Several Ideas on Holocaust and Restitution in Historical Overview

Author(s): Nikola Samardžić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The restitution process started in Eastern Europe only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1989–1991). While the Holocaust was the official policy of Nazi Germany from 1941, denials of the Holocaust were associated both with the radical, neo-fascist political right, and certain intellectual circles or individuals belonging to the radical left, generally associated with support or cooperation with communist Cold War regimes, or authoritarian regimes after the fall of communism. The ideological, and especially the revolutionary left was dividing the world into exploiters and exploited, questioning both the values and private property, and human suffering. Public debate on the draft law on the elimination of the consequences of seizing the assets of Holocaust victims and regulation of Jewish heirless property looted during the Holocaust began on December 18, 2015. It was anticipated that the Government of Republic of Serbia should launch a legislative initiative by the end of 2015. Already announced restitution model should be related to the Jewish national and religious communities network. The model applied in the Slovak Republic foresaw monetary compensation paid to the Union of Jewish Religious Communities as a consequence of negotiations between the government and the representatives of the Jewish community.

Restitution of Jewish Property in Croatia

Author(s): Ljiljana Dobrovšak / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This paper discusses the restitution of Jewish property in Croatia from 1990 on, having in mind that the question has not yet been resolved and that progress towards this has been very slow due to sketchy laws which are being implemented only partially. This issue usually receives more attention only when a Croatian government figure meets someone from Israel or the US Administration. Current legislature enables restitution only of Jewish property seized after 1945, while property seized during the NDH (Independent state of Croatia) remained intact, “protected” by laws passed at the time of Yugoslavia. Current restitution of seized property is performed according to the Law on Restitution/Compensation of Property Taken during the Time of the Yugoslav Communist Government, which came into effect in 1997, so the right to restitution or compensation applies only to Croatian citizens of the first order of succession. That property seized between 1941 and 1945 is not restituted is still an accepted practice, despite the fact that it is in this period when the majority of Jewish property was seized. The right to restitution is still limited to the first order of succession, while the deadline for applications remains too short. Towards the end of mandate of the Jadranka Kosor government there were some attempts to change that and enact a new law, but the proposal for that law got stuck somewhere in parliamentary procedure so it is not yet clear when it will be passed. Until now, judging by unofficial data, less than 30 percent of Jewish families of those who perished in the NDH have achieved the return of immobile property, so the government of Prime Minister Zoran Milanović donated a building in the centre of Zagreb to the Jewish municipality, as a kind of compensation for property seized during Ustasha regime.

An Overview of the Law on Rehabilitation From the Point of View of Holocaust Victims and Other Victims of Nazi Terror

Author(s): Radovan Lazić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Law on Property Restitution and Compensation stipulates that its provisions apply to confiscated property provided that the owner of that property is rehabilitated. In this case, the request for the return of property must be accompanied by a court decision on the rehabilitation or proof that the application for rehabilitation was submitted. The first Serbian Rehabilitation Act was passed in 2006. According to the Law on Rehabilitation, from December 2011, persons who have been deprived of a right (to life, to freedom of movement, to property...) because of political activism, ideological or religious beliefs and national origin before the entry into force of this Act can be rehabilitated. However, the question is how the provisions of this law are applied to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi terror. Does this law take into account the victims, does it provide any satisfaction to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of the occupiers and various quisling formations? What consequences the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act may have on the property rights of persons who, in the course of World War II, acquired property that was previously forcibly taken away (factual and legal violence) from their rightful owners? What consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs and what consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust who have no heirs?

Property of Jewish Greeks in Context of the Holocaust

Author(s): Photini Tomai Constantopoulou / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2014

The Greek Constitution, since the founding of the State, recognized only Greeks–Hellenes. Full emancipation, civil rights and full freedom of Religion and its practice were enshrined and guaranteed. No Anti– Judaic laws were ever legislated, even during the German occupation 1941–1944. The Holocaust left property owned by Jews orphaned. The puppet government during occupation entrusted these properties to the meseggiouhoi [trustees]. De jure Aryanization was never legislated. Two days before liberation of Athens (12 October 1944), Prime Minister Rallis passed a law heralding the return of the properties to their rightful owners. Post war legislation, unique universally, restituted all properties to their owners and, in cases of heirless properties, the State did not exercise its constitutional right of acquisition but, instead, endowed with these properties a newly created entity (OPAIE) whose purpose was and still is to aid the remaining Jewish Greeks.

"Kretanje" nepokretne imovine beogradskih Jevreja kao posledica Holokausta

Author(s): Haris Dajč,Maja Vasiljević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2014

The focus of this research is the process of arianization of the immovable Jewish property in Belgrade and its fate in the post war years. The introduction is focused on the life of Belgrade Jews in the prewar years, first Antisemitic laws and discrimination of Belgrade Jews. In a course of the few months and years once equal citizens lost their jobs and positions. The worst happened after the German occupation in April 1941. the new authorities made lists of all Belgrade Jews and all of their property. After the Holocaust there were less than 15% of Belgrade Jews left with just scratches of their prewar ossessions. The new Yugoslavia did not help much economical situation of its Jewish citizens, the mechanics of keeping as state property the immovable property that was taken as the result of the Holocaust, remained strong and constant in the decades following 1945. The 4 different case studies describe different cases of nationalization of the Jewish property by the Yugoslav state. Outcome in all of the 4 cases was the same and although the old owners were accepted as the Nazi victims their property was still the property of the old Belgrade bourgeoisie. That is the reason why the Holocaust in Belgrade and its consequences were so devastating and one of the answers why once big and prosperous Jewish community of Belgrade could not escape hard post war years.

DOWODY ZBRODNI NACJONALISTÓW UKRAIŃSKICH NA LUDNOŚCI POLSKIEJ W LATACH 1939-1947 ORAZ ICH OCENA W ŚWIETLE PRAWA KRAJOWEGO I MIĘDZYNARODOWEGO

Author(s): Bogusław Kużniar / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2015

During the Second World War, in the south Eastern Borderlands (or, in Polish Kresy Wschodnie) of the Second Polish Republic, the Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with the German and Soviet occupiers. The Third Reich and the Soviet Union were opposed to the creation of the totalitarian Ukrainian state by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). However, both the occupiers’ and the Ukrainian nationalists’ aim was the extermination of the Polish nation. The significant ideological similarity between the Ukrainian nationalism and German Nazism was unequivocally shown by the complicity on a mass scale of the Ukrainian nationalists in the Holocaust. In order to murder as many Poles in Volhynia as possible, at the beginning of 1943, the OUN started forming the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). A few months later, the UPA spread its terrorist activities also throughout the south Kresy Wschodnie. Most of the terms frequently used for crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists, such as “slaughter” or “ethnic cleansing”, do not have legal significance. In accordance with the Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, these crimes should correctly be defined as genocide. Professor Ryszard Szawłowski finds that due to particularly drastic cruelty, the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists ought to be named, in Latin, genocidium atrox (“atrocious genocide”). What is more, the activities of Ukrainian nationalists, among other things, murder and subversive acts, were precisely and strictly forbidden by the Polish Criminal Code of 1932 as well as by the laws adopted in Poland by the communist authorities after the end of the German occupation. In the communist— Poland many sentences, including life-time prison or death sentences, were passed on the members of the structures of the OUN and UPA. There is no legal possibility to overturn those verdicts; and, in addition the crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists are still prosecuted by the Institute of National Remembrance— Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. Likewise, the pieces of evidence presented in the article, unarguably show that the activities of Ukrainian nationalists against the Polish population in the years 1939—1947, were inherently criminal.

PAUL A. SHAPIRO, The Kishinev Ghetto, 1941–1942. A Documen-tary History of the Holocaust in Romania’s Contested Borderlands. With chronology by Radu Ioanid and Brewster Chamberlin and translations by Angela Jianu. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabam

Author(s): Svetlana Suveica / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2016

Кнут Флувик Туресен. У Норвешку, у смрт: српски интернирци у нацистичким логорима на северу Норвешке. Београд: Catena mundi, 2015, 183.

Author(s): Aleksandar Stojanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2016

Prowokacja Rūty Vanagaitė

Author(s): Rimvydas Valatka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 667/2017

The review of: - Musiškiai by Rūta Vanagait;, Alma Litera, Vilnius 2016, 296 s. - Nasi. Podróżując z wrogiem, tłum by Rūta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff; Krzysztof Mazurek, Czarna Owca, Warszawa 2017, 328 s.

Niemieccy okupanci w Warszawie a jawność Holokaustu

Author(s): Stephan Lehnstaedt / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

In several last years there have been many publications concerning the knowledge and attitudes of Germans in relation to the Holocaust. The author deals with the issue what the civilian population and the military troops stationed at that time in Warsaw knew about the Holocaust. The occupants quickly learned about the massacres of Jews. Precise information spread at a rapid pace, and consequently each of the occupants was well informed of the Holocaust. Very few Germans stationing in Warsaw condemned crimes committed against the Jews. There was consensus on the need of extermination of Jews, some reservations aroused only form in which the genocide was carrying on. Open violence intertwined with its general acceptance, which led to a progressive callousness.

„Coraz to nowe żądania, coraz to nowe grymasy” – relacja władzy i podporządkowania między Polakami a Żydami w kryjówkach po aryjskiej stronie

Author(s): Justyna Kowalska-Leder / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

This texts talks about three single, uneducated Polish women living alone (a dressmaker, servant, and kitchen worker), who during the war sheltered Jews in their apartments in Warsaw and Drohobych. All three of them helped the Jews for money, but – as far as we know – none of them resorted to financial blackmail or any other major abuse of a financial character. Nevertheless, the war circumstances became an opportunity for them to fulfill their emotional needs, otherwise impossible to satisfy. They derived pleasure from having power and control over another person and their actions towards the Jews they sheltered also bore traces of a class revenge. The authors analyze the relations between the helpers and helps mostly on the basis of Jerzy Feliks Urman’s diary and memoirs of Karol Rotgeber and Calek Perechodnik. Aside from the sociological theory of exchange systems, another useful tool facilitating comprehension of the Polish women’s behavior and their interactions with the Jews in hiding, which are described in those texts, is Erich Fromm’s concept of human cruelty as a highly complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to openly violent actions.

Lista Soni Wajselfisz [Karin Ohry, Lista Soni; Agnieszka Haska, „Setki znajomych osób”. Lista z Bergen-Belsen]

Author(s): Karin Ohry,Agnieszka Haska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

Sonia Wajselfisz (1911–1999) in 1943 was deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; thanks to the so-called Palestinian certificate obtained through the Hotel Polski, people managed to survive the war. Many people in the hotel at Długa 29 Street bought documents issued by South American countries, were not so lucky; on 21 October 1943, 17 May, and 23 May 1944 they were transported to Auschwitz and died there. After the war, Sonia wrote down the names she could recall; the list, found after many years, is a unique document, so one can identify at least part of more than two hundred people from these transports. The article presents a biography of Sonia, and an analysis of the document she drew up.

Demon pojednania. Dyskurs o współczesnych Sprawiedliwych w powieści popularnej

Author(s): Marta Tomczok / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

The author analyzes depictions of the Righteous in several Polish popular novels and the accompanying discourse on rescuing. She proves that in popular fiction such depictions dominate over the reckoning discourse, connected with the Polish shared responsibility for the Holocaust. Tomczok analyzes the reasons for that dominance, referring to the Philo-Semitic violence category described by Elżbieta Janicka and Tomasz Żukowski. She devotes special attention to Maja Wolny’s novel Czarne liście and the controversy over the presentation of the pogrom in Kielce, and, first and foremost, this book’s dependence on the scholarly achievements of the scholars affiliated with the Center for Holocaust Research.

Wszystkie procesy Eleazara Grünbauma

Author(s): Jacek Dehnel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

This article talks about Eleazar Grünbaum, a son of Izaak Grünbaum – an MP, journalist, and famous Zionist activist. In 1929 Eleazar was arrested as a young communist, but thanks to his father’s connections he received a lenient prison sentence and he was released in 1931. He then went on to study in France. During the Spanish Civil War, he fought on the Republic’s side. After the outbreak of the war he joined General Sikorski’s Polish army and then became a communist underground activist. In 1941 he was arrested and then deported to Auschwitz. He became a kapo in the camp and after the war was tried for torturing his fellow inmates. Thanks to his father’s endeavors he managed to avoid punishment and immigrated to Palestine. He died in combat against the Arabs in 1948. There is still controversy in Israel as to whether he was a cruel camp tormentor or whether he simply tried to survive. According to the author, the years Grünbaum spent in camps can be regarded as a masterpiece of survival.

Zagłada Żydów w serbskim porządku pamięci

Author(s): Magdalena Bogusławska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

Dramatyczny proces rozpadu Jugosławii, przypieczętowany wybuchem wojny na początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych XX w., zmusił do dokonania weryfikacji i przewartościowań dotychczasowej oficjalnej wizji historii, narzucanej i kontrolowanej przez niemal półwiecze przez komunistyczne władze federacji zamieszkanej przez narody i grupy etniczne o odmiennych tradycjach kulturowych i różnych doświadczeniach dziejowych. Próby ich uzgodnienia, stanowiącego warunek konieczny koegzystencji podmiotów tworzących socjalistyczną Jugosławię, w dłuższej perspektywie czasowej okazały się porażką. Krytyce i rewizji, polegającej zasadniczo na nacjonalizacji dyskursu, został poddany przede wszystkim okres drugiej wojny światowej, której przebieg, a zwłaszcza rozstrzyg nięcie zadecydowało o losach narodów południowosłowiańskich w drugiej połowie XX stulecia.

Kinga Piotrowiak-Junkiert, Świadomość zwrócona przeciwko sobie samej. Imre Kertész wobec Zagłady

Author(s): Marta Tomczok / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

The review of: Kinga Piotrowiak-Junkiert, Świadomość zwrócona przeciwko sobie samej. Imre Kertész wobec Zagłady, Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk i Stowarzyszenie Pro Cultura Litteraria, 2014, 318 s.

Wystawa główna Muzeum Polin. Odpowiedź

Author(s): Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

Ocenianie wystawy głównej Muzeum Polin w odniesieniu do jej założeń jako multimedialnej wystawy narracyjnej jest czymś całkiem innym niż zarzucanie jej, że nie jest wystawą innego typu, opartą na obiektach oryginalnych. Rzekoma analiza krytyczna naszej wystawy głównej tak naprawdę oznacza odrzucenie jej założeń; brakuje jednak krytycznej oceny założeń owej analizy, a mianowicie że na skutek braku obiektów oryginalnych multimedialna wystawa narracyjna to de facto „simulakrum”. Punkt wyjścia wystawy głównej Muzeum Polin stanowi opowieść, a wybrane przez nas podejście to „teatr historii” – opowieść snuta w trójwymiarowej przestrzeni, której wątki rozwijają się wraz z kolejnymi krokami zwiedzających. Dążymy do stworzenia Gesamtkunstwerk – totalnego dzieła sztuki, całości większej niż suma jej elementów.

Potrząsnąć społeczeństwem. O znaczeniu dla Litwy książki Rūty Vanagaitė Mūsiškiai (Nasi)

Author(s): Agnieszka Stawiarska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

Od innych prac badawczych o Zagładzie Mūsiškiai różni się przede wszystkim tym, że to bestseller. Brawurowo napisana „książka o śmierci”, wydana w styczniu tego roku, znikła z księgarń w ciągu półtora dnia. Wydawnictwo zrobiło cztery dodruki, tylko do marca sprzedano 19 tys. egzemplarzy. Zainteresowani spotkaniem z autorką na wileńskich Targach Książki nie zmieścili się w największej sali. Rozmowę poprowadził popularny dziennikarz Andrius Tapinas. Swoje opinie o Mūsiškiai wyrazili niemal wszyscy główni litewscy publicyści, wielu humanistów, dziennikarzy i blogerów.

Opscenost razumijevanja: večer sa Claudeom Lanzmannom

Author(s): Claude Lanzmann,Cathy Caruth,Shoshana Felman / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01+02/2000

Tekst koji slijedi predstavlja književnu zabilješku jednog događaja, provokativnog i kontraverznog nastupa Claudea Lanzmanna na sastanku Western N ew England Institute for Psychoanalysis (W NEIPA) u aprilu 1990. godine. Specifične okolnosti Lanzmannovog nastupa, kao i diskusija koja je nakon njega uslijedila, postavljaju na jedan vrlo oštar način pitanje izuzetno kompleksnih dilema u vezi sa prirodom razumijevanja i komunikacijom tema iz holokausta. Govor gospodina Lanzmanna i razmjena mišljenja koju je on izazvao demonstriraju kroz jedan jedini susret između režisera filma Shoah i njegove psihoanalitičke publike - kontradiktorne uloge koje može imati razumijevanje u pokušaju da se pristup i traumatskim iskustvima.

„I will survive” – reprezentacja Holocaustu w sztuce współczesnej

Author(s): Magdalena Maciudzińska-Kamczycka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17-18/2011

Jane Korman, a Jewish artist, filmed the video „Dancing Auschwitz” on a trip to former concentration camps with her three children and her father, Adolek Kohn, who is a Holocaust survivor. The film shows three generations of an Jewish family dancing to the Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” in front of Holocaust land marks in Poland, including infamous rail tracks and “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign and a memorial in Łódź, where Adolek Kohn and his wife spent most of his youth during World War II. This video is a demonstration of the will to survive. Moreover, Korman’film shows other places in Poland like The Main Market Square in Kraków, a Polish synagogue or one of the bus station from eastern Poland. These places may represent the sites and the traces of the History in the contemporary Polish reality which has been radically transformed after Auschwitz. Memories are a way to remain connected to the past. The great power of the images, the clichés of the unimaginable trauma of the Holocaust, is still in our imagination and in the landscape of Polish cities. In my presentation I will not only try to explain the above-mentioned case but I will focus also on some others examples of the idea. One of the Polish projects that bring about associations with the Holocaust and the memory of Nazi camps is „Swimming Pool” („Pływalnia”, 2003) by Rafał Jakubowicz (projection, two videos, postcard). By projecting the Hebrew equivalent of the word „swimming pool” on the wall of the former synagogue (in 1940 the Nazis converted synagogue into a swimming pool for the Wehrmacht), the artist managed to reactivate this place, to revive its memory and transform it into a living monument. In his video, entitled „Swimming Pool”(13 min.), Jakubowicz is showing the interior of the building that provokes the associations with the concentration camps.