Keywords: Białystok; ghetto; survivors; memory
Remarks about the book: Rafael Rajzner, Henry R. Lew: Losy nieopowiedziane. Zagłada Żydów białostockich 1939-1945 (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma : Warszawa 2013)
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Keywords: hagaddah; Pesach holiday; Hebrew manuscripts; illuminations; Middle Ages
The Haggadah is read out during the seder dinners with which the Pesach holiday begins. Its text assumed its final shape gradually over several centuries and only became a separate text in the 13th century (until them it was incorporated in the prayer book). Between the 14th and 16th century this was one of the most frequently copied and embellished texts. At first, it was just adorned by the simplest of motifs, which followed from the fact that its oldest examples originated in a Muslim environment, where figurative presentations were forbidden. At a later time, illuminated codices with the text of the Haggadah were produced in Jewish communities all over Europe, and the ornaments in the haggadot gradually got richer and richer. Not only were they supposed to adorn the manuscripts, but also to facilitate locating a specific passage in the text and help the children concentrate during the night seder feast. Over the ages, an iconographic programme evolved, characteristics of this type of manuscripts, in which it is possible to identify four basic groups of illustrations: ones concerning the Haggadah text proper, ones dealing with the Pesach holiday, ones of a biblical nature and those on eschatological subjects. The graphic side is one of the distinguishing marks of the three main types of such manuscripts: Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Italian ones. The article briefly examines examples of such manuscripts and the chief differences between these types, e.g., from the point of view of the placement of text and ornamentation on the page.
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Keywords: Wadowice; Holocaust; testimony; survivors
Wadowice, the home town of John Paul II, like nearly every town in Poland, had its Jewish population. They were the only ethnic majority of any size in the Polish-dominated town, accounting for approximately one-fourth of its population (2000 persons). From the middle of the 19th century they were a permanent element of the town’s cultural image. During World War II they met the same fate as almost all the Polish Jews: they became the target of the Germans’ criminal Holocaust programme. Barely 150 of them survived. The Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw contain 13 accounts of Jews from Wadowice who survived the Holocaust, prepared right after the war, and in just one instance in the 1960s. They are an interesting and special supplement to the stories of the fate of that community known from literature and reminiscences contained in the „Remembrance book” of Wadowice Jews published in Israel in the 1960s. Starting with reprisals in the early months of the Nazi occupation in 1939 (including the burning down of the synagogue and confiscation of the Jews’ businesses), through restrictions on movement in certain areas of the town in 1940, the first mass deportations to the Bełżec death camp in July 1942, to the establishment of the Wadowice Ghetto immediately afterwards, to its liquidation on a symbolic date commemorating the destruction of the shrine in Jerusalem, i.e., on 10 August 1943. The survivors’ reminiscences contain many names of the Wadowice Jews. In the footnotes the Author attempted to shed more light on these persons and the history of their families as this was an additional opportunity to show how vast was the institutional network of the small community of Wadowice Jews and how well organized it was before the war. The survivors’ stories can be quite long. They concern their dramatic fate throughout World War II. Therefore the author decided to summarise in parentheses the “non-Wadowice” threads from these stories, with only the experience from Wadowice itself published at length.
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Keywords: no keywords
Andrzej Osęka - Buy Polish from a Pole ("Alien and Unpleasant". Antisemitic Drawings from the Polish Press 1919-1939. Exhibition, JHI, 2013-1014); Jan Doktór - Great Maimonides or the Great Library (Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides. Life and thought); Helena Datner- About the Unequal Treatment of Jews in Poland's 2nd Republic (Jerzy Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydów w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1918-1939); Hanna Kozińska-Witt - Alicja Maślak-Maciejewska, Rabin Szymon Dankowicz (1834-1910). Życie i działalność; Tomasz Wiśniewski - Szymon An-ski, Tragedia Żydów galicyjskich w czasie I wojny światowej; Olaf Bergmann - Bernard Wasserstein, W przededniu. Żydzi w Europie przed II wojną światową; Alina Cała - Lesestunde / Lekcja czytania; August Grabski - Beate Meyer, A Fatal Balancing Act. The Dilemma of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, 1939-1945; Sylwia Grochowina - Mark Roseman, Wannsee. Willa, jezioro, spotkanie; August Grabski - Andrzej Rykała, Mniejszości religijne w Polsce. Geneza, struktury przestrzenne, tło etniczne.
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Keywords: Kielce; 4 July 1946 pogrom; Public Security Office
The Kielce pogrom was one of the most important turning points in post-war history of Polish Jews. Over the last two decades, these events served as the subject of several important scientific works and were also present in the media and in the general consciousness of Poles, first of all thanks to Jan Tomasz Gross’s book Strach (“Fear”). Even so, we still lack full knowledge of the causes, course and consequences of the outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in Kielce. In these circumstances, the locating of all the existing source materials documenting the Kielce events is extremely important. The article analyses two documents not published so far, concerning the pogrom of the Jews in Kielce on 4 July 1946, which were discovered among the records of the Branch of the Institute of National Remembrance in Kielce. These are the minutes of interrogation of two persons directly connected with the developments in Kielce. The first document is the original version of the testimony by Henryk Błaszczyk, a nine-year old boy whose disappearance is regarded as the immediate cause of the outbreak of violence. The record of Błaszczyk’s testimony presented below probably served as the basis for producing the document which until now was regarded as the boy’s first account and which was published in 2006. The differences between the two versions of the document are reviewed in the introduction preceding the presentation of archive materials. The second document is the transcript of a deposition by Kielce Jew Gerszon Lewkowicz. This is one of just a few known accounts made back in July 1946 by a person who happened to stay in the Jewish Committee building at ul. Planty 7 during the pogrom. Lewkowicz’s testimony has not been published before. Likewise, it was not probably used in the course of the criminal trials held in the wake of the pogrom or served as source material in scientific research.
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Keywords: Turkey; Jews; Turkish press; anti-Jewish incidents
For the Jewish citizens of the Turkish Republic, the year 1934 was one of the defining moments in their status quo within Turkey. In June of that year, they became the target of a number of criminal acts in various towns and villages of Turkey's North Western region (Thrace). Turkish state condemned the events and affirmed that it would not allow anti-Semitism, which was rooted in Germany, surface within the borders of the young republic. However, notwithstanding the measures taken by the state, many Jews left their home towns and migrated to other towns of Turkey as well as to Palestine. The “1934 Events” were analysed from various perspectives. Many scholars provided differing explanations about the nature, causes and consequences of these events referring to their international, national and local dimensions. Their representation and reflections in the press, however, were not explored in depth. Drawing on the discourse analyses of Turkish national newspapers of the time, the article explores the similarities and nuances in the discourse of Turkish national press about the incidents that took place in 1934 as well as about the status of the Jewish community in the society. The article also highlights the relations between the state and the press and between the state and the minorities at the time by addressing the impact of the state’s dominant discourse about minorities on their representation in the Turkish national newspapers in the course of the “1934 Events”.
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Keywords: Wolsztyn; historical demographics; Jews; Greater Poland
The subject of this article is a Jewish family from Wolsztyn (Wollstein) from the years 1875-1914. This was a time when, after two centuries of growth, the Jewish community in w Wolsztyn began to shrink, and so did its significance to the town’s life. Until the mid-19th century this was one of the most populous communes in south-western Greater Poland. The study was based on records from the registrar’s office. While they were viewed as belonging to modern Western societies from the demographic point of view, Wolsztyn Jews remained conservative in other respects. Despite the fact that the emancipation process was completed many years ago, they remained faithful to traditional Jewish occupations, which means they did not differ greatly from the Jews from the Poznań region. Merchants and traders predominated among Wolsztyn Jews, followed by independent craftsmen. Occasionally one could come across an owner of a larger business. From the demographic point of view, Wolsztyn Jews fit well in the West European social patterns. In the case of marriages this means that men do not start a family until they are 30 years old or so, and the women enter into matrimony at or above the age of 24, the age difference between the bride and groom is rather small and the ratio of remarriages is low. The fact that the Wolsztyn Jews leaned toward the modern model was also confirmed by the low fertility and mortality rates: the birth rate should not exceed 38 per 1000 inhabitants, while in Wolsztyn it did not exceed 30. Although the authors writing about Wolsztyn wanted to view them as Germans of Mosaic faith, it appears as though the process of their acculturation was only beginning. This could be seen in the selection of names of the newborns, which were less and less likely to be traditional “Jewish” names. Nonetheless, religion and ethnic background continued to be the most important thing for the Jews in Wolsztyn, both when choosing their life partners and friends. Several decades after the end of the emancipation process in the Prussian state, only one mixed marriage was recorded in Wolsztyn. This begs the question whether this was a closed community, only maintaining closer contacts with fellow believers, or whether they were isolated by other residents of the town. The author ends her analysis with the year 1914. On 5 January 1919, Polish insurgents captured Wolsztyn and began taking over power. The town’s German residents began to leave. Wolsztyn Jews were leaving the land for quite some time by then. After World War One, only a handful of them remained in town. The most important contributing factor was not high mortality but the emigration of young people, which resulted in a significant aging of the population. It then comes as no surprise that fewer and fewer Jewish births, marriages and deaths were recorded by the registrar of Wolsztyn.
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Keywords: Abraham Gepner; Warsaw Ghetto; Jewish epistolography
This article is Part II of the text published in „Dzieje Najnowsze” (2006, No. 1, p. 163-184). The reason it is being published is the discovery of a further part of Abraham Gepner’s correspondence to his family, which emigrated from occupied Poland around the end of 1939, in the collections of YIVO Institute of New York. The previous article contained seven letters by Gepner and his expanded biographical note, the first scientific contribution to his biography. In the previous article the author published seven Gepner letters and his extended biographical note, the first scientific contribution to his biography. This time the author focused on recently discovered letters, this time as many as 28 of them. Not all of them were penned by Abraham Gepner himself. Several of them were likely written by his wife, which is what their tenor and subjects suggest. Most of the persons mentioned in the correspondence remain unknown. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to contact Abraham Gepner’s relatives living in the U.S., which could help determine their identity. One exception was the famous Polish inventor Tadeusz Sendzimir. Similarly as in the previous part, these letters constitute a document of the times of the Holocaust and a testimony of the people who try to spare their relatives the suffering, by not mentioning the real tragic situation in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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Keywords: Postal traffic; Holocaust; correspondence; Jewish epistolography
The objective of the article was to discuss the factors determining the content and form of wartime letters from persons who found themselves in the position of Jews during World War II. This concerns both the rules governing the “postal” traffic involving these people but also other circumstances influencing the message in each instance, ones connected with the wartime context of writing (concerning the moment, the place, the situation in which the authors were, etc.), or, finally, about conventions used in epistolography of those time that have not been investigated to this day. The author sought to achieve more than just present a map of the contexts to which one could relate the conclusions from the studies of the letters from persons considered as Jews in light of German law, mailed from the areas occupied by the Germans. While pointing to the singular role of letters at the time, she also sought to show that although they do not as a rule provide the contemporary reader with too much information about the realities in which their authors lived, they can be an invaluable source of knowledge about the formation of postures that were not always realized and about the nature of interpersonal relations in extreme circumstances. Despite the inevitable limitations, the work with this source widens the scope of matters available for analysis, while also opening vast, still not fully utilized opportunities. The studies presented here are in practice limited to the letters from the years 1939-1942, sent by official letters sent from channels (although it ignores letters sent from labour camps or P.O.W. camps, which were subject to special restrictions). It concerns texts written in the period from the start of the German occupation of Poland until the so-called Aktion Reinhardt started in successive General Gouvernement ghettoes.
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"Einsicht. Bulletin des Fritz Bauer Instituts"; „Holocaust. The Newsletter of the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center and the Holocaust Foundation”; "Holocaust and Genocide Studies"; „Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung”; „Jewish Studies at the Central European University”; "La Rassegna Mensile di Israel"; "Simon-Dubnow-Institut Yearbook"; "Studia Rosenthaliana"; "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine"
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Keywords: voľby 2010; zákon o štátnom jazyku,zákon o dvojakom občianstve,energetika,dvosjtranné komisie
Podobne ako v predchádzajúcich rokoch, aj v roku 2010 a v prvých mesiacoch roku 2011 predstavovali slovensko‑maďarské vzťahy špecifický problém, ktorý popri zahraničnopolitickej obsahoval aj vnútropolitickú dimenziu. Tá vnútropolitická sa netýkala iba etnického štiepenia slovenskej politickej scény, ale aj vzťahov medzi „slovenskými“ a „maďarskými“ (t. j. v etnickom zmysle) politickými stranami v SR navzájom.
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Keywords: EU; bezpečnosť; OSN; V4
Hektický medzinárodný vývoj v prvých mesiacoch roku 2011 vytvoril dojem, že rok 2010 bol z hľadiska zahraničnej politiky málo dynamický až nevýrazný. Tomuto klamu netreba podliehať. Od vypuknutia globálnej finančnej a ekonomickej krízy na prelome rokov 2008 a 2009 svetový vývoj nastúpil na dlhú cestu globálnych či lokálnych turbulencií, ktorých súčasťou bolo aj medzinárodné dianie v minulom roku a ktoré pokračujú dramatickými zmenami v krajinách arabského sveta i v roku 2011. Pre slovenskú zahraničnú politiku to bol navyše rok zmeny vlády, vedenia rezortu diplomacie i akcentov v zahraničnopolitickom pôsobení krajiny. Kde sa v tomto dianí nachádzal úrad prezidenta ako najvyššieho predstaviteľa reprezentujúceho Slovenskú republiku navonok i dovnútra?
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Keywords: Kodanský samit; samit v Cancúne; EÚ; klimatické zmeny,
V decembri 2009 po strastiplnom a pre Európsku komisiu a vlády vedúcich štátov EÚ frustrujúcom vývoji bola kodanská konferencia OSN o zmene klímy zavŕšená dokumentom, ktorého podstatným zmyslom bolo zakryť pred svetom globálne politické fiasko. Výsledkom rokovaní nebola dohoda, ktorou by sa krajiny zaviazali plniť jasne definované ciele znižovania svojich emisií CO 2 a ďalších skleníkových plynov, dokonca ani dohoda o režime, ktorý by po roku 2012 nahradil Kjótsky protokol regulujúci obchodovanie so skleníkovými emisiami. Z diplomatického hľadiska bolo pre Európu ponižujúce, že záverečný dokument bol vypracovaný za zavretými dverami v réžii USA , Číny, Indie, Brazílie a J uhoafrickej republiky.1 Neprekvapuje, že z hľadiska úsilia o spomalenie globálneho otepľovania ide o úplne neúčinný a navyše nezáväzný dokument.
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Keywords: V4 - 20 výročie; 2010; MVF - 10 výročie; predsedníctvo SR; V4 plus
Text príspevku je rozdelený do dvoch základných častí. Prvá je orientovaná na kľúčové faktory, ktoré charakterizujú vyšehradskú spoluprácu už dlhšie časové obdobie. Predstavuje stručné zhodnotenie aktuálnej situácie, v ktorej sa spolupráca nachádza – vzhľadom na jubileum autor dáva do popredia pozitívne momenty. Druhá časť sa zameriava na priority V4 v roku 2010 s dôrazom na prípravu a implementáciu slovenského predsedníctva vo V4. Vzhľadom na zameranie publikácie, ktorej primárnym cieľom je analyzovať konkrétny kalendárny rok, v tomto prípade rok 2010, je analýza limitovaná obdobím január 2010 – marec 2011.
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Keywords: EU; susedstvo; ekonomicka dioplomacia; V4
Na začiatku volebného obdobia 2010 až 2014 sme považovali za nevyhnutné vniesť do našej zahraničnej politiky novú kvalitu a nový rozmer. Stabilnú hodnotovú základňu, od ktorej možno odvíjať pevné a principiálne postoje k jednotlivým konkrétnym otázkam.
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Keywords: voľby; 2010; strategická koncepcia NATO; strategické hodnotenie obrany SR
Rok 2010 (s presahom do roku 2011) sa do bezpečnostnej a obrannej politiky premietol tromi základnými udalosťami. Prvou boli voľby do Národnej rady SR v júni 2010, druhou bol proces finalizácie konečného textu novej Strategickej koncepcie NATO a jej prijatie a trečou konkrétne úsilie o vypracovanie nového strategického dokumentu, ktorý by kriticky zhodnotil stav obrany a stal sa východiskom na obranné plánovanie v nasledujúcom období.
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Keywords: verejná diplomacia; inštitucionálny rámec; 2010; koncept; globálna prezentácia,
Text prináša hodnotenie slovenskej verejnej diplomacie v roku 2010. Zatiaľ čo predchádzajúci rok 2009 priniesol v tejto oblasti viaceré nádejné momenty, aktuálne hodnotené obdobie možno označiť skôr za obdobie rekonfigurácie. Rok 2010 v prípade Slovenska potvrdil analýzy odborníkov, podľa ktorých sú projekty verejnej diplomacie v krajinách strednej a východnej Európy obzvlášť zraniteľné a náchylné na diskontinuitný vývoj, súvisiaci s volebným cyklom.1 Práve s voľbami do NR SR v júni 2010 súvisia viaceré zmeny v inštitucionálnom aj v obsahovom zameraní verejnej diplomacie SR , ktorými sa tento text zaoberá. Zároveň ponúka prehľad praktického výkonu tejto politiky a jej využitých i premárnených príležitostí v skúmanom období i zamyslenie sa nad ďalšou perspektívou verejnej diplomacie v kontexte zahraničnej politiky SR .
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Keywords: 2010; iniciatívy SR; západný Balkán; Kosovo; ekonomická dimenzia; rozvojová pomoc
Oblasť západného Balkánu patrí dlhodobo k prioritám slovenskej zahraničnej politiky a S lovensko si v tejto oblasti získalo nepochybne autoritu a hodnoverné politické pozície, čo oceňujú aj naši spojenci v NATO a EÚ . Kontinuita tejto línie bola v roku 2010 očividná v politických a diplomatických aktivitách Slovenska nielen na vládnej úrovni, ale aj v pôsobení mimovládneho sektora.
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Keywords: cultura adaptation; folk healers; folk medicine; indigenous peoples of Northern Europe; Komi
The article based on field work materials discusses the characteristics of folk medicine among the northernmost group of the Komi – namely, those living in the Izhemsky District (Komi iz’va). During the populating of the tundra and the development of reindeer herding tradition borrowed from the Nenets, the Izhma Komi developed a striking cultural and practical character which is expressed in the structure of medical knowledge, the range of remedies and treatment methods, and the system of nutrition and hygienic tradition. The folk medicine of the said ethnic group is characterised by remarkable rationality, which is expressed in a rare use of magical treatment methods, the majority of folk healers are bone-setters, and a sceptical attitude towards the Nenets Shamans is prevailing. In the framework of ancestral worship practised by the Komi developed the cult of Tandze Marya, a famous folk healer and bone-setter. The mythologisation of the well-known healer has been greatly facilitated by the means of mass media, which has, in some respects, appeared on the initiative of local intellectuals.
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Kaija Heikkinen. Metsänpelko ja tietäjänaiset. Vepsäläisnaisten uskonto Venäjällä (Fear of forests and wise women. The beliefs of Vepsian women in Russia). 2006. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura: Helsinki, 276 pp. Ирина Юрьевна Винокурова. Животные в традиционном мировоззрении вепсов (Irina Iu. Vinokurova. Animals in the Traditional Vepsian Worldview). 2006. Petrozavodsk: Izd-tvo PetrGu, 448 pp. + illustr. and tables Review of the books on Vepsian tradition by Kristi Salve is available in English in volume 37 of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore (http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol37/books.pdf).
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