Publisher: Ośrodek KARTA

Karta

Karta

Frequency: 4 issues / Country: Poland

"Karta" (published underground in the year 1982–89 and officialy since 1991 – 39 issues by the end of December 2003) — a quarterly on man and the history of the idividual in Poland and Eastern Europe in 20th century. Through compiled source materials — diaries, memoirs, reports, letters and other documents — human fate and experiences come to life and history is uncovered so that it can not only be learnt but also "felt' and seen thanks to the album form of the journal. Each issue has 160 pages and usually more than 100 archival photographs.

Dawn is rising. Youth diaries from the first post-war years. 1945-1948

Wstaje świt. Dzienniki młodych z pierwszych lat powojennych. 1945–1948

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Diaries. 1911–1913. Vol. 1

Dzienniki. 1911–1913. Tom 1

Author(s): Michał Römer / Language(s): Polish

Diaries. 1914–1915. Vol. 2

Dzienniki. 1914–1915. Tom 2

Author(s): Michał Römer / Language(s): Polish

The Year 1945. Between War and Dependence

Rok 1945. Między wojną a podległością

Author(s): Marta Markowska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: 1945; World War II; Stanisław Mikołajczyk; PSL (Polish Peasants’ Party); PPR (Polish Workers’ Party); liberation; Red Army; Joseph Stalin; Yalta; trial of the sixteen; cursed soldiers; Home Army; Regained Territories; resettlements; communism; looting

The year 1945 brought the end of war and finally settled Poland’s post-war shape. The voices of witnesses of those events: politicians, soldiers, but also ordinary people help us build the portrait of that dramatic time which affected Poland’s fate for the subsequent decades. It is a chronological compilation of source testimonies, which makes up a rich story of the turn of war and peace, slow development of the post-war reality, collision of hope for a normal life with the new order which was to mean the loss of independence for another half a century.

Readiness. The Bydgoszcz Crisis 1981

Gotowość. Kryzys bydgoski 1981

Author(s): Agnieszka Dębska,Maciej Kowalczyk / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Solidarity; Lech Wałęsa; Jan Rulewski; Wojciech Jaruzelski; Mieczysław Rakowski; Bydgoszcz; Bydgoszcz Crisis; 1981

The series of events in March 1981, known as the Bydgoszcz crisis, was a two-week political and social breakthrough in Poland which started in Bydgoszcz with an incident provoked by the communist authorities and ended with a national settlement of fundamental significance for the future of Poland. The book is a record of those developments told only by their witnesses (the main heroes of those events, Solidarity and party leaders, and ordinary citizens). The reference to their memory is of special significance because a simple list of facts cannot explain the essence of the breakthrough. Both the arguments of both sides of that clash and the accompanying emotions are equally important.

My Opposition. Secret Notes of a Third Reich Citizen 1939–1942)

Dziennik sprzeciwu. Tajne zapiski obywatela III Rzeszy 1939–1942

Author(s): Friedrich Kellner / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: diary; reminiscences; World War II; Third Reich; Allies; Germany; Nazism; Hitlerism; Adolf Hitler; Joseph Goebbels; propaganda; Holocaust; Friedrich Kellner

The testimony of an ordinary German who evocatively describes the everyday life of the German provinces during World War II. The author tracks the hypocrisy of fascist propaganda and gives the lie to the thesis that the Germans allegedly were not aware of the atrocities of Nazism. He predicted the defeat of national socialism at a time when Hitler was most triumphant and the behavior of German society after the war when it came to settlements. Nobody, as he wrote in his diary, anticipating the future defeat of his own country, will be willing to admit their faith in Hitler, nobody will admit wartime wicked deeds, either. If, therefore, one is to count on de-Nazification and re-education of entire German society, it must be a long process forced from outside by the Allies. The Germans themselves will never do such an assignment. The propaganda daze which Kellner discovers in his circle (he is an employee of court administration in a small town near Gießen) is so universal that the only effective remedy for such a state of affairs seems to be a lost war and unconditional capitulation.

Wasserpolacken. An Account of a Pole Serving the Wehrmacht

Wasserpolacken. Relacja Polaka w służbie Wehrmachtu

Author(s): Joachim Ceraficki / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Wehrmacht; Pole; Eastern Front; Grudziądz; Pomerania; ethnic third class; occupation; army service; German Army; Kerch; reminiscences; Hitler; Third Reich; fascists

A reminiscence of a Pole from Grudziądz about his forced service at the Hitler Army. An important testimony of how much the wartime fates of Poles from Silesia and Pomerania could differ from stereotypical ideas. Joachim Ceraficki was forcibly conscripted into Wehrmacht in May 1942. As a third-class citizen of the Reich he spent almost three years in the German Army. He deserted in January 1945. He tried to be a good soldier, because it was a way of minimizing the risk of death. In the trenches his patriotic attitude would be of no relevance. Comradeship was the most important thing there. Ceraficki describes his experiences of that time without pathos: he writes about his pals, fear, girls, leaves at home, and living conditions of German soldiers on the front. He does not try to defend any thesis or excuse himself. He simply writes how it was.

The Cursed. The Armed Underground 1944–1963

Wyklęci. Podziemie zbrojne 1944–1963

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: cursed soldiers; armed underground; post-war; partisan boys; Beria; Stalin

A chronological picture of twenty years of struggle for a perfect free homeland. The story is a compilation of statements by tens of individuals, witnesses of those events. Eyewitness accounts alternate with communiques, appeals, orders, and the correspondence of both local secret police with the headquarters and Lavrenty Beria with Stalin. It all makes us feel like participants in those events.

A Gateway to Hell. Ravensbrücke

Wrota piekieł. Ravensbrücke

Author(s): Anja Lundholm / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: extermination camp; Nazism; Ravensbrück; women; prisoners; Third Reich; Germany; Hitler

The Ravensbrück concentration camp at its final stage. The narration oscillates between a sense of hopelessness and the will of survival, capitulation and rebellion, creating a moving record of extreme experience. Nomination for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1974.Anja Lundholm (1918–2007), daughter of a German Jewish mother and a fervent Nazi father. In the 1930s, her father joined the SS and her mother committed suicide after the pogroms of the “Night of Broken Glass.” Lundholm studied in Berlin. In 1941, she escaped from Berlin to Rome, where she established contacts with the resistance movement. Denounced by her own father she was arrested, passed through several prisons, and was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in March 1944. That experience affected her in both physical and psychological terms for the rest of her life.

Diary from East Prussia. Notes of a Physician from the Years 1945-1947

Dziennik z Prus Wschodnich. Zapiski lekarza z lat 1945-47

Author(s): Hans von Lehndorff / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: East Prussia; war; Soviet offensive; Konigsberg; physician; German; diary

The last days of war in East Prussia, the 1945 victory, the Soviet occupation, and the Polish beginnings in Masuria. Hans von Lehndorff, a physician by vocation, a sensitive observer, and a deeply devout Christian on his great odyssey in the havocked lands gives a unique testimony of salvaging humanity at the time of decline and disaster.

The Revenge

Rewanż

Author(s): Marceli Najder / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Jews; Jew; ghetto; Holocaust; Nazist; Nazism; diary

A diary showing extreme experience of being one of 10 people hiding in a 6 square meter cellar. It is a testimony of survival in Kolomyia (today’s Ukraine) where after the liquidation of local ghetto, between winter 1942/43 and spring 1944 author, his wife and group of other Jews managed to escape the chase of Nazi functionaries. Apart from daily problems and complex relationships between the group of people shut and herded in the shelter, the diary refers to relations between Jews and Poles providing them their help.

The Escape from Ghetto

Ucieczka z getta

Author(s): Halina Zawadzka / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Jews; Jew; ghetto; Holocaust; Nazist; Nazism; Aryan side

An account made by 18 years old girl. Her Jewish origin was a death sentence but she managed to escape form ghetto in Końskie and survived the Holocaust “on the aryan papers” thanks to help she got from Poles. Her testimony is a vivid image of the everyday life under the Nazis and a frank, truthful study of the Polish-Jewish relations.

Treblinka Station

Stacja Treblinka

Author(s): Richard Glazar / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Jews; Jew; ghetto; Holocaust; Nazist; Nazism; Treblinka; death camp; prisoner

Deeply touching and thrilling account of a Czech Jew. Glazar was one of only a few survivors of the Nazi death camp – Treblinka. He was transported to Treblinka in October 1942 and was one of the workers who sorted the belongings of those sent to the gas chambers. He survived several months working in the camp, knowing that he was working for a cause that killed thousands of Jews. On August 2, 1943, the prisoners of Treblinka broke out through a damaged gate during a revolt. While most of the escapees were arrested in proximity to the camp, Glazar escaped the area and made his way across Poland.

Ringelblum’s Archives. The Holocaust Day by Day

Archiwum Ringelbluma. Dzień po dniu Zagłady

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Jews; Jew; getto; Holocaust; Nazist; Nazism; Warsaw Ghetto; Jewish Uprising; Jewish community

Unique collection of accounts, diaries, memoirs, letters, reports, leaflets, press and literary works created in the Warsaw Ghetto. The material comes from an archive that Jews gathered during the war to document the life of Jewish community inside the Ghetto.