“Żydzi stali się w Polsce zjawiskiem egzotycznym, niemal wymarłym gatunkiem”. Obraz społeczności żydowskiej w Polsce w latach 70. i 80. XX wieku we wspomnieniach Żydów powracających do Polski
“The Jews Have Become Exotic in Poland, an Almost Extinct Species.” The Image of the Jews in 1970s and 1980s Poland in Personal Accounts of the Jewish Returnees

Summary/Abstract: Jewish returns to Poland began in the decades prior to the fall of Communism. Described in personal accounts, there are numerous examples of returns in the 1970s and 1980s. The Jews were returning either individually, or as parts of official delegations, e.g. those that returned to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Most of the returnees write about the absence of the murdered Jewish community, resulting in a lack of a natural environment of memory. Only a few describe encounters with the small, nearly invisible Jewish community still living in Poland. For those returnees that do engage the Jewish community, few seem to find commonalities with those who stayed in Poland. The experiences of the returnees and the remnants of Polish Jews still living in the country at the time were so different that it made bonding difficult. Personal accounts of the returnees are lacking the images of the revival of Jewish life in Poland, which began in the late 1970s. The story of Polish Jews in the 1970s and 1980s is mainly a story of invisibility and absence.

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