Dějiny obětí

Author(s): Vít Strobach / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2016

After the Changes of 1989 a change also took place in normative points of articulation of social conflict in eastern Europe. The paradigm of the social sciences, including historiography, changed as well. It is on the whole fair to call this the ‘identity turn’. The meaning of the term ‘identity’ was inspired by history but changed into up-to-date forms. The article analyses points of friction where contact took place between majority Czech society and cultural identity, historical memory, and historiographical self-reflections of Czech Jews after the Changes of 1989 to 2012.In this article, the author seeks to analyse the basic structure of statements about Jewish history in the Bohemian Lands in this period, and to determine what role the narrative of the victim plays in them. The author presents his hypothesis of the considerable influence of the ‘lachrymose conception of Jewish history’ in Czech historiography after the Changes of 1989. In this, he distinguishes between three paradigms, which he then further defines and assesses according to their functions: methodological nationalism, methodological totalitarianism, and methodological culturalism. He then identifies the constellations in which they appear both in academic and in public discourses, especially those influencing the politics of identity of the Czech Jews. At the same time, he seeks to explain why the schemes make it difficult to understand the modern history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands.The history of the Jews, according to the author, became locked in an interpretation based solely on the idea of ‘eternal antisemitism and its victims’. This is therefore a good example of history/memory as an inherent component of ideology. As such, it has been operating in the undifferentiated space between scholarship and politics, and has been constructing the ethnocentric identity of the Jewish nation. This has led to a schematizing division of social relationships into adverse national and cultural (racial) camps, which have seemed to exist ‘since time immemorial’ and ‘naturally’, and to the gradual seclusion of the Jewish community and its defining itself or being defined against other groups. This is evident not only in the approach of Czech Jews towards the Arabs (Muslims) but also in the assertion of the security discourse in their politics of identity in fields as specialized as architecture and social care.

Немските престъпления срещу поляци, оказващи помощ на евреи в Илжецки окръг (Радомска област на Генерал-губернаторството на Райха)

Author(s): Sebastian Piątkowski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2017

During the German occupation, the city of Ilja (the capital of the county) and its surroundings were located within the borders of the Radom region, as parts of the Reich General-Government. The Poles living there supported the Jews in different ways, provided them with food, clothes, and gave them shelter. Because of this, the Germans killed more than 50 people from the Ilzetz district, exterminating entire families (along with children and old men) and burning their homes.

Еврейският въпрос в националсоциалистическа Германия

Author(s): Valentin Spiridonov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2013

Демографски измерения на еврейското етническо присъствие в България през периода 1878–1946 г.

Author(s): Shtelian Shterionov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2013

Към общата характеристика на българския антисемитизъм (1879-1944 г.): бележки и съображения

Author(s): Nikolay Prodanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2013

Christians and Jews: historical and theological perspectives of their relationship

Author(s): Andrzej Piotr Perzyński / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 19/2019

The article analyses the subject of Christian-Jewish relations in historical and theological terms. In the historical part, the following periods are briefly discussed: New Testament, patristic, medieval, modern and contemporary. In the theological part, the common elements of Judaism and Christianity are first presented. Herein: Jews and Christians identify their faith and action through the interrelations between justice and love; they base their beliefs on the common “scripture” (the “Old Testament”); they understand each other as the people of God; they profess the one God, the Creator and the Redeemer; they express their faith in worship, in which there are many similarities;Jews and Christians also live in the expectation for the common history of God with His people, whose fulfilment they expect. Distinctive elements (the divergence of the ways) are: the belief in Jesus, the Christ; the interpretation of the Scriptures; a different understanding of what God’s people are; different developed piety. In conclusion, it is said that the rediscovery of a positive relationship with Judaism facilitates a positive formation of Christian identity and memory.

Jewish Women’s Activities during the Holocaust in Romania

Author(s): Sylvia Hershcovitz / Language(s): English Issue: 13/2020

Although the war and the Holocaust struck men and women equally, there are reasons to discuss the fate of the women and their specific problems, in order to fill in a missing linkin describing Jewish life and to offer a fresh perspective that would give us better tools to write the history of Jewish life at that time.This paper will discuss the Romanian Jewish Women’s activity during the Holocaust and will particularly look into the activity of “The Jewish Center for the Protection of Mother and Child”, founded in Bucharest by Mela Iancu. What was the center’s contribution to the Jewish children and mothers during the war in Romania and to the orphans rescued from Transnistria? What can be learned about the women’s role during periods of crisis and war? “Mama Mela”, as the children of the center used to call her, was a symbol of determination,inspiration, wisdom, and hope. Finally, by including her story in the historical discourse, this paper aspires to shape and contribute to the large framework designing a reviewed historical approach and a gender-sensitive agenda.

Transition on Trial

Author(s): Emanuel-Marius Grec / Language(s): English Issue: 13/2020

In this article, I examine the People’s Tribunals and the relevant debates surrounding them. I focus in particular on the symbolic role of these special trials in the Romanian public imagination after 1989, as well as the ways in which scholars can better fit them into existing historiographical patterns. Concepts such as “political justice” or “transition” will also be further explored. Also, I analyze the way in which the Soviet influence in these post-war trials has been perceived, while also looking at the multiple ways in which it can be interpreted. I then show that the study of the Holocaust in Romania is contingent upon understanding these crucial post-war attempts to deal with the horrors of Romania’s past. With all their issues, the People’s Tribunals were crucial in condemning war criminals who perpetrated the genocide of Jews and Roma in Romania. Their unique character must be drawn into relief as they were based on special laws, as ordinary courts did not have the capacity to deal with the unprecedented nature of the crimes that took place during World War II. In this sense, seeing these legal proceedings within the larger European context of dealing with Nazi crimes is of the utmost importance.

THE FATE OF SLOVAK JEWS IN THE LOCAL PERSPECTIVE: REVIEW OF A HISTORY OF JEWISH COMMUNITY IN DOLNÝ KUBÍN

Author(s): Patrícia Fogelová / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

JAKOBYOVÁ, Barbora – NIŽŇANSKÝ, Eduard. Dejiny židovskej komunity v Dolnom Kubíne [A History of The Jewish Community in Dolný Kubín]. Bratislava: Izraelská obchodná spoločnosť na Slovensku, 2018, 240 pp. ISBN 978-80-971954-4-1

Holocaust Testimony, Autobiography, and the Effaced Self.

Author(s): Janine Holc / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Autobiography is often writing about how a “self” forms over time as it is affected by the conditions it encounters. This definition can be problematic for Holocaust autobiography, because hiding one’s self from others and repressing one’s desires and impulses became crucial to survival. This essay traces the processes by which a “self” emerges for one Holocaust writer and survivor, Helen S., through archival documents, testimonies and memoirs over time. Helen S.’s example demonstrates how an effaced self can have a textual presence before the writer can allow herself to fully inhabit a traumatic personal history.

SHORT NOTES/GENERAL WORKS

Author(s): Antoni Grabowski,Marta Jaworska-Oknińska,Bartosz Kaliski,Adam Kożuchowski,Grzegorz Krzywiec,Rafał Rutkowski,Hubert Wilk / Language(s): English Issue: 122/2020

General works: Marcin Wołoszyn (ed.), Od Grodów Czerwieńskich do Linii Curzona. Dzieje środkowego Pobuża w wiekach średnich oraz postrzeganie formowania się wschodniej granicy Polski w historiografii XVIII–XXI wieku [From Cherven Towns to Curzon Line. The Lands on the Middle Bug during the Middle Ages and the Historiographic Perspective on the Formation of Poland’s Eastern Border, 18th–21st cc.], vols 1–2, Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN, Kraków–Leipzig–Rzeszów–Warszawa, 2017, Instytut Archeologii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, 720+696 pp., indices; series: U źródeł Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej / Frühzeit Ostmitteleuropas, 1 Mateusz Ratyński, Jan Dębski (1889–1976). Polityk kompromisu [Jan Dębski (1889–1976): A Politician of Compromise], Warszawa, 2019, Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 414 pp., index of persons, bibliog., list of acronyms/abbreviations Marek Kornat and Rafał Łatka (eds), Polskie wizje i oceny komunizmu (1917–1989) [Polish Visions and Evaluations of Communism, 1917–1989], Warszawa, 2020, Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 384 pp., index of persons Wokół Pierwszego Marszałka Polski Józefa Piłsudskiego, męża stanu, wodza i bohatera narodowego [Studies on Józef Piłsudski, a Statesman, Soldier, and National Hero], ed. by Aleksander Smoliński and Jarosław Durka, Toruń, 2020, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 348 pp., 16 ills Marta Kubiszyn, Niepamięć – post-pamięć – współpamięć. Zagłada lubelskich Żydów jako przedmiot kultury pamięci [Oblivion – Post-Memory – Co-Memory: The Annihilation of the Jews of Lublin as an Object of Remembrance Culture], Lublin, 2019, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 238 pp., index of names, bibliog., ills, list of ills, English sum. Wojciech Drelicharz, Unifying the Kingdom of Poland in Medieval Historiographic Thought, transl. Anna Skucińska, Kraków, 2019, Towarzystwo Naukowe Societas Vistulana, 477 pp., bibliog., maps, indices, ills, list of abbreviations Kamil Kajkowski, Obrzędowość religijna Pomorzan we wczesnym Średniowieczu. Studium archeologiczne [The Religious Rites and Rituals of Early Medieval Pomeranians. An Archaeological Study], Wrocław, 2019, Wydawnictwo Chronicon, 494 pp., indices of local names and supernatural beings, English sum., ills, maps, bibliog Stanisław Rosik, The Slavic Religion in the Light of 11th- and 12th-Century German Chronicles (Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Helmold of Bosau). Studies on the Christian Interpretation of Pre-Christian Cults and Beliefs in the Middle Ages, transl. Anna Tyszkiewicz, Leiden–Boston, 2020, Brill, 442 pp., bibliog., indices, figures, map; series: East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 60 Adrian Jusupović, Kronika halicko-wołyńska (Kronika Romanowiczów) w latopisarskiej kolekcji historycznej [The Halychian-Volhynian Chronicle (the Romanovych Chronicle) in the letopis Historical Collection], Kraków, 2019, Instytut Historii PAN – Avalon, 208 pp., bibliog., English sum., index of persons, geographical and ethnic names, ills Andrzej Karpiński, in cooperation with Emil Kalinowski and Elżbieta Nowosielska, Pożary w miastach Rzeczypospolitej w XVI–XVIII wieku i ich następstwa ekonomiczne, społeczne i kulturowe. Katalog [Fires in the Cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries and Their Economic, Social and Cultural Consequences. A Catalogue], Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa, 2020, 334 pp. Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz (ed.), „Najwyższa Pani swoich praw”. Idee wolności, niepodległości i suwerenności Rzeczypospolitej 1569–1795 [“The Supreme Lady of Her Rights”. The Ideas of Freedom, Independence and Sovereignty of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1569–1795], Warszawa, 2019, Muzeum Historii Polski, Polskie Towarzystwo Badań nad Wiekiem Osiemnastym, Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 345 pp., index of persons Piotr Ugniewski (ed.), „Skłócony naród, król niepewny, szlachta dzika”? Polska stanisławowska w świetle najnowszych badań [“Nation Conflicted, King Uncertain, Noblemen Savage”? Poland under King Stanislaus Augustus in the Light of Recent Research], Warszawa, 2020, Wydawnictwo Neriton, Muzeum Historii Polski, 282 pp., 4 ills in colour Dorota Malczewska-Pawelec and Tomasz Pawelec, Karol Szajnocha. Codzienność, kobiety, historiografi a [Karol Szajnocha. Everyday Life, Women, Historiography], Katowice, 2019, Uniwersytet Śląski, 284 pp., personal index, English and German sum. Grzegorz Kucharczyk (ed.), Pierwsza niemiecka okupacja: Królestwo Polskie i kresy wschodnie pod okupacją mocarstw centralnych 1914–1918 [The First German Occupation: the Kingdom of Poland and the Eastern Borderland Occupied by the Central Powers, 1914–1918], Warszawa, 2019, Instytut Historii PAN, 872 pp., index of persons, German sum. Metamorfozy społeczne [Social Metamorphoses], xxii: Wokół nowej syntezy dziejów Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej [Around a New Synthetic Review of the History of the Second Republic of Poland], ed. by Włodzimierz Mędrzecki, Warszawa, 2019, IH PAN, 192 pp., notes on authors, index of persons Dziennik Stanisława Borkowskiego, konserwatywnego ziemianina z jędrzejowskiego Lipna (1919–1921) [The Diary of Stanisław Borkowski, a Conservative Landowner from Lipno, County of Jędrzejów (1919–1921)], ed. by Mariusz Nowak, Kielce, 2019, Kieleckie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jana Kochanowskiego, LXXXI + 201 pp., bibliog., webography, index Edyta Majcher-Ociesa, Interwencjonizm państwowy w przemyśle Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1930–1939 [State Interventionism in the Industry of the Second Republic of Poland (1930–1939)], Kielce, 2019, Kieleckie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jana Kochanowskiego, 439 pp., tables, list of tables, bibliog., index of persons, English sum. Piotr M. Majewski, Kiedy wybuchnie wojna? 1938. Studium kryzysu [When Will the War Break Out? 1938: A Study of the Crisis], Warszawa, 2019, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 458 pp., bibliog., ills, index; series: Seria historyczna, 36 Marek Rodzik, Polska a Wielka Brytania: od kryzysu sudeckiego do 15 marca 1939 roku [Poland and Great Britain: From the Sudeten Crisis to 15 March 1939], Warszawa, 2019, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 175 pp., bibliog., index of persons, list of acronyms/abbreviations, English sum.; series: Monografie, 141 Gustaw Herling-Grudziński and Jerzy Giedroyć, Korespondencja [Correspondence], i: 1944–1966; ed. by Włodzimierz Bolecki (chief editor), Sylwia Błażejczyk-Mucha, Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk, Aleksandra Siwek, Violetta Wejs-Milewska, Marzena Woźniak-Łabieniec, Mirosław Wójcik, and Marek Żebrowski, Kraków, 2019, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 900 pp., index, reproductions, ills; series: Dzieła zebrane. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, 12

Prawda historyczna a odpowiedzialność prawna za jej zniekształcanie, red. nauk. Arkadiusz Radwan, Marcin Berent

Author(s): Tomasz Pudłocki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

Review of: Tomasz Pudłocki - Prawda historyczna a odpowiedzialność prawna za jej zniekształcanie, red. nauk. Arkadiusz Radwan, Marcin Berent, Warszawa 2019, Wydawnictwo C.H. Beck, ss. XL + 470

ТРОП ВОЗА КАО СИМБОЛ ТРАУМЕ У КЊИЖЕВНОСТИ ХОЛОКАУСТА

Author(s): Milica M. Karić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 76/2021

Traumatic experience such as the Holocaust requires traumatic ways of representation. Those who dare to write about it encounter various dilemmas and difficulties in finding the right ways to write about something that cannot be written about. Train trope is a usual symbol of the biggest XX century trauma because rail- way system and different types of cars enabled transportation of millions of people from the whole Europe, whose lives were terminated in the death camps, as well as their wealth, gold and other valuables. Trains found their way in literature with both survivor writers and those who didn’t experience the Holocaust. The symbol of train had been interpreted within psychoanalysis of dreams as passage of time and life before it started to operate as a symbol of the very death in reality. In this paper we tried to investigate how train trope functions in this trauma based literary genre with those writers who were inside and those who felt them as cultural heritage. Those who were inside death trains, such as Elie Wiesel, insisted that the only way of representation has to be in documentary and realistic style. On the other hand, writers who were lucky not to experience the hell on Earth couldn’t write from the ‘inside’ and had to find other ways of representation. Their styles vary from allegory in Kosinsi’s autofictional novel to magic realism in David and Thomas’s novels. Thomas also adds Freudian psychoanalysis while Pinter experiments with stage representation.

Christian Kuchler: Lernort Auschwitz. Geschichte und Rezeption schulischer Gedenkstättenfahrten 1980–2019

Author(s): Frauke Wetzel / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2022

Review of: Frauke Wetzel - Christian Kuchler: Lernort Auschwitz. Geschichte und Rezeption schulischer Gedenkstättenfahrten 1980–2019. Wallstein. Göttingen 2021. 275 S. ISBN 978-3-8353-3897-5. (€ 26,–.)

Jewish Cultural and Sporting Associations between “Romanianization” and “Unionization”

Author(s): Diego Ciobotaru / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2022

In 1922, in Romania, fascist youth organizations began to undertake actions of intimidation and annihilation of Jews and of those accused of supporting them, through the use of physical and verbal violence, manifestations that continued and radicalized year after year. Sports and sports venues were among the spaces where Romanian antisemitism seemed tobe allowed to manifest itself unhindered. The systemic spread of the antisemitic ideology led to an increase of such occurrences. As of the 1930s, the foundations of the anti-Jewish legislation continued by the Antonescu regime were laid, and the war of the far-right groups against Jews and Judaism was total and concerned all aspects of life, including sports. Step by step, athletes and officials of Jewish origin were excluded from this field, meaning that the Maccabi association, as well as other Jewish sport teams, were banned from all official competitions of the Romanian State. this situation lasted four years, until the end of the Antonescu regime. Jewish associations were categorized by the police and military authorities as a cover for communist activity. In Romania, just like in other countries, persecution and discrimination of Jews continued after the end of World War II, given that stadiums in Bucharest and in the province witnessed reprehensible deeds against Jewish soccer players and sports clubs, done by the other athletes and especially by the audiences. In this article, I will present several such cases in detail, in order to show a lesser known side of Romanian antisemitism before and after the Second World War.

Five Lives of a Holocaust Survivor: On Shifting Identities, the Search for Belonging, and Building Meaning

Author(s): Diana Dumitru / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2023

This article examines the life story of Felicia Carmelly, a Holocaust survivor from southern Bukovina, and follows her geographic and demographic journey from Dorna to the deadly camps of Transnistria, to postwar Romania and Israel, and finally to contemporary Canada. By close reading of her two oral interviews and her later memoirs, it reconstructs a particular biography shaped by the violent uprooting of Felicia and her family from the places she called home and discusses multiple shifts in her identity and a changing sense of belonging. Her life offers us a window into the broader questions about Jewish survivors and migrants after World War II, the inherent contradictions surrounding the evolution of modern Jewish identities, and the (non)negotiable boundaries of individuals in various circumstances.

Spiral Coercion: Nazi Power and Family Authority in Charlotte Salomon’s Autobiographical Work Life? Or Theatre?

Author(s): Eleftheria Karagianni / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2022

Life? or Theatre? is a visual-theatrical, textual, and auto-biographical play of Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish talented artist, executed at a very young age in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In this paper, I consider Salomon’s work a document of life, and a testimony of her personal intra-familial, and personal experience of “the before—Auschwitz” (Jenn-Gastal 228) depicting, among others, historical and socio-political facts articulated and expressed through narrative and painting. Since in Sociology life stories or autobiographical narratives constitute a valuable tool, I will employ Salomon’s drawings, captions and texts as a “synergetic fusing of social sciences and the arts” (Bagley 34), in order to shed ample light on her reconstructed lived experience. This research aims at examining Salomon's autobiographical work from a sociological and philosophical perspective, referring to the views of great theorists, such as Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman, and the founders of the Frankfurt School, who tried to explain the origins of totalitarianism, power relations and the causes of the Holocaust.

DISTORTION OF HISTORY IN THE TIME OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CASES OF STARO SAJMIŠTE AND JASENOVAC

Author(s): Haris Dajč / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 41/2022

The research will focus on the misuse of historical facts related to the Staro Sajmište camp in Serbia and the Jasenovac camp in Croatia from the 1980s until 2022. Analysis of legislature, proposed and passed, related to Staro Sajmište and its memorialization will be additionally researched, as well as different historical narratives about responsibility for crimes connected to Staro Sajmište. Also, memory politics and Holocaust remembrance in the cases of Serbia and Croatia, and its evolution since the end of Socialist Yugoslavia will be analysed. The central part of the research will be focused on the rise of distorted narratives regarding selected camps that will be analysed through the activities of selected historians, researchers, politicians, and public figures. Their public statements, lectures, expertise, and misuse of facts will be researched.

Identity, otherness and commerce in times past Bucharest: „The Flea Market”

Author(s): Alexandra Rusu / Language(s): English Issue: 20/2022

“The flea market” was a place intended for the old furniture trade, but also other items that today we generically call second-hand goods, which appeared on the Bucharest trade map in the second half of the 19th century. It was erected in a disadvantaged area, densely populated, marked by the Jewish singularity. For more than half a century(1876-1930), the activity in the flea market, coordinated exclusively by Jewish merchants,had an undeniable role in the capital’s economy. Regarding its image, it was painted in the context of new socio-political realities in the Old Kingdom of Romania, such as the awakening of nationalistic feelings and xenophobia, especially antisemitism. In the last decades of the 19th century, the “Jewish Question” became an intellectual problem with an essential political stake, the emancipation of the Jews being in an irreconcilable position with Romanian nationalism. The anti-Semitic discourse used by the political, intellectual,and cultural elite presented the Jews as unassimilable, anti-national elements that could undermine the Romanian character. Examples from the periphery of life, including the Jewish merchants in Lazăr Street and the “Flea market”, constitute the extreme otherness and a potential danger to the nation’s body, thus emphasizing the opposing nature discourse and favoring an ideology of excluding Jews from Romanian culture and society.The research aims to capture the flea market atmosphere and the image of the Jewish community nearby, as reflected in the writings of some personalities (politicians, historians,prose writers, journalists) of times past Bucharest. The perspectives exhibit a wide range of observations, from objective ones, in contrast to the circulated stereotypes, to subjective ones, filtered through emotions, all pieces of the collective mind’s mosaic. Examples in the press oscillate between fin-de-siècle anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the early 20thcentury, infused with scientific claims, all using the flea market as a symbol of inadequacy for an entire ethnic community

Кети Мирчева – един независим изследовател на 65 години

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 47/2023