‘Turning Jews Over’ – the Participation of ‘Blue’ Policemen in Deportations of Jews Illustrated with the Example of the Radomsko County

Author(s): Ewa Wiatr / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

Based on previously unknown archival documents, the author discusses the Polish Police functionaries’ participation in deportations of the Jewish population from Radomsko County to the ghetto in Radomsko or to death centres. The ‘blue’ policemen participated in the “Jewish campaigns” not only as guards, but they also took a direct part in both the loading of Jews and Jewish possessions and in the stamping of Jewish property. The policemen delegated from the local police stations to assist at the deportations were paid stipends from the budget of the Union of Communities in Radomsko.

“A young boy attacked us once and started shooting; we didn’t even run any more.” Murders committed on Jews from the village of Strzegom by AK and BCh members

Author(s): Anna Bikont / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

A group of more than 30 Jews was hiding in a dugout in a forest near Strzegom, a small village on the edge of a forest in the Świętokrzyskie Province. Attacked and robbed by the villagers who were members of the Home Army and Peasants’ Battalions, the Jews continued to hide in the forest in smaller groups. The same group of partisans that had attacked the Jews in the dugout continued to capture and murder them, including women and children. There were eight survivors: children and adolescents plus one adult. The article reconstructs the six-month period of hiding basing on a touching testimony of one of the surviving girls, Dora Zoberman, who gave it at the age of eleven, materials from the post war August Decree trials, and recent conversations with the survivors and Strzegom inhabitants. It also reconstructs the actions of the judiciary with regard to the crimes committed against the Jews. Sentenced to death, the murderers were pardoned and released after 1956. One of them received compensation in the 1990s for having been repressed because of his pro-independence activity.

“By the Country and within the Country” - The Union of Native Jews and its Struggle for Emancipation in Romania before First World War

Author(s): Elisabeth Weber / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

Romania was the last European country to offer equal rights to its Jews, as it granted them citizenship only after the First World War. In 1909/1910, a handful of Romanian Jewish leaders founded the Union of Native Jews (Uniunea Evreilor Pământeni), which aimed to unify all Romanian Jews in their fight against antisemitism and for emancipation. The Union understood itself as a true political organisation, which sought to achieve its political goals “by the country and within the country”. Obviously, this statement came as a reaction to the main nationalist narrative, which suspected Romanian Jews of either instigating or at least providing the pretext for the Great Powers to interfere in Romania’s domestic affairs. However, it also reflected the Union’s conviction that fighting for equal rights was above all in the interest of Romanian Jews and had to be achieved first and foremost out of their own volition and through their own efforts. This article focusses on the Union’s history prior to the First World War and analyses the Union’s policies towards the Jewish population, the Romanian state, and towards Western Jewish organisations.

“Definitely Jewish, explicitly Polish…” Narrative strategies of the founders of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Author(s): Joanna CUKRAS-STELĄGOWSKA / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

This paper aims to establish a framework of discursive narratives about the idea of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Most of these narrative strategies concern the implementation of this huge project, arrangement of exhibitions, topics presented and the importance of the museum for the community of Polish Jews and Poles. The qualitative analysis of the narratives is conducted based on the content of periodicals published by the Jewish community in Poland: „Midrasz. Pismo Żydowskie” and „Chidusz. Magazyn Żydowski”. The analysis involves 11 speeches given immediately after the ceremonial opening of the Museum in 2013 and later, primarily at anniversary celebrations.

“Germans have killed our Jews, so we’re getting rid of them.” The case of Edward Toniakiewicz

Author(s): Barbara Engelking / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

The author investigates how corpses of murdered Jews were hidden in towns during the occupation. She examines the case of Edward Toniakiewicz and his murder of three Jews he was hiding in his cellar, and whose bodies he then attempted to dump into a nearby pond. The crime came to light due to his neighbour’s curiosity. The investigation was conducted by the Polish ‘blue’ police, and its documentation was used during Toniakiewicz’s trial after the war. This revealing paper acquaints the reader with various aspects of the fate of Jews hiding on the ‘Aryan side’.

“Io sono a scacchi”. L’identità ebraica nell’opera letteraria e teatrale di Janusz Korczak

Author(s): Giovanna Tomassucci / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2016

This paper focuses on the problem of ethnic coexistence as presented in some of Korczak’s literary and dramatic works, from his earlier humorous short stories to the play The Senate of Madmen. Like many Polish writers, Korczak perceived literature as a space of freedom, but, unlike other Jews writing in Polish, he always stressed his Jewishness and his firm belief in an equal and double identity (Jewish and Polish). In his long literary career Korczak never practiced ethnic agnosticism: on the contrary, he brought the tradition of Ashkenazi humor and Yiddish literary topics (szmonces, schlemiel and nudnik, the shtetl) into Polish culture, converting these symbols of Jewish identity into universal cultural elements.

„Powinności badaczek i badaczy poezji Holokaustu wiążą się z zadaniami poezji w ogóle”. Z Profesor Bożeną Shallcross o poezji i Zagładzie rozmawia Anita Jarzyna

Author(s): Anita Jarzyna,Bożena Shallcross / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 5/2019

„SO ŽIDOM SOM NEVYJEDNÁVAL.“ K ARIZÁCIÁM SPISOVATEĽA ĽUDOVÍTA MISTRÍKA-ONDREJOVA

Author(s): Ján Hlavinka / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 3/2019

The study is devoted to the participation of the notable Slovak writer Ľudovít Mistrík-Ondrejov in the Aryanization of Jewish property in Slovakia in the period 1939 – 1945. The fact that Ľudovít Mistrík-Ondrejov profitedfrom the Aryanization of Jewish firms is relatively well-known and wasalready publicized in connection with the bookshop owning Steiner family, whose business Mistrík-Ondrejov Aryanized. The present study is acomprehensive study of the Aryanizing activities of Ľ. Mistrík-Ondrejov,covering not only the Aryanization of the Steiner bookshop, but also of the Känzler Brothers firm in Bratislava from which Ľ. Mistrík-Ondrejov personally profited. The study provides hitherto unknown fact about bothĽ. Mistrík-Ondrejov’s Aryanizations.

„Sunt sau nu folositori ovreii Principatelor Române?” Analiză istorică a unei broșuri anti-Semite

Author(s): Lya Benjamin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 4+5(20+21)/2020

This paper seeks to provide an analysis of a few booklets published in Romania between 1865 and 1867 which reveal the contradictory positions of political elites on the Jewish question. Moreover, I pinpoint that Jewish issues were perceived as a hot potato in many high political circles, with electoral, economic and intellectual stakes for all the actors involved in those debates.

„Tak bliscy mi, jak sam sobie jestem bliski”. Jachimowicz o Schulzu i borysławskim „zagłębiu poetyckim”

Author(s): Stanisław Rosiek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2019

The paper is an extended comment on Marian Jachimowicz’s “Reminiscence of Bruno Schulz.” On the basis of ample unpublished archive materials, the author reconstructs Jachimowicz’s biography, paying the most attention to the period of 1938–1942, when Jachimowicz as an aspiring man of letters had close friendly contacts with Schulz as well as other artists and writers of the Drogobych and Borysław region, known as the “Borysław Poetry Zone” (Marek Zwillich, Anna Płockier, Henryk Wiciński, Juliusz Wit, Artur Rzeczyca, and others). It turns out that his relationship with Schulz was a formative literary experience for the young poet. As he admits, it was thanks to the access to Schulz’s library and his recommendations, that he came across the books by poets who became important for his own development. Meeting Schulz was also important for another reason: he was the first “great artist” whom Jachimowicz met in person, knowing his literary works – Cinnamon Shops and A Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass – and appreciating them highly. Jachimowicz’s attitude to Schulz was ambiguous, and this is what the present paper is mainly about. Starting with an analysis of an unpublished “source reminiscence” of 1948, the author approaches its subsequent versions published in journals (Twórczość, 1958 and Poezja, 1966). It was characteristic for Jachimowicz that his imagination and memory, fixed upon Schulz for several decades, pictured the Drogobych writer as “approaching.” Particularly in the first version of his text, Jachimowicz describes Schulz’s physique, doing it in a shockingly brutal, even abjectal, way. On the other hand, his essays demonstrate a more and more intense tone of mourning. The world of Drogobych and Borysław, to which both Jachimowicz and Schulz belonged before the war, appears in them as an irrevocably lost Arcadia, the only reality where the former did not feel all alone.

„Tymczasem palono Żydów”… Kilka uwag o stosunku Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego do żydowskości

Author(s): Giovanna Tomassucci / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 38/2020

For Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, the question of his own roots was a very private matter; he treated them as if they were not present in his life and wrote explicitly about Jewishness or Shoah only in his non-fiction work. Nevertheless, the themes of the historical anti-Judaic persecution and conversion to Christianity are constantly present in his literary work, with allusions to the twentieth century’s massacres. Numerous characters of Jewish origin, belonging to a harassed and destroyed community, appear in many of his literary texts. Certain victims, especially males, are infected by evil, others resist it: over the years, the opposition between these two categories became increasingly noticeable, while the topic of Shoah is faced in a more veiled way. It is indeed not a coincidence that Herling’s first tale about the persecutions of Jews, The Second Coming, was written in 1961, at the time of the Eichmann trial, and that later Don Ildebrando, The Bell-Ringer’s Toll and The Legend Of A Converted Hermit, showing Jewish opposing strategies toward evil, were composed after his visit to Majdanek in 1991. Herling looks at the post-Arendt discussion on complicity in evil, polarizing the opposition between good and bad victims already expressed in his narration of the Gulag: he does not envisage any intermediate category analogous to Levi’s Grey zone and does not examine in depth the manipulation of the victims in extreme conditions.

„Więcej nic nie powiem…” Rozmowa z Marianem Turskim – ocalałym z getta łódzkiego – przeprowadzona 28 sierpnia 2019 r. w przeddzień obchodów 75. rocznicy likwidacji getta łódzkiego

Author(s): Żenia Klimakina,Kamilę Litman,Arkadiusza Lubę,Jacka Tokarczyka,Ewę Tyszko,Marian Turski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 16/2020

Interview with Marian Turski by Żenia Klimakina, Kamila Litman, Arkadiusza Lubę and Jacek Tokarczyk

„Wielką jest semicka moc”. Poetyckie strofy w „Roli” Jana Jeleńskiego

Author(s): Małgorzata Domagalska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 44/2019

Rola was the first antisemitic weekly in Poland published in Warsaw between 1883 and 1912. According to the nineteenth-century custom, not only journalism, but also novels published in weekly installments, as well as poems were included in the magazine. In poetry, lofty or religious topics were raised at the time of Christmas or Easter, or virulent antisemitic satire was published on various occasions. The antisemitic satire corresponded to the themes taken up in prose and journalism. The themes were dominated by the myth of Judeopolonia, issues of assimilation and social advancement of Jews, attacks on mixed marriages and mockery of Zionism, or the colonies established by Baron Hirsch in Argentina. It can be said that both prose and poetry were servile to journalism and strengthened the antisemitic content dominant in the weekly.

„Wykazują najwyższą skłonność do emigracji”: exodus Żydów z Imperium Rosyjskiego. Mikrohistoria wybranych sztetli Podlasia

Author(s): Wojciech Konończuk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2020

In 1881–1914, two million Jews emigrated from the Russian Empire, with 78 percent of them settling in the United States of America. The article focuses on the local dimension of the great migration. Two towns in Podlasie (Bielsk and Orle), mostly inhabited by Jews, serve as the case study. An attempt is made to estimate the size of the Jewish migration and to reveal its anatomy, including questions related to getting passports, illegal border crossing, and the attitude of the authorities to the Jewish exodus.

№301 Odcienie niemieckiego antysemityzmu

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

Na ulicach największych niemieckich miast coraz częściej dochodzi do incydentów antysemickich. Mimo że walka z antysemityzmem jest uznawana w Niemczech za część doktryny państwowej, w ostatnich latach wśród Żydów żyjących w Niemczech zdecydowanie wzrosło poczucia zagrożenia i to do tego stopnia, że 44% z badanych rozważa emigrację. Od kilkunastu miesięcy prowadzone są debaty nad „zaimportowanym antysemityzmem” obecnym wśród uchodźców z państw arabskich, przybywających w ostatnich latach do RFN. Antysemityzm wśród azylantów jest nowym elementem w trwającym od dłuższego czasu w Niemczech sporze o stosunek poszczególnych partii do antysemityzmu i jego zwalczania. Zarówno Alternatywa dla Niemiec (AfD), jak i Lewica są oskarżane przez pozostałe ugrupowania o niedostateczne rozliczanie się z przypadków antysemityzmu we własnych szeregach. Z kolei AfD zarzuca kanclerz Angeli Merkel przyczynienie się do wzrostu ksenofobii poprzez liberalną politykę migracyjną. Znaczące różnice między statystykami incydentów (w których mowa o sprawcach przede wszystkim prawicowej proweniencji) a odczuciami ofiar, które wskazują sprawców o pochodzeniu migracyjnym, rodzą pytania o metodologię prowadzonych zestawień. Próby wdrażania przez Federalne Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych opracowanych przez organizacje pozarządowe praktyk monitorowania incydentów antysemickich mogą pomóc w poprawie wiarygodności statystyk dzięki przedstawieniu szerszego tła motywacji ataków. Działania federacji i krajów związkowych koncentrują się szczególnie na powstrzymywaniu antysemityzmu w Internecie oraz szkołach, gdzie coraz częściej dochodzi do dyskryminacji i ataków.

№301 The shades of German anti-Semitism

Author(s): Kamil Frymark / Language(s): English

The streets of Germany’s biggest cities are increasingly witnessing frequent anti-Semitic incidents. Despite the fact that Germany regards the fight against anti-Semitism as part and parcel of its domestic policy, in recent years Jews living in Germany have reported that they feel under threat, to such an extent that 44% of them are considering migration. Debates on the presence of ‘imported anti-Semitism’ among refugees from Arab states who have come to Germany in recent years have been held for several months. Anti-Semitism among asylum seekers is a new element in the dispute that has been evident in Germany over the attitude of specific parties to anti-Semitism and methods for combating it. Both Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Left Party are accused by other parties of insufficient efforts to eliminate instances of anti-Semitism in their ranks. The AfD, for its part, accuses Chancellor Angela Merkel of having contributed to an increase in xenophobic tendencies by pursuing a liberal migration policy. Significant differences between the statistics concerning incidents (which suggest that the perpetrators are most often right-wing extremists) and the accounts given by the victims (who point to individuals of migrant origin as the perpetrators) have triggered doubts regarding the methodology used to compile these statistics. Attempts by the Federal Ministry of the Interior to monitor anti-Semitic incidents, which is a practice recommended by non-governmental organisations, may help to improve the credibility of the statistics by showing the motivation behind such attacks in a broader context. Activities carried out by the federation and by individual German states focus on curbing anti-Semitism on the internet and in schools, which is where incidents involving discrimination and attacks are becoming increasingly common.

Холокауст као екстремни облик страдања цивила окупиране Србије – нумеричко одређење и квантитативна анализа

Author(s): Dragan Cvetković / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 2/2018

The losses of Jews in the Holocaust were separated from the massive killing of civilians from the territory of occupied Serbia for many reasons. Destined in advance to destruction from the Nazis, Jews accounted to 11.20% of the losses, which was 33.94 times higher than their share in the population of the occupied territory (0.33%). Given the presence in the population, the real losses of the Jews were 36 times bigger then the number of killed Serbs who suffered the greatest number of civilian casualties (80.19%). The extermination of the Jewish community started in the ϐirst year of the war, and unlike all other nations, practically ended by its destruction in 1942, in which they represented two-ϐifths of the losses incurred by then (39.37%). In the Holocaust, destroyed Jews made up one third of the victims of the Belgrade region and two-ϐifths of the civilians losses in Banat. The share of women amongst the exterminated Jews (47.02%) was 3.61 and 1.97 times higher compared to the losses of Serbs and members of other and unknown nationalities, respectively. The Jews accounted for almost a third of all killed women (29.67%) in the occupied territory. Completely destroyed as a nation, Jews had a large share among the casualties under 15 and over 65 years of age (3.27 or 2.32 times more than Serbs), and they accounted for a quarter of all casualties aged up to 15 and a ϐifth of civilian casualties aged 65 and older. Their destruction left a major impact on economic and social development in post war peri od, since they represented one-ϐifth of the losses that businessmen, ofϐi cials and experts, secondary school and university students suffered. The loss of life that was associated with the previous stay in the concentration camp made Jews account for one third of the loss of civilians of the occu pied Serbia who were victims under these circumstances.

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.

Христо Родев – един българин в защита на евреите

Author(s): Dragomir Georgiev / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2013

Ян Карски – герой на полската съпротива

Author(s): Andrzej Żbikowski / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 6/2016