrecy surrounding the fact that some Poles were involved in the murder of Jews whereas those who risked their lives to help Jews were punished by their Polish neighbors after the war. The shameful episodes in the past of a small town in the Podlasie region were deleted from the local historical discourse.
Journal: Studia Litteraria et Historica
- Issue Year: 2016
- Issue No: 5
- Page Range: 1-25
- Page Count: 25
- Language: English