Wspomnienia ks. Józefa Pruchnickiego o pracy duszpasterskiej w powiecie Wieluńskim w okresie okupacji Hitlerowskiej

Author(s): Jan Związek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2006

Upływa ponad 60 lat od wybuchu II wojny światowej i okupacji hitlerowskiej na polskiej ziemi. Terror hitlerowski spowodował ogromne straty w polskim społeczeństwie, jak i w stanie materialnym Polski. Władze nazistowskie z nienawiścią działały przeciwko Kościołowi katolickiemu na ziemiach polskich, w tym również na ziemi wieluńskiej. Mimo upływu wielu lat ciągle powracają wspomnienia hitlerowskiego okresu terroru i eksterminacji polskiej ludności; niestety, świadków tamtych wydarzeń żyje do chwili obecnej coraz mniej. Okupacyjne dzieje ziemi wieluńskiej coraz częściej stają się przedmiotem zainteresowań historyków, którzy odnajdują dokumenty, ukazujące obraz ówczesnego życia społeczeństwa w warunkach okupacyjnych. Źródłowe opracowania prof. Tadeusza Olejnika i członków Wieluńskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego przedstawiają okupacyjną działalność władz hitlerowskich na ziemi wieluńskiej i bezmiar zniszczeń na tych terenach.

Страдање Срба у првим месецима окупације на Косову и Метохији 1941. године

Author(s): Nenad Antonijević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 4/2017

The article presents a part of the suffering of the Serbian population in Kosovo and Metohija during the first months of the occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which were mostly victims of the terror of Albanian kvisling, who used the attack of the Axis force on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the occupation of its territory by the same. Different forms of the suffering of the Serbian people (murder, persecution, abuse, internment) have been shown, which led to the changing of the ethnic image in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija for the benefit of the Albanians. In addition to literature, the most attention is paid to the statements of refugees, whose words were recorded in the Commissariat for Refugees and Resettlement, which was part of the Serbian administration of General Milan Nedic. Statements allow insight into the typology of terror of Albanian forms, scope, and territory (names of villages, towns and other populated places) that is affected by crimes. Individual specific forms of terror were identified, such as blackmail, robbery, seizure of arms, rapes and abductions of Serbian women and girls. Also, in many cases, the insights into the names of victims, as well as the names of criminals and their accomplices are obtained. The chronology of the commission of the crime was determined, so that the first were affected by the inhabitants, and later the old people. One of the more massive forms of terror of Albanian kvisling, especially at the beginning of the occupation, was the waiting and killing of mobilized Serb soldiers returning to Kosovo and Metohija after the Yugoslav Army’s capitulation in the brief April war. Various volumes and forms of crime were recorded in different occupational zones. It was determined where Serbs were killed (home threshold, field, road, ambush). In many cases, it was determined what happened to some Serb families from first pressures, to killings or expulsions from their own home and from their own property. Estimates of the number of expelled and evicted Serb population in the period from April to the end of 1941 are given. In the first year of the occupation, the Serb colonists and settlers from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and other parts inhabited after the First World War, and especially in Metohija, suffered the most.

Romsko stanovništvo u Bošnjacima za vrijeme Drugoga svjetskog rata

Author(s): Danijel Vojak,Vinko Juzbašić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 1/2018

The history of the Romani population from their settlement in medieval Europe until today was for the most part marked by periods of violent persecution, which often had the goal to completely assimilate them into the majority population of a certain area. Periods of peace and a certain form of peaceful coexistence with the majority population were rare, and the Romani population continued to “survive” on the socio-economic margins of European societies. The Roma had similar predominantly negative historical “experiences” in Croatian areas. Thus, they also experienced periods of repressive assimilation, which reached their climax during the Independent State of Croatia. The Romani population then found itself targeted by Ustasha racial policy and excluded from Croatian society, which led to their deportation, torture, and killing in various concentration camps, primarily Jasenovac. The consequence of this policy was the almost complete demographic “eradication” of the Roma in Croatian areas. The research presented in this paper is focused on the village of Bošnjaci in Srijem (Syrmia), which was home to several hundred Roma before World War II. Most of them led sedentary lifestyles and constituted an integral part of the community through their economic activity, crafts, trade, and agriculture. After the establishment of the IndependentState of Croatia, Ustasha racial policy encompassed this rural community, and as a result the Roma were labelled as “dangerous enemies” and “parasites” upon “the pure Croatian racial body”. The deportation of the Roma was conducted in June 1942, when the Roma from Bošnjaci were taken on foot to the county railway station, and then by train to Vinkovci. From this town, they were deported by train to Jasenovac. Only two Roma survived – they were soldiers of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, captured by the German military and sent to perform forced labour in German and Italian camps. The number of Romani victims from Bošnjaci still hasn’t been fully researched despite 11known attempts. It is, however, known that nobody declared themselves as Romani in the village of Bošnjaci and the entire surrounding district at the time of the next population census (1948). Almost the entire pre-war Romani community, which numbered at least a few hundred Roma, was destroyed as a consequence of Ustasha racial policy. According to the most recent population census, only seven people in this village declared themselves as Roma.

Maria Zarębińska-Broniewska (1904–1947). Aktorka, pisarka, więzień Oświęcimia

Author(s): Adrian Uljasz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2014

Maria Zarębińska-Broniewska, the wife of Władysław Broniewski, a poet, was an actress, performing during the period of „2nd Republic” on stages of Wilno, Radom, Katowice and Warszawa. She also gained film experience by playing a few small parts in Polish films. At the outset of World War II she was performing in Lviv, then under Soviet occupation. Later she resided in the area occupied by Germans and was the prisoner of Auschwitz and Ravensbrück–Altenburg camps. After the liberation she performed in Polish Army Theater in Lodz. She died as a result of health problems caused by her stay in camps. She left us her literary work, of high historic, esthetic and educational value, published after World War II, such as a children’s book Children of Warszawa, a novel on Holocaust and the support provided by Poles to persecuted population, and Stories from Auschwitz, with autobiographic themes, addressed to adults.

Władysław Strzemiński – seria kolaży Moim przyjaciołom Żydom. Doświadczenia wojny, żal i smutek

Author(s): Eleonora Jedlińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2014

The artist was born on November 21, 1893 in Mińsk, Bialorussia. He was the eldest son of a Polish family, though his father was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Tsarist Army. Strzemiński’s first encounter with modern art took place during his studies in Sankt Petersburg. He graduated from Tsar Alexander II Cadet School before studying at a Tsar Nicholas Military College of Engineering (1911–1914). In the middle of 1922, Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro – his wife – left the Soviet Smolensk and came to Poland. The events which undermined their and many other artists’ belief in value of art fully expressing the ideas of victory of new forms might have influenced their decision to settle down in Poland. In autumn 1931 Strzemiński moved to Łódź. Following the opening of the International Collection of Modern Art at the Łódź, Strzemiński was offered a teaching position in Łódź. Almost from the beginning Strzemiński was surrounded by young artists, graduates of art schools in Warsaw and Kraków (Stefan Wegner, Aniela Menkes, Jerzy Ryszard Krause, Bolesław Hochlinger). He was their teacher and master. The Public School was not only a place which offered additional training for printers and house-painters, but also the meeting place and studio where theoretical programs and exhibitions were prepared. Strzemiński taught typography and the principles of functioning printing. Another group of students who studied with Strzemiński was recommended to him by Mojżesz Broderson and Jankel Adler. It was the group of very young Jewish students: Samuel Szczekacz, Julian Lewin and Pinkus Szwarc. They started a private evening course at the Public School of Technical Training No. 10 in Łódź. The intensive art course attended by thise group included practical elements inspired by the image-making and spatial form techniques developed by Pablo Picasso, Kazimierz Malewicz, Piet Mondrian, Strzemiński and Kobro, and Jean Arp. These forms of art are known as cubism, unism, nepolasticism, suprematism and surrealism. Strzemiński and Kobro spent the summer 1939 together with their daughter Nika in Hel Peninsula. When the war broke-out, they left Łódź and headed East, where they spent the sever winter of 1939/1940. The first war series of drawings was created there. In May 1940 the artists came back to Łódź/Litzmannstadt. The first 3 months after the invasion of the city by the German was a period of massive extermination, including creation of Łódź ghetto. The Strzemińskis, without work, prose cuted for their revolutionary artistic activities tried to survive; at the end of war Strzemiński was seriously ill. In this period artist the artist drew a series of six drawings made in pencil on paper (Deportation). The drawings made in a winding line and showing deformed, as if deprived of the structure human beings, created the artist’s auto-commentary. After the series Deportation he created the next series War Against Homes (1941) and Faces, which consist of closed forms drawn in thin, wavy line suggesting eyeless human faces composed of fragmented facial features of anonymous people. Then the series Cheap as Mad (1942–1944) was created. These drawings were produced during the war and are highly deformed, drawn in one contour of an amorphous line. The last cycle connected with war and the Holocaust was a series of collages dedicated To My Friends the Jews. He re-used copied by carbon paper war drawings of the previous series as a matrix. The artistic technique used here by Strzemiński touches the primary, in relation to the Holocaust. The Holocaust should exist for us as „an empty place”, one which cannot be possessed by means of the metaphor. This place of lack or the fissure is filled here with documentary photographs, which give the evidence and confirm the extermination. At the bottom there is the cut out photo showing a charred corpse. The sketchy line and the charred corpse are joined together by the red color of splutter of blood. In other works of this series the artist used a photographic document showing children from an orphanage in the Litzmannstadt ghetto in the company of their caregivers going in pairs to the extermination camp in Chełmno. Mendel Grossman was a Jewish photographer in Łódź/Litzmannstadt ghetto and author of one of a few photographes used by Strzemiński (The Empty Shinbones of the Crematoria). Strzemiński used in his collages also the documentary photographs printed in Polish newspapers, edited between 1945 and 1946. It was the time of Nuremberg Trials, and the time when the pictures made by photographers of the US Army at time of liberation of concentration camps were published [Stretched by the Strings of Legs and Vow and Oath to the Memory of Hands (The Existence which We Do Not Know)]. Strzemiński also used the photographs from „The Stroop Report” – 75-page official report and a series of approximately 52 photographs prepared in May 1943 by the commander of the forces that liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto. The art work titled With the Ruins of Demolished Eye Sockets presents a solitary man among the ruins of Warsaw Ghetto, and is from „The Stroop Report”. Strzemiński rejected Communism in the 20ies and then Fascism in the 30ies but didn’t find the canon, which could negate his feeling of helplessness and nonsense, losing himself in a lack of form of his war drawings. This series of Strzemiński analyzed from the distance of few decades makes a suggestive, forceful and permanent picture of emptiness and void, which he tried to fill with the state of mourn and sadness.

Amikor antiszemita eszmék és zsidó törvények találkoznak. Magyarország esete

Author(s): Jehuda Hartman / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2018

Холокауст у Србији (немачко окупационо подручје) – нумеричко одређење и квантитативна анализа

Author(s): Dragan Cvetković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2017

An attempt is made to show the victims of the Jewish community from the territory of occupied Serbia on the basis of the partially revised list “Victims of War 1941–1945”. The article deals with the territorial belonging of the victims of the Jews, their gender, age and professional structure, as well as the circumstances and places of their destruction.

Syndrom poobozowy (KZ Syndrome)

Author(s): Stanisław Z. Leszczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/1996

18 lipca 1996 r., podczas pogrzebu Jana Mędrzaka, wieloletniego prezesa Klubu Inteligencji Katolickiej w Łodzi, bardzo interesujące przemówienie, nawiązujące do dramatycznych przeżyć w obozie koncentracyjnym, wygłosił prof. Stanisław Leszczyński, przyjaciel zmarłego. Po ceremoniach pogrzebowych biskup Bohdan Bejze wyraził myśl, iż wspomnienia obozowe prof. Leszczyńskiego są tak ważne, że powinny być spisane. Pod wpływem tej opinii prof. Leszczyński napisał niniejszy tekst.

Michaela Wolf (ed.), Interpreting in Nazi Concentration Camps, London/New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016

Author(s): Éva Pataky,Kristóf Móricz / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2017

-

Biedne zwierzęta patrzą na ludzi. Na marginesach książki Piotra Krupińskiego «„Dlaczego gęsi krzyczały?” Zwierzęta i Zagłada w literaturze polskiej XX i XXI wieku»

Author(s): Miłosz Markiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The article presents a reflection on the presence of animals in the Holocaust and in the narratives that underpinned it. The starting point of this consideration is the book by a Polish literary scholar – Piotr Krupiński «„Why did the Geese Shriek?” Animals and the Holocaust in Polish Literature of the 20th and 21st Century». The author juxtaposes the book with the comic book „Maus” by Art Spiegelman and the nazi propaganda film „The Eternal Jew”. The article raises questions about, among others, suffering of animals, a human–animal dualism in the context of the Holocaust, zoomorphism, and controversies over the so called animal holocaust. The author points out that we should remember the human is also an animal, especially at the time of the reflection on the Holocaust, which reveals the issue of „community of death”.

JEAN AMÉRY’NİN “LEFEU ODER DER ABBRUCH” ADLI ROMANINDA ATEŞ İMGESİ

Author(s): Hatice Genç / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 39/2017

In this article the fire image is investigated in the novel “Lefeu oder der Abbruch” by Austrian writer / philosopher Jean Améry who was described as "the survivor of the concentration camps” during the World War II. It is aimed to bring to light how this image is handled by the author. In this respect, the meanings hidden in the frame of the fire image are emerging. Therefore, the fire image is considered from the mythological, historical, sociological and psychological point of view. As a Nazi victim, the author has placed the plot in historical and social context. In this regard, there are some references to the Second World War from the author's life. In this study, an author-centered attitude was adopted as the method used in addition to text-based approach.

Utrwalanie uproszczeń

Author(s): Bożena Szaynok / Language(s): Polish Issue: 672/2018

W tematyce „Kościół a Żydzi” wiele jest uproszczeń, obrazów nieprawdziwych czy wspartych wybiórczymi źródłami. Książki Joanny Tokarskiej‑Bakir i Jacka Leociaka przynoszą ciekawe tropy badawcze, ale i nowe uproszczenia, wciąż nie dając odpowiedzi na ważne pytania.

Badacz i świadek drugiej generacji - O ratowaniu lokalnej pamięci zagłady Żydów

Author(s): Antoni Sułek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 670/2017

W trzy czwarte wieku po II wojnie światowej zagłada Żydów jest nadal obecna w pamięci polskich wsi i miasteczek. Dotyczy to zarówno centralnego doświadczenia Holokaustu, czyli unicestwienia Żydów przez nazistowskie Niemcy, jak i doświadczenia pobocznego, tj. stosunku miejscowych Polaków do ginących Żydów. Pamięć Zagłady na polskiej prowincji jednak zanika, bo zapisana jest na mało trwałym nośniku — na korze mózgowej, a nie w tekstach kultury. Taka pamięć ginie wraz z jej nosicielami, jeśli wcześniej nie została komuś przekazana lub spisana. Pamięć Zagłady, która istnieje na wsiach, nie jest tym, co socjologowie nazywają pamięcią wspólną, podzielaną. Jest raczej pamięcią podzieloną, pamięcią poszczególnych ludzi na wsi, a nie pamięcią wsi. Nie jest pamięcią wspólną, ponieważ nie jest podtrzymywana przez komunikację i komemorację: o zagładzie Żydów mało się mówi i nie obchodzi się wydarzeń z nią związanych.

The socio-parasite and bio-parasite metaphorical concepts in racist discourse

Author(s): Małgorzata Waśniewska / Language(s): English Issue: 02 (17)/2017

Defined as the transfer of meaning from one conceptual domain to another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993), metaphors play a key role not only in the thought process, where they facilitate the understanding of complex concepts, as well as determine and shape people’s attitudes and perceptions of reality, but also in the way we speak, as they strongly influence the storage and organisation of information. The main aim of the paper is to identify and evaluate the people are parasites metaphor employed while referring to racial outgroups, and to review its different forms of usage on the white-supremacist Internet forum Stormfront.org according to the bio-parasite / socio-parasite categorisation framework proposed by Musolff (2016). The analysis of the metaphors unveils a slight target-dependant variation in the conceptual frame employed, which, in consequence, may influence the actions of forum users.

Atrocity and Aesthetics. The Politics of Remembering and Representing the Holocaust in Polish Contemporary Art: Zbigniew Libera’s “Lego Concentration Camp”

Author(s): Ewa Janisz / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2015

This paper discusses the politics of remembering and the representation of the Holocaust in Polish contemporary art referring to the Lego Concentration Camp (1996) by Zbigniew Libera. The paper presents the ways in which Libera’s work challenges the traditional ways of representing the Holocaust and how it engages with issues such as the relation between atrocity and aesthetics. The associations brought to this mode of representation by the notions of game and toys and whether theatricality and play are in dialogue with or violate the historical experience of the Holocaust is also discussed. The paper investigates the specificity of the Polish context in the way the Holocaust is approached and the reactions these artistic attempts raise in the public. Do the unconventional and shocking representations help understand the Holocaust or do they create the opposite effect of misguided and trivialised reading of history?

Меморіальна культура в Україні у контексті медіасприйняття історичних проблем (на матеріалі документалістики про Голокост та Голодомор)

Author(s): Bogdana Nosova,Maksym Mykolayovych Khylko,Sergii Viktorovich Tukaiev,Yurii Dmytrovych Havrylets,Andreas Enzminger,Volodymyr Volodymyrovych Rizun,Juergen Grimm / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 20/2016

This study sets out the results of media effects experiment of two historical documentaries, conducted within joint research project "Broadcasting History in the Transnational Space" by the Vienna University and Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv researchers’ team. The main objectives of the study were to explore the impact of Holocaust and Holodomor documentaries on personal traits changing, psychological inclinations, as well as on representations of historical issues. Juergen Grimm’s model “Multidimensional-Imparting-of-History” (MIH) was used for assessing imparting history. The method of modelling was the basic method used during the research. It covers empirical indices of humanitarian values, national identity as well as European and Asian identification. Total of 185 student volunteers (1st to 3rd year of studies at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) were involved in the experiment. Students watched two documentaries about two major historical tragedies of the 20th century: Holocaust (Genocide of Jews) in Europe during 1939–1945 and Holodomor (Great Artificial Famine) in Ukraine during 1932–1933. Before and after being exposed to the documentaries, students filled out a questionnaire that included social-identity, national-identity as well as psychological parts. The main finding of the experiment is the students’ significant predilection to compromise and reduce conflictive and aggression traits. Under the impact of both documentaries, we observed the growth of the disposition for transnational and trans-ethnic community-building (Communitas Skills) and general tendency towards cosmopolitan problem-solving and commitment for universal human rights (Political Humanitas).

Eksterminacja przyrody w Lesie Rzuchowskim

Author(s): Mikołaj Smykowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

This paper examines how Nazi extermination procedures at the Chełmno Death Camp are ecologically related to the devastation of the local forest ecosystem. Smykowski explores the ecocide and subsequent attempts to restitute vegetation. His study is based on a memoire by German forester Heinz May, in charge of providing wood to fire the crematories and of concealing the mass graves with tree seedlings. The methodology and theoretical apparatus of relational ontology portray the post-Holocaust landscape as a result of interfering processes, both anthropogenic (anthropopressure, reclamation, aestheticization) and natural (secondary succession). Smykowski’s approach shows the landscape of the Rzuchowski Forest as an example of an ecoheritage.

Krajobraz po Zagładzie. Pastoralne dystopie i wizje „terracydu”

Author(s): Aleksandra Ubertowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Ubertowska examines what possibilities emerge from relating two research perspectives, namely Holocaust studies and environmentalism. Her point of departure is the overlap between the definitions and range of associations in the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’. She sketches out the assumptions of Franz J. Broswimmer’s environmental planetary history. To illustrate these theoretical assumptions in a way inspired by the theory of ‘ecocide’, Ubertowska analyses Georges Didi-Huberman’s book Kora as well as Anselm Kiefer’s paintings (esp. from the cycle ‘Morgenthau’).

Zagłada gatunków

Author(s): Arkadiusz Morawiec / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Review: Piotr Krupiński: „Dlaczego gęsi krzyczały?”. Zwierzęta i Zagłada w literaturze polskiej XX i XXI wieku [‘Why Did the Geese Cry?’ Animals and the Holocaust in Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Polish Literature], Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, Warsaw 2016

„Przyroda nam pomagała”. Lasy, drzewa i historie środowiskowe Holokaustu

Author(s): Tim Cole / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

How can environmental history contribute to Holocaust and genocide studies? Analysing memoirs and interviews with Jewish survivors who spent the wartime years hiding in the forests of Central and Eastern Europe, we can recognize three main problems: first, the experience of the forest as a strange place that still offers shelter from the even more dangerous world beyond; second, food supply: nature was generous, but it was still necessary to get additional goods from outside the forest; and third, adaptation to natural conditions, or, as many survivors put it, to become ‘an animal’.