A father and son hug farewell at Gdański Station. Photograph by Elżbieta Turlejska.Courtesy of POLIN Museum.

Volume 25, No. 1 Gazeta Spring 2018

A quarterly publication of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Editorial & Design: Tressa Berman, Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Antony Polonsky, Shana Penn, Adam Schorin, Maayan Stanton, Agnieszka Ilwicka, LaserCom Design.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Message from Irene Pipes ...... 2

Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn ...... 3

FEATURES University of Warsaw Adopts Resolution on March ’68 ...... 4 March ’68: Different Things to Different People Konstanty Gebert ...... 6 Recovering Memories of Friendship and Exaltation: Looking Back at March ’68 Irena Grudzińska-Gross ...... 9 The American Jewish Response to March ’68 Rachel Rothstein ...... 12 Book of Exodus Mikołaj Grynberg ...... 15

EXHIBITION Two Views: Estranged. March ’68 and Its Aftermath Agnieszka Zagner ...... 18 Bartosz Bartosik ...... 22

INTERVIEWS “A wave of slander and lies”: An Interview with POLIN Museum Director Dariusz Stola Norbert Nowotnik ...... 25 To Leave or to Stay? An interview with Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota...... 29

Krystyna Janda Reflects onNotes from Exile by Sabina Baral Dorota Wyżyńska ...... 32 REPORTS Volume 30 of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Antony Polonsky ...... 35

March ’68 at POLIN Museum Antony Polonsky ...... 37 POLIN Museum’s GEOP Conference on March ’68 Krzysztof Persak ...... 41 Traces of Memory in South Africa Jakub Nowakowski ...... 43

5th Annual Polish Jewish Studies Workshop at Rutgers Natalia Aleksiun, Halina Goldberg, Nancy Sinkoff ...... 44

ANNOUNCEMENTS/REVIEWS GEOP Announcements ...... 48 A Voice Rescued from the Holocaust: The Diary of Renia Spiegel Alex Ulam ...... 51 Naomi Seidman Awarded Borsch-Rast Prize ...... 53 Chidusz Publishes Special Edition on March ’68 ...... 55 My Old New Sister: News from the Jewish Genealogy & Family Heritage Center Anna Przybyszewska Drozd and Matan Shefi ...... 56 The 6th Annual Bruno Schulz Festival Julian and Fay Bussgang ...... 58

PERSONAL ESSAY My Month in Polin Ariella Goodman ...... 60 Afterword by Shmuel Afek ...... 64

OBITUARIES Jerzy Jedlicki Antony Polonsky ...... 65 Sala Garncarz Jill Vexler ...... 68

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 1 President of the American Association Message from for Polish-Jewish Studies

Irene Pipes Founder of Gazeta

Dear Members and Friends,

I am happy to report that an annual prize will be awarded to the author of the best book written on the history and culture of the Jews in Poland. The prize will be named after two pioneers of the study of Polish Jews, Professors Józef Krzysztof Gierowski and Chone Shmeruk. Together, they founded the Research Centre on the History and Culture of Jews in Poland at Jagiellonian University in 1986. It has since grown into the Institute of Jewish Studies. Irene Pipes The selection committee has been set up and the first award will be granted in 2018. Professor Michał Galas of Jagiellonian University and Professor Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska of Marie Curie- Skłodowska University are in charge of organizing the event and will help with choosing the book of the year.

I was sorry to miss the launch of Polin: Volume 30 in London on the theme of Jewish education in Eastern Europe. It shows how Jewish education has long been an active force in the Jewish community, and in economic, political, and social forces. We all look forward to reading it.

Irene Pipes President

2 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Message from Chairman and Executive Director Tad Taube and of the Taube Foundation for Shana Penn Jewish Life & Culture

There is an old saying that people who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. This issue of Gazeta is dedicated to examining a pivotal event that merits renewed attention, partly for its importance in Polish and Polish Jewish history but also for its relevance to the charged political atmosphere in today’s Poland. “As someone who had been visiting and studying Poland since the early 2000s,” writes historian Rachel Rothstein in one of this issue’s essays, “it surprised me that few American Jews were familiar with the event that had made such a profound traumatic impact on the Polish Jewish community.” She is referring to the Warsaw regime’s March 1968 campaign to restore discipline Tad Taube to the Communist party and the nation through the persecution of students, labor activists, and Jews, among others. The so-called anti-Zionist campaign caused thousands of Jews to emigrate, though many decided to stay and resist. Other writers in this issue describe important aspects and repercussions of the purge. Journalist Konstanty Gebert writes from the perspective of a Polish Jewish intellectual who lived through those days. He identifies March ’68 as the moment when gentile and Jewish Poles began to see their common interest in resisting the regime. Without the events of 1968, Gebert suggests, the Solidarity movement might have emerged steeped in anti-Semitism. Mikołaj Grynberg writes from the perspective of a younger generation of Polish Jews who learned about 1968 from their parents. In his recently published book Shana Penn he examines the lives of Jews who emigrated abroad and those who stayed. He was surprised that some of those who stayed were unwilling to discuss their post-1968 experiences. Many alluded to Poland’s current political climate: “Can’t you see what’s going on? Reveal my name in a book now?” Words like these, which could just as well have been spoken in 1968, remind us of the importance of knowing our history. The events of March 1968 mattered deeply fifty years ago, and they resonate just as profoundly today.

Tad Taube and Shana Penn Chairman and Executive Director

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 3 FEATURES University of Warsaw Adopts Resolution on the 50th Anniversary of March ’68

n March 1968, student Warsaw is hosting a series June ’56, December ’70, June Iprotests in Warsaw, of special events, including ’76, and, later, August ’80 Gdańsk, Kraków, Radom, debates, conferences, and and the time of martial law, Łódź, Poznań, and other exhibitions from February were a manifestation of social cities throughout Poland, to June 2018.The university resistance and one of the steps were brutally pacified by the senate adopted by consensus a to the free Republic. The security apparatus of the Polish resolution regarding the 50th resolution goes on to state: People’s Republic (PRL). On anniversary of March ’68. As “For all those who—at the the 50th anniversary of these noted in the document, “these risk of reprisals—participated protests, the University of events, along with those of in the defense of civic rights

The University of Warsaw. Photograph by Jorge Láscar. Used under Creative Commons license.

4 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 and academic independence, the Senate of the University of Warsaw ensures their memory and expresses the highest recognition of their actions.”

The UW Senate “is convinced that the University should likewise maintain the memory of shameful conduct, inconsistent with our academic ethos, that took place at the university at the time.” Meanwhile, the resolution continues, Protesters flee police following student protests near the University of Warsaw in March 1968. “Submission to political Photograph by Taduesz Zagordzinksi. AP Photo/PAP/CAF. pressure, religious and social Memory imposes on us remain the abiding guidelines discrimination, and the forced and truth for our academic removal of scholars and the duty to watch, so that community.” n students must remain alive for freedom of speech, the us as a historical lesson.” The full program of events freedom of academic can be found at The authors of the resolution https://www.uw.edu.pl/50- recall that “the aftermath research, the right to rocznica-marca-68-plan- of the events of March ’68 discuss the history of our uroczystosci. was the interference in the autonomy of the University of country, and respect for This article originally Warsaw and in the individual every human being are appeared, in Polish, on actions of members of February 23, 2018, in our community, as well as always fully respected. Więź: http://wiez.com. accompanying acts of anti- pl/2018/02/23/senat- Semitism.” to discuss the history of our uniwersytetu-warszawskiego- country, and respect for every przyjal-uchwale-w-sprawie- “The memory of these painful human being, which excludes 50-lecia-marca-68/. Reprinted consequences imposes on any form of discrimination, with permission. us a special duty to watch, are always fully respected. so that freedom of speech, This commitment informed by freedom of research, the right the violations of the past will

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 5 March 1968: Different Things Konstanty Gebert to Different People

he facts are clear. 1968 left its mark on subjects’ religious origins fell TThe suppression of an entire generation. under scrutiny, sometimes as the Warsaw production Twelve years later, the far as two generations back, of a classical patriotic and any trace of “Jewish play, Forefathers Eve, young intellectuals of blood” was scrupulously for its supposedly anti- March ’68 were among noted. The campaign, which Soviet flavor, triggered the driving forces of in time assumed nationwide student demonstrations. Solidarność. proportions, was designed The 19thcentury drama to single out candidates was, in fact, anti-Czarist. country. For most observers, for blacklisting, and thus Its suppression, and the student unrest seemed to fall ensure the possibility of justification given, shows straight out of the blue. It rapid advancement for “loyal how cavalier—and paranoid— had, however, been preceded comrades.” This was expected government treatment of the by simmering dissent in the to happen within the context arts and of free expression academic community and in of a major political upheaval. in general had become. Such student organizations, where A new nationalistic and government policies were young people—nicknamed authoritarian political faction, the underlying cause of “revisionist toddlers”— led by Minister of Internal student unrest. Police crushed criticized Party policies in Affairs Mieczysław Moczar, demonstrations, which had the name of “true Socialism.” intended to take effective followed the suspension from Many of them came from control of the party and oust the University of two student Communist and Jewish the “vacillating” and “flabby” leaders, Adam Michnik and families, and that became regime of Communist party Henryk Szlajfer. They were of crucial importance in leader, Władysław Gomułka. accused of “espionage”—that the campaign of repression The student strikes and is, of leaking information which followed the student demonstrations gave Moczar on repression to a foreign strikes. From the early 1960s his opportunity. Practically correspondent. Police and on, the political police had overnight, articles appeared “worker activists” proceeded secretly been accumulating in newspapers nationwide to attack a protest meeting thousands of files on leading denouncing the student and Warsaw University went personalities in the Party movement as the creation of on strike. Other universities and State administration, “Zionist, anti-Polish and anti- followed suit, and a wave culture, science, the national Socialist trouble- makers.” of student protest swept the economy and the media. The

6 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 The witch hunt began. fought to liberate Poland from movement and its demands Student activists with Jewish Communist rule. for freedom of expression surnames found themselves in culture, science, and the For the remnants of Polish branded as members of a arts. The purges followed Jewry, forced to flee the land “Fifth Column,” which— a disturbingly familiar they considered also theirs, said the newspapers—was pattern, which in the past the campaign of hate was a plotting, with the aid of had victimized other groups throwback to the not very West German and Israeli singled out as “enemies of distant past of pogroms and intelligence, to bring the State”: members of the genocide. Communist leaders of Jewish wartime non-Communist origin, compromised during For them, March ’68 was a Resistance, peasants who the Stalinist period, back to period of shame and hate, refused to be collectivized, power. The charge, however a disgrace to the country Catholics who took their faith absurd, can be understood as they loved, and which many, seriously. a psychological projection of even now, consider their Many Poles conveniently what the real plotters—the homeland. Banned until the overlooked this fundamental Moczar faction—were in fall of Communism in 1989 difference. The hate campaign fact doing. from returning, even though never really became popular they now were citizens of In the first outburst of — anything instigated by the the countries which accepted massive repressions since the authorities was inherently them, they remained involved 1950s, dozens were jailed, suspect — but it was not in the vicissitudes of Poland’s hundreds expelled, thousands really condemned either. tormented political life. The interrogated, intimidated and Most people saw the purges young generation founded harassed. That experience as yet another struggle emigré centers, published left its mark on an entire between different varieties reviews, and became a crucial generation. Twelve years of Communists, not a subject factor in organizing support later, the young intellectuals of concern for those who for Solidarność before, and of March ’68 were among the never asked to be governed especially after Jaruzelski’s driving forces of Solidarność. by these Communists in the coup. For them, March ’68 still first place. If anything, the represents the first stirrings The Jews were not the only much-publicized nationalism of the mass social movement group who suffered mass of Moczar’s faction elicited which, through the successive repression, though they some grudging sympathy from stages of the fledgling were the most visible one. a people long thwarted in its opposition of the Seventies, The Polish intelligentsia as national aspirations. then Solidarność and the re- such was also singled out for But such an attitude ignored emergence of an independent public contempt, for it had two crucial considerations. civil society in the Eighties, bravely supported the student

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 7 First, the vast majority of Those expelled in ’68 complained bitterly to me victims was probably not even considered themselves that “the Commies can ruin Party members, and only a everything, even such a good negligible number could in Poles, and had thing as anti-Semitism.” In any way be held responsible contributed to Polish fact, by making it their banner, for Poland’s political the Communists had denied plight. Most were ordinary scientific, cultural it to those whose hatred of people who had the simple and social life. After Communism was even greater n misfortune of bearing Jewish- emigrating, most settled than of the Jews. sounding names. The purges Reprinted in part from Living were supposedly conducted not in Israel but in other in the Land of Ashes, Krakow, in the interest of the Polish countries, where they Austeria 2008. Used with nation, and the silence of the permission by author. Polish people translated into tended to blend with the acquiescence. Polish rather than the Konstanty Gebert, an underground activist under The political police, which Jewish diaspora. Communism, is founding became the sole victor after military coup of December publisher of Midrasz Moczar’s bid for power, ’81. Even when Communism Magazine and former scholar- emerged more powerful. was already dying, their in-residence at Centrum The contender himself was political power was still felt Taubego in Warsaw. This crushed. At the height of when in 1988, in a spectacular lecture was presented at the the campaign the powerful public relations gesture, “March 1968 Symposium” Silesian Party boss, Edward Jaruzelski’s regime announced co-organized on April 10, Gierek, threw his support its decision to repudiate the 2008, by the Graduate behind Gomułka and probably legacy of ’68. Theological Union’s Center saved him, only to succeed for Jewish Studies, University him two years later. The Had March ’68 not occurred, of California Berkeley mastermind of the “Jewish would Polish history have Department of History, and files,” Captain Walichnowski, followed much the same Stanford University’s Taube was as late as 1989 a general course? Jacek Kuroń, the Center for Jewish Studies. and the head of the Ministry veteran opposition activist, of the Interior Academy for once stated, “Had there been promising officers. The police no March ’68, “Solidarność and other anti-Semitic and might have ended up anti- unscrupulous apparatchiks Semitic.” He might well have became one of the country’s been right. An old, pre-war decisive political forces: the and anti-Communist anti- country felt their fist in the Semite, years after 1968, had

8 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Recovering Memories of Friendship and Exaltation: Irena Grudzińska-Gross Looking Back at March ’68

he richness and variety of Many commentators years ago, our manifestation Tcelebrations that marked defined the March began. We made a lot of noise. the 50th anniversary of the events as a Polish revolt The words of the President March 1968 events make them were printed and repeated almost impossible to describe. for more freedom with in all media, so we did not I will therefore talk about the anti-Jewish purges silence him. my own experience without a collateral damage. Within these performances, attempting a summary. Since Were the expulsions of debates and conference I am a “veteran” of the March “Zionists” part of Polish presentations certain questions events themselves, my point repeated themselves. There of view may be particular, history? Polish-Jewish was a residual interest in the so the reader should be history? Jewish history? old issue of provocation—the warned. I arrived in Warsaw 1968 students were said to on March 2, and almost and am not sure how many have allowed themselves to immediately participated others were organized by the be exploited by party groups in two book promotions (in authorities. I saw the President fomenting discord for their Kielce and Warsaw) and a of Poland only on March 8t own purposes. The work of couple of public debates. at the campus of Warsaw historians disproved the idea I went to several theatre University where he gave a of a mastermind behind the performances, but I missed speech asking for forgiveness events. It does not mean that the one most talked about. from those who were the temptation to find a single moving force is completely I saw an exhibit, but not “expelled from Poland by dead; even Aleksander Smolar its mass attended opening communist authorities.” It was said in a recent interview in night. I went to one gigantic quite difficult to hear what he Tygodnik Powszechny that “we was saying as he was isolated party but not to several were used.” But in the work other ones. I participated under the strictest security, of historians, the messiness in one long conference, but and those of us who managed of actions and counter- had to miss its last day. My to squeeze through security actions became visible, and missing events depended on blocks were kept far away the moves and interests of a family emergency, ticket from him. We were pretty many participating subjects availability and, often, lack of irritated at being prevented acknowledged. Also disproved information. I moved within from congregating on campus, was an old conviction of the non-governmental occasions where at noon, exactly fifty divide between intelligentsia

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 9 and workers; there is a consensus, I think, that 1968 was a generational, rather than a class, revolt as twice as many young workers were arrested for protesting than students.

Polish post-war history is often presented as a sequence of rebellions leading to 1989 Photograph of Irena Grudzińska-Gross after her arrest in 1968. Image courtesy of Irena Grudzińska-Gross. -- the steps to sovereignty. If March ’68 was primarily history? Jewish history? Could on the Kielce pogrom was an a student or young workers the anti-Semitic actions be occasion to refute (again!) revolt, it would fit into ascribed only to the authorities the concept of provocation the honorable sequence of or did they enjoy a much that “explained” or rather dates in that Polish fight larger popular support? How tried to explain away the for independence. If it was essential were they to the 1946 anti-Jewish explosion. predominantly a result of the social upheaval that happened Through meticulous research, fight among the party factions, then? Were they a continuation she showed the continuity then it did not find its place of previous anti-Jewish of the “pogromshchiks” within Polish history. This manifestations—the 1946 war-time activities with was the meaning of President pogroms in Kielce, Kraków their participation in the Duda’s words about the anti- and Radom, for example—or pogrom itself. The wonderful Semitic purges: they were were they a case of a vicious exhibit on 1968 in the due to the actions of a body Communist one-time action? POLIN Museum ends with that was external to the Polish Were the March events a final a wall plastered with today’s people. But what to do with the act of making Poland free of newspaper articles whose Jewish aspect of the events? Jews and in that way, were they titles are identical to the ones Many commentators, including related to the Holocaust? Are from the 1968 anti-Semitic some March “veterans,” there Jews in Poland today? campaign. What transpires defined the March events as a there is the repetitiveness Polish revolt for more freedom In the context of the and continuity of anti-Jewish with the anti-Jewish purges celebrations some elements tropes. The director of the a collateral damage. Were of these questions were museum may pay for this the expulsions of “Zionists” being addressed. The aspect of the exhibit with his (as Jews were called) part of promotion of the new book job, as the Minister of Culture Polish history? Polish-Jewish by Joanna Tokarska-Bakir

10 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 formally expressed his Holocaust. The urgency in Israel, they were confronted displeasure. During the Polin the play comes from a feeling with the incomprehensible conference many speakers of present danger. The past of their parents - and wondered about the Jewish play “Justice” (written by especially grandparents - aspect of the events, though Michał Zadara and Nawojka and with their own multiple the greatest majority of the Gurczyńska, directed by national affinities. Some papers dealt with very specific Zadara, Teatr Powszechny of these children came issues without attempting any in Warsaw), is a kind of with their parents for the generalizations. theatrical intervention. The celebrations themselves. play tries to locate those For me, it was an amazing The theatre plays I have who fifty years ago helped to moment of recovering, fifty seen were written for the force others to emigrate. The years later, some of the anniversary and dealt directly authors wonder if those who memories of exaltation and with the mechanisms of can still be identified should warmth of friendship. the persecution of Jews in be put on trial. The March I know this feeling may have Poland. It is very interesting events are, for the authors, a happened because I moved that the March events were crime that nobody has been within a bubble of festivities. (in their last phase) triggered punished for, so justice is not But it was a real gift. n by a theatre performance met. The play seems to be a and that now, fifty years Irena Grudzińska-Gross, desperate attempt to break later, theatre became again PhD, a student leader of the the mold of a discourse about the place for looking for Warsaw University student the past crimes that make justice. Two of these plays demonstration in March no one responsible. Like the tried to present the issue of ’68, is Professor Emeritus previous play, it searches anti-Jewish violence head-on, of Princeton’s University’s for the ways to preempt the without explanatory contexts Institute of Slavic Studies. inevitability of repetition. that divert our attention Her books include a volume to other, often unrelated A third play I did see—“A of essays titled Honor, Horror things. In Kielce’s Żeromski Few Foreign Words in and Classics; Golden Harvest Theatre (in which, by the Polish,” (written by Michał (with Jan T. Gross); Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: way, a pogrom took place in Buszewicz, directed by Anna Fellowship of Poets; and 1918), a play titled “1946” Smolar, Warsaw Jewish The Scar of Revolution: (written by Tomasz Śpiewak Theatre), deals with the Tocqueville, Custine and the and directed by Remigiusz after effects of the March Romantic Imagination. Brzyk), aimed at confronting events on the generation of the public with the pogrom the children of the émigrés. in their city that killed Growing up in Sweden, over 40 survivors of the France, the United States and

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 11 The American Jewish Response Rachel Rothstein to March ’68

s I was working on my American Jews were not feeling pressure, I returned to A dissertation several only aware of the Polish the United States to look closer years ago, I would tell people government’s anti-Semitic at documents of American that I was writing about the Jewish organizations, where campaign beginning aftermath of the 1968 Polish I found that leaders of US- anti-Zionist campaign. While in March 1968, but based organizations - such I didn’t expect everyone to American Jewish leaders as the American Jewish know what I was talking immediately mobilized in Committee, the American about, I was shocked when response as the attacks Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, very few American Jews - on both individuals and the Jewish Labor Committee, including Jewish community and the World Jewish Congress leaders - did. As someone Jewish institutions in - issued statements (often who had been visiting and Poland continued. invoking previous periods of studying Poland since the was going on in Poland at anti-Semitism in the region), early 2000s, it surprised me the time? mobilized American Jews that few American Jews were to write letters to influential familiar with the event that After spending some time in figures (including to Pope Paul had made such a profound Polish archives, I discovered VI), organized protests, and traumatic impact on the Polish that some American Jewish made appointments with the Jewish community. Of course, leaders were indeed aware of Polish Embassy, American part of why I was writing the the campaign, and that they congressmen, and with the dissertation was because few were alerting American Jews US State Department. The scholars had delved in-depth to the events in Poland. Polish Jewish Telegraphic Agency into the topic, especially in officials believed that Poland (JTA) covered the March English. But as I jumped into was under attack and that events, as they were known the research, I noticed that I something had to be done to in Poland, often reprinting was finding few documents counter the “smear campaign of statements issued by the where I had expected to find the Zionist centers.”i Knowing American Jewish leadership. them, even in the American that the Polish authorities were The timing of the March archives. So I could not help i *Protoko* z Narady Partyjno Zawodowej events provided American but wonder, was this is a case grupy PZPR przy Ambasadzie PRL w Waszyngtonie,* May 16, 1968, Polska Jewish leaders with a of forgetting, or did American Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (PZPR) convenient forum in which to Jews really not know what 237/XXII/1618, Archiwum Akt Nowych.

12 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Tisha B’av Sackcloth and Chains Sit-In at the Polish U.N. mission, August 4, 1968. From the Yeshiva University University Archives, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry Collection, 4/1. discuss what was occurring. a manifestation of man’s Students also organized to A month after the anti-Zionist indomitable spirit, is now voice their outrage. The campaign, Jews around the once again the scene of anti- North American Jewish world commemorated the 25th Semitic outrages.” Comparing Youth Council and the anniversary of the Warsaw the ghetto fighters’ heroism to Conference of Presidents Ghetto Uprising. Local Jewish the liberal segments of Polish of Major American Jewish federations encouraged society then under attack, Organizations immediately commemoration organizers he stated, “‘the decent and organized a protest, attended to include something about liberal elements in Poland by groups from across the the contemporary events in will gain the freedoms they Jewish spectrum, including Poland. At the opening of seek and thus vindicate the Hillel, BBYO, B’nei Akiva, a YIVO exhibit about the cause for which the martyrs Hashomer Hatzair, the National 25th anniversary, New York of the Warsaw ghetto gave Conference of Synagogue Congressman, Emanuel their lives.”ii Youth (NCSY), the National Celler, used the opportunity Federation of Temple Youth to publicly state that it was ii *Informational News Release - Polish (NFTY), Young Judea, United Regime Condemned at Warsaw Ghetto “sadly ironic that Warsaw, the Exhibit,* for period ending 5/17/68, Synagogue Youth (USY), and very city which saw so heroic B*nai B*rith Collection, Folder 139 the Young Israel Intercollegiate Poland I/II, American Jewish Archives.

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 13 Council. The Student Struggle independent from the Soviet Although American Jews for Soviet Jewry organization Union. Yet, they argued, the were ultimately unable to planned multiple rallies on anti-Zionist campaign was stop either the 1968 Polish behalf of both Soviet and proof that they had not. The campaign or anti-Semitism Polish Jews. In August, the State Department was against in the region in general, they group organized a Tisha B’Av such a move, given that this certainly tried. n (Jewish day of mourning over was not in the best interest of Rachel Rothstein, PhD, the destruction of the Temple) American-Polish relations at teaches at the Weber School sackcloth and chains sit-in at the time. Furthermore, they in Atlanta, Georgia. the Polish U.N. mission. In were concerned that such a Dr. Rothstein based this September, 1,500 participants strong reaction could have article on the paper “Did the boarded a chartered “Freedom the unintended consequence Warsaw Ghetto Burn in Vain? Boat” for a Freedom Rally at of cutting off emigration American Jews React to the the Statue of Liberty. They from Poland, a real concern Anti-‘Zionist’ Campaign,” also organized a “Lights of given the Soviet Union’s which she delivered at Freedom Rally for Polish and stance on Jewish emigration. POLIN Museum’s conference Soviet Jews” Chanukah rally in While Poland’s MFN was not March ’68. Fifty Years Later. December 1968, during which revoked in the end, American participants were instructed Jewish leaders were clear to bring their menorahs for that the situation in Poland a torchlight march from the was serious. Polish U.N. Mission to the Thus, American Jews were Soviet U.N. Mission not only aware of the Polish As the campaign continued, government’s anti-Semitic American Jewish leaders also campaign beginning in March began to call for the United 1968, but American Jewish States to revoke Poland’s Most leaders immediately mobilized Favored Nation (MFN) status, in response as the attacks which would have revoked on both individuals and the trade advantages the U.S. Jewish institutions in Poland had granted Poland in the continued. Jewish leaders early 1960s. American Jewish and students alike came leaders argued that MFN together to issue statements, had been granted because protest, and send letters of the American government appeal to both the Polish and believed that Poland could American governments in an become increasingly attempt to halt the campaign.

14 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Book of Exodus Mikołaj Grynberg

was raised in a home of on a tour of Jews scattered two living losses. The throughout the world. I went Ifirst was the Holocaust. Ever to Israel, where the legends since I was a child, I was in came to life. The friends of mourning of people I never my parents were there waiting knew. The second was ’68. for me. Some of them became I lived among the legends my family within minutes of of the people who used to our first encounter, and they surround my parents and still are. I went to Sweden grandparents. and Denmark and once again discovered that these first and In the Book of Exodus, I last names had human forms. talk with people whose lives changed dramatically Back then, I was still too following the anti-Semitic young to comprehend their campaign of ’68. The main drama. I was just happy to characters are the Jews who Cover image for Księga Wyjścia have found them. After all left Poland at that time and by Mikołaj Grynberg. Published by these years, I have matured Wdawnictwo Czarne, 2018. those who stayed behind. enough to tell their stories. All of the books I know or three years old at the time, I started preparing in 2015. which have touched upon so I don’t remember them. I quickly convinced the this subject thus far omit the I just knew their first and Czarne publishing house to group of Jews who stayed last names and the strange do business. At the same time, behind in Poland for various addresses written down in our a benefactor appeared in the reasons that March. I also phone book. I was used to the form of the Jewish Historical come from such a family, memories, but these people Institute and the POLIN which is why it was probably were as distant to me as the Museum of the History of easier for me to think that Wawel Dragon. This was the Polish Jews. I was able to their story should be included case until the second half of start the biggest documentary in my book. the 1980s, when I collected my passport from the office of project of my life. They were allegedly there, the militia. I was allowed to I had to start looking for and then they left. I was two go, and I went, as some say, subjects. I already knew that

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 15 I would not be building a In the Book of Exodus, difficult, but the task turned monument to my parents and I talk with people out to be very complicated. their friends. I had to reach So complicated that it was, outside of their community— whose lives changed at times, impossible. A lot outside the Jewish young dramatically following of people never accepted my intelligentsia world of Warsaw; the anti-Semitic invitation for an interview. a more difficult journey, but a The most common argument very promising one. campaign of ’68. was: “Can’t you see what’s I started my search in the plane tickets. I had to find going on? Reveal my name community of Polish Jews accommodation everywhere. in a book now? You are out in Israel, the United States, I could not take advantage of your mind to suggest Denmark, and Sweden, which of public transit in Israel and something like this!” The were the main destinations had to rent a car because my political situation was taking of the Jews leaving Poland in subjects were dispersed all away my characters. the years 1967-72. I quickly around the country. I was there What was supposed to make learned of an organization in October, which is the time up the book was turned into associating these communities of many Jewish holidays. You the present. I started to have in all of the aforementioned need to know at least a little to serious doubts concerning the countries. I found their know that you are allowed to point of publication. Was it webmasters: the people with drive a car on Sukkot or Rosh my place to put people in such access to the mailing lists. Hashanah, but definitely not a situation? Is it right to take I had no trouble convincing on Yom Kippur. away the sense of security of them to send out my letter to In the United States, for some to satisfy the curiosity everyone. The letter included logistic reasons, I limited of others? My potential my name and date of birth and myself to the New York area. characters would meet me the fact that I was starting work In Sweden, I traveled by in other cities. They were on a new book about people plane and train. In Denmark, willing to travel far by train like them. I sent it out and I never left Copenhagen. I just so no one would see them. started waiting for response. left home in early October We all know that my face is When I was equipped with and returned in late December not recognizable throughout the list of people ready to 2016. Before the end of Poland. My subjects were talk to me, I had to face—in February, I was collecting—or driven by the old rule: risk cinematic terms—a production rather attempting to collect— minimization. challenge. I had to order the testimonies of Jews who And that’s not all. Sometimes, the meetings by dates in had stayed in Poland. I was when I would arrive in X, the calendar. I had to buy not expecting this to be too where I had an appointment

16 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 with someone from Y, I would A lot of people never time, I realized that these get a text message: “I am accepted my invitation conversations were the perfect very sorry, but I will not be match to my interviews in for an interview. “Can’t meeting with you after all. I Israel, New York, Denmark, cannot take the risk. I hope you see what’s going and Sweden. you understand.” Of course I on? Reveal my name in I started writing again in did. I was feeling guilty about July 2017 and handed the making them feel so much a book now? You are out book over to my publisher in discomfort. I also had people of your mind to suggest October. I never regained my in Poland who would only talk something like this!” faith in a better world, but I about interesting things when did gain hope that the Book of I turned off the recorder. I listened to more recorded Exodus could have its share in interviews and thought that the discussion. n I realized that my book was I had enough material to becoming more relevant than write an emigration guide. This article has been I could ever imagine in the Unfortunately, it would be translated and edited from beginning. And I also started outdated and would apply only an article that originally to lose my footing. I had a lot to Jews in the years 1967-72, appeared, in Polish, in of blame on me, but the most a rather useless formula. Książki: http://wyborcza. serious self-accusation was pl/ksiazki/7,154165,2301 the inadequate outlook on I felt that I was falling into 8563,mikolaj-grynberg-w- the reality around me. I was a trap. I had involved some ksiedze-wyjscia-rozmawiam- briefly thrown off-guard and major resources and plenty z-ludzmi.html. Reprinted with missed the transformation of of people in a venture that permission. the public atmosphere. I was changed meaning in the no longer able to say what meantime. In the simplest kind of a reader would receive of words—the context had my book in March 2018. What changed. would the reader make of it? Paradoxically, I was saved A weapon turned against my by conversations about characters and me? emigration. My friends and As I was filled with doubt, acquaintances started to talk I stopped writing without about leaving Poland. Where? telling my benefactors or With parents? What would publisher. Time did not heal we do there? How would we all wounds and reality was live? Would Poland no longer not my friend. be our homeland? After some

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 17 Editor’s Note: TWO VIEWS: ESTRANGED (STRANGERS AT HOME) The “Two Views” “I left because I became presented here a stranger in my home.” Agnieszka Zagner reference the POLIN about March ’68 important exhibition, Estranged. March ’68 and Its What was the reason for casting was issued without the right to out several thousand citizens return. The traveling document also Aftermath, which from Poland, deeming them included the following statement: contributes to “strangers”? The exhibit of “The holder of this document is Warsaw’s POLIN museum looks not a citizen of Poland.” It was POLIN Museum’s for an answer. essentially a one-way ticket, or series of events in “I left Poland because it was the it would remain as such to many honor of the 50th only country which did not allow people for years. me to be Polish,” said Professor Controversy surrounding anniversary of Dariusz Stola, the director of the Estranged. March ‘68 and Its March 1968. The POLIN Museum of the History of Aftermath Polish Jews, quoting one of the authors, Agnieszka The authors of the exhibit wanted March emigrants at the ceremony to share the reasons, course, and Zagner writing for dedicated to the opening of the consequences of the events which Polityka, alongside exhibit titled Estranged. March ’68 led to the banishment from Poland and Its Aftermath. Bartosz Bartosik’s of at least 13,000 people, deemed review from Więź, This quote reflects the absurdity “strangers.” of the situation, where several The title of the exhibit has present us with thousand people (the exact number encountered some strong reactions, an opportunity to is unknown) were forced to leave especially from the government. Poland. They were Poles of Jewish consider a dialogue “The title is a rather controversial origin, Polish Jews, or simply Poles one, because if there was anyone about not only the who did not learn of their Jewish treating the Jews living in Poland in heritage until the anti-Semitic exhibition itself, but the 1960s as “strangers,” it was the campaign in the mass media and in the critical historical communists,” said Deputy Minister the streets, until their colleagues at of Culture, Jarosław Sellin, in legacy it represents work started to hunt for Jews, non- TVN’s “Czarno na Białym (Black Poles, strangers. for Poland’s past on White). “Because it is common and future. To briefly recap: the people who knowledge that in 1968, Poland decided to leave received a so- was inhabited not by Poles, but by called traveling document which communists.”

18 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Professor Stola admitted Poles suddenly turned into called “March Archive.” It that he initially wanted to strangers. A symbolic place is composed of keepsakes, add a question mark, but of farewells, last words, it photographs, documents, and was convinced that the includes accounts of both everyday objects taken on the title expresses two important those who left and those road or left to friends. Most characteristics of that March: who, for various reasons, belongings and property had decided to stay. to be left behind, including First, that the objectives of the homes and money—a single campaign carried out by the As we sit in this arranged family was permitted to take party in power and the train station in 1960s-styled no more than five dollars. authorities of the Polish chairs, listening to those There are two address People’s Republic were who departed and those who books with the exact same intended to make other Poles stayed behind, we look at the content, creating a unique believe that Polish Jews, Poles meaningful neon sign with impression. They belonged of Jewish origin, were not the letters “WAR.” This is to Stefan Ulman, who was the same Poles, that they a part of the original sign, leaving Poland. He copied were strangers, that they had which serves as a canvas and the information of his family no right to the homeland, commentary for the events. and friends to three address that they were not entitled to One letter of the sign is books in total and hid them in the homeland regardless of intentionally burned out to different parts of his baggage whether they were born here, symbolize the life at the time, for fear of having them whether they knew Polish which was falling apart. There confiscated. culture, and how many years is a big screen under the neon they had spent working here, sign which shows fragments Fear of losing contact was that this was not their country. of movies, including the common of all emigrants. Second, that the campaign mechanical dance filmed in One of them, Jan Groński made many Polish Jews feel a synagogue from Tadeusz was a child back then, leaving alienated, forced out of their Konwicki’s Salto. with his mother, who also own country. was afraid of losing her The main color theme of the address book. He had to The core of the POLIN exhibit expresses the sense of memorize the telephone exhibit hopelessness and overcoming numbers and addresses during The core of the exhibit is sadness: deep grey, which the journey. These personal composed of an installation is always associated with stories are an important part made to look like the interior the Poland of that era. The of the exhibit as they lend real of the Warszawa Gdańska dark grey stairs lead us to faces, names, and biographies train station, which was the the upper part of the exhibit, to the anonymous thousands. departure point for those which includes the so-

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 19 1- How could this have happened? What was March all about? The POLIN exhibit starts with the presentation of the context. On one hand, we have the transformations behind the Iron Curtain leading to a cultural and moral revolution; on the other, we see the monotony of the Polish People’s Republic, the unavailability of “luxury goods” (like perfume), and a chart that shows that in 1968 only half of Polish households had a radio, only one-third had a TV set, only one in five had a refrigerator, and only 4 out of every hundred had a car. Natalia Romik (left) and Justyna Koszarska-Szulc, co-curators of Estranged. The exhibit demonstrates March ’68 and Its Aftermath (Obcy w domu), at the opening of the exhibition. both of these perspectives on Photograph by Maciek Jaźwiecki. Courtesy of POLIN Museum. two opposite walls, which “look at each other,” but have of Zionist filth.” From the friends and colleagues. I never no interaction. perspective of our office, the thought about who was and who fragment dedicated to the staff was not a Jew. Now I know, 2- POLITYKA rejected the of Polityka is very interesting. because I have been shown anti-Semitic campaign a list of employees of Jewish The commentary reads that The next segment of origin. Our office is starting to our weekly was “one of the the exhibit shows the experience something along the few who did not join the hate government’s response to lines of emotional pressure and campaign.” There is also a the rebellion: the attempt we feel alone . . . We are trying quote from the journals of to cover it up with an anti- to save face.” Semitic campaign in the Mieczysław Rakowski, who press, at universities, and in was POLITYKA’s editor-in- 3- They left a sense of workplaces. One of the posters chief at the time. He wrote: emptiness behind reads: “We want a party clean “I am especially concerned with A considerable part of the the well-being of my Jewish exhibit is dedicated to the

20 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 tremendous void created by the departure of thousands from Poland. Those departed included actors of the Warsaw Jewish Theatre. Among them was Ida Kamińska, who just one year before had become the first actress from the Eastern Bloc to be nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Shop on Main Street. On one hand, there was this intense emptiness left behind by the people and their affairs; on the other, there were those Image from the exhibition. who had left and had to start Courtesy of POLIN Museum. their lives all over again in the countries where they perspectives.” “They didn’t This is a translation of an ended up. want the children.” “They article that originally didn’t let me be Polish.” appeared, in Polish, in The exhibit also includes “The atmosphere was Polityka: https://www.polityka. the project of Krystyna unbearable.” “I wanted to pl/tygodnikpolityka/histo- Piotrowska entitled “I feel at home and Poland was ria/1740900,1,wyjechalam- left Poland because...” It not my home.” “I couldn’t bo-stalam-sie-obcym-w-moim- demonstrates the moving take it any longer.” .. The domu-w-polin-o-marcu.read voices of the emigrants, who, final accent is an important in the language of their new memento, a reference to country, are completing the current events in the segment seemingly simple sentence. dedicated to contemporary “I realized that I had to leave hate speech. n Poland if I wanted to be a Pole.” “I was unwelcome.” Reprinted with permission. “I became a stranger in my homeland.” “There was no place for me.” “It was no longer my home; we were thrown out.” “There were no

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 21 TWO VIEWS: ESTRANGED (STRANGERS AT HOME) Our Everyday Presence: Estranged. Bartosz Bartosik March ’68 and Its Aftermath

erła Kacman saw her One of the emigrants who experienced those events Pfriends off from Poland said: “I left Poland first-hand. We hear their at the Warszawa Gdańska stories on the recordings; station. She decided to stay. because it was the only we read extensive fragments “I was left almost alone here. country which did not of their journals and notes. Most of my closest friends had allow me to be Polish.” The Polish history of the gone. They did not lose their fight against censorship, the homeland. Their homeland they were able to find one student protests, emigration, had lost them.” common denominator. It turns and the struggle for power in the Polish United Workers’ The exhibit takes us to the out that the story of March ’68 Party are all presented in symbolically reconstructed is a story about all of us, with a broad historical context, Warszawa Gdańska train its long shadow cast over one that enables everyone to station, where we can listen to contemporary Poland as well. understand that the events of the stories of those departing “I would like to say that we March were not coincidental. Poland and the ones staying have not prevented Polish They were caused by specific in the wake of the anti- citizens of Jewish origin cultural, political, and social Semitic and anti-intelligentsia from moving to Israel if phenomena. campaign. The authors of the they wished to do so. We exhibit—headed by curators believe that every citizen of The authors of the exhibit Natalia Romik and Justyna Poland should have only one complement their telling Koszarska-Szulc—faced a homeland, the Polish People’s of the story with artistic difficult challenge: how to Republic.” Władysław commentary, the most present the experiences of Gomułka proclaimed during noteworthy being the famous March ’68 in a cohesive form his speech made at the scene of the eponymous dance that would be relevant to a Trade Union Congress on from Tadeusz Konwicki’s contemporary audience. The 19 June 1967. Salto, played on the big hard part was that there are screen at the reconstructed plenty of stories about that The Estranged exhibit train station (Konwicki filmed March, each one slightly presents the story of one of it in a synagogue-turned- different, and there were the most important months in warehouse). The people are various reasons for both post-war Poland. The curators dancing as though hypnotized. emigrating and staying. But give the floor to the people The dancers assume strange,

22 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Bartosz Bartosik mechanical, involuntary positions, as though the dance —something external—is controlling them, and not the other way around. Was this how the rush of emigration from the Poland of Gomułka and Moczar looked? How much of the decision to leave or to stay was conscious and how much of a trick did the winds of history play on the people who seemed to have their lives in order?

The common aspect of the March dramas was the sense of alienation. Regardless Otarci (in English, Abrasions) by Leszek Sobocki (1968). From Sobocki’s March ’68 of whether they decided to cycle, the work is on display in Estranged. Courtesy of POLIN Museum. leave or to stay, the people remember that March’68 forced them to redefine their dramatic, since it concerned And so, we arrive at the identity. The party in power, those most assimilated. One universal message of the and some of the public, of the emigrants said: “I left POLIN Museum’s exhibit. questioned the affiliation Poland because it was the After all, are we not all of people who were feeling only country which did not – potentially or actually - at home in Poland to the allow me to be Polish.” The emigrants? The Estranged greater civic and national people who left the country exhibit raises numerous community. The atmosphere usually defined themselves questions. What could force in Poland, their home, was through their “Polishness,” us to leave our home? Can we deteriorating, which made but the community brutally imagine leaving our whole them question whether it reminded them that they lives and country behind was in fact still their home. were “strangers” (just like a within only four weeks? Even though this was not the recent presidential candidate The Deputy Marshal of the biggest post-war emigration and current public television Sejm of the Polish People’s of Poles of Jewish origin, star acted toward Marek Republic, Zenon Kliszko, it was probably the most Borowski). stated that the members of the

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 23 Znak association opposing from Poland as protégés of who told you that you were the repression of students American capitalism, Israeli permitted to settle in? in March of 1968 were anti-Poland attitude, and who told you that this or that “putting themselves outside German Neo-Nazism. The would last forever? of the nation,” reminding cover of a certain rightist did no one ever tell you that us that the civic community weekly from 5 February of you will never is able to exclude not only this year draws from this exact in the world minorities, but also those set of prejudices. feel at home in the world? n taking a stance on their behalf. “I will not shake the hand of This review originally Are the current accusations anyone who believes that the appeared in Wiez magazine, of betraying the homeland current decisions of Law and March 12, 2018. Reprinted made by the government and Justice relate in any way to with permission. To see the those in its orbit (which are the Jewish chutzpah carried review online, please visit: enthusiastically reported by out by the party’s apparatus http://wiez.com.pl/2018/03/12/ public television) that much under Moczar in 1968. If such obcosc-nasza-powszednia/ different from the narration in an opinion is presented by the era of Gomułka? an ambassador of a foreign Estranged is a story about all state [authors’ note - Israel], of us: it serves to remind us maybe she should be asked to that, under specific historical, leave our country.” – Law and economic, and political Justice senator Jan Żaryn for conditions, we can all feel wPolsce.pl, 9 March 2018. just as “estranged” as the The POLIN Museum’s emigrants of that March did. Estranged. March ’68 and This is not about overplaying Its Aftermath temporary clichés and emotions; 1968 exhibit will be open until will not repeat itself on a 24 September. I do not want one-to-one scale. But our to give anything away, but language, memories, and the exhibit does not end too culture still carry plenty of optimistically. The visitors weight from that time and are left with the concerns the international situation expressed by Stanisław is becoming more similar Barańczak in his poem as well. A satirical drawing entitled If Porcelain, Then displayed at the exhibit Only the Kind: depicts the people emigrating

24 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 INTERVIEWS “A wave of slander and lies”: Norbert Nowotnik An Interview with POLIN Museum Polish Press Agency Director Dariusz Stola POLIN Museum Director Dariusz Stola on March ’68

n his interview with the Polish Press Agency, IProfessor Dariusz Stola notes that the priority of POLIN concerning the anniversary of March ’68 is to show the experiences of the Polish Jews persecuted by the communist authorities, many of whom were forced to leave their homeland. He also said that their situation was dramatic; certain instances involved the Dariusz Stola speaking at a press conference for POLIN Museum’s exhibition separation of close relatives Estranged. March ’68 and Its Aftermath (Obcy w domu). who had no opportunity to Photograph by Magdalena Starowieyska. Courtesy of the POLIN Museum. return to Poland. The director of POLIN also expressed hope POLIN see as the most of the Polish historical culture, that the exhibition Strangers important element of the 50th which is used to the rhythm of at Home (opened on March anniversary of these events? anniversaries. 8, 2018) will unite the young Professor Dariusz Stola: The Museum of the History generation of today with the Every one of these elements of Polish Jews is particularly people who lived out their of March ’68 is important inclined to recollect the events youth in rebellion against the because every one of them from 50 years ago. Nineteen Polish People’s Republic 50 made its mark on the history sixty-eight is perhaps the most years ago.. of Poland and was tied to the important year for Polish Jews Polish Press Agency: March other elements. You cannot during the era of the Polish ’68 involved a political crisis, understand one without the People’s Republic, which I student protests, internal others. March ’68 is one want to stress started in 1952, struggles within the Polish of the so-called ‘Polish because the Kielce pogrom of United Workers’ Party, and months,’ just like October ‘56, 1946 had even more dramatic also a wave of anti-Semitic December ‘70, and August consequences as at least 40 propaganda. What does ‘80. Commemoration of these Jews were killed and the events is now a customary part deadly wave of emigration

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 25 from Poland included at least March ’68 saw a wave club-armed ZOMO officers 70,000 people. of symbolic violence: and ORMO activists. It should be noted that most of March ’68 also saw a wave slander and lies, the of symbolic violence: slander those arrested were young and lies, the unpunished unpunished persecution labourers and students of persecution of Jews and Poles of Jews and Poles of vocational schools. But to us, of Jewish origin—who were to the Museum of the History Jewish origin. People referred to as Zionists in the of Polish Jews, the most communist newspeak. People were fired from their important aspect of the time is the experience of the Jews. were fired from their jobs jobs and expelled and expelled from colleges, Under these dramatic and beaten and arrested, forced to from colleges, beaten sad circumstances, thousands emigrate. Jewish organisations and arrested, forced of Jews were leaving their and institutions were destroyed. to emigrate. Jewish homeland and often their These events led to the departure families. For example, the of almost half of an already organizations were grandparents would stay and sparse community. I am very destroyed. the children and grandchildren sad to say that there have been would leave. The communists some recent slanderous attacks Polish Press Agency: But would prevent some of them on the POLIN Museum as there is no way to reduce the from returning to Poland well. This institution is the fruit events of March ’68 to an anti- for many years, not even for of many years of cooperation Semitic campaign. occasions such as a mother’s and dialogue between Poles Professor Dariusz Stola: funeral. Their visas were and Jews, which is held in the Of course not. Besides the simply rejected and they had highest esteem of historians anti-Jewish propaganda, to apply for visas as foreigners and museologists in Poland March ’68 was also a conflict because they were forced to and abroad. It is commonly amidst the authorities of the relinquish Polish citizenship perceived as the best example Polish People’s Republic and before they left. The post- of a credible presentation of the its core component was the March emigrants departed past. The people attacking it youth rebellion and its brutal from Poland not with a are demonstrating the rejection pacification by the authorities. passport but with a so-called of all dialogue and cooperation Thousands of students and travelling document. This is and showing that historical other young people gained a the only document I know truth means nothing to them. literal, bodily understanding which states who its holder The reaction to such opinions of the meaning of the “beating is not, rather than who he or is also a measure of the actual heart of the party”—the she is: “The holder of this mindsets. term used to describe the document is not a citizen of

26 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 the Polish People’s Republic.” Leszek Kołakowski, who was to March ’68 claiming Polish Press Agency: The fired from the university for that Poles should not feel post-March emigration criticising the party’s policy. I guilty because of what included over 13,000 Jews in think that we can include around the communist authorities total; the previous emigration 15,000 people in the post-March did to the Jews, that the waves included approximately emigration. The presentation of communist authorities were 70,000 Jews who left Poland the dispute among the various not representing the will of following the Kielce pogrom opinions concerning the recently the Polish nation but rather and the 30,000 who departed adopted law on the Institute of that of Moscow as they were in the period 1949-50— National Remembrance as a launching anti-Semitism. in those instances, Israel measure of patriotism, or even Professor Dariusz Stola: It would pay for the emigrants as a conflict between Poles is true that the communist released by the communists. and Jews, is [also] false and regime did not represent the And there was a third wave: manipulating. Poles are entitled Polish public opinion and about 50,000 Jews left Poland to different opinions and the was never democratically because of the thaw following opinions of the law’s opponents legitimate. But there are Stalin’s death. are gaining more ground with two reasons why we cannot every passing day. I don’t think Professor Dariusz Stola: Yes, dismiss the question of that there is anyone left who the post-March emigration is responsibility for March ’68 does not see how much damage the smallest of the four waves so cheaply and easily. the law creates, specifically how of Jewish emigration from First of all, the Third Polish it has damaged the image of Poland after 1945, but, in Republic is the legal successor Poland and Poles worldwide, directed numbers, it covered to the Polish People’s from which is was supposed almost half of all Jews in the Republic: it honours its to protect us. Another recent country. The 13,000 people international agreements, example of reference to the who declared Israel as their recognises the rulings of 1960s is the accusation of the destination—and people of its courts, obeys the laws it “fifth column,” which came Jewish origin were forced introduced unless they were from a certain female deputy. to make such a declaration, officially changed, and so The “fifth column,” means irrespective of where they on. It also pays reparations treason, an enemy hidden actually wanted to go – were to the victims of communist among your own people— joined by a certain number of repressions. So do we really this was what Gomułka meant victims of the March campaign: want it to avoid responsibility when he coined the term intellectuals or people in mixed only for the injustices of the in 1967. marriages, who left declaring Polish People’s Republic other target countries. These Polish Press Agency: There towards Jews? victims included Professor are also voices referring

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 27 Second, the fact that the of the USSR. What we do gestures. If we agree that the government of the Polish know for sure is that some of anti-Jewish campaign of 1968 United Workers’ Party was the oppressors were not only was atrocious, we should not not democratically legitimate following official orders, that be indifferent to the signs of does not mean that all of its there were people who were anti-Semitism today, to the decisions were unpopular not forced to oppress the hideous hate online, to the and had no public support. Jews, who did so under their scandalous words of certain In many instances, it had the own initiative. media representatives, or support of a considerable Polish Press Agency: to the glorification of the number of Poles, sometimes How should the Polish anti-Semites of the past even of the majority. The state authorities go about —because the cult of the agricultural reform of the commemorating the events National Radical Camp is n 1940s had mass support of March ’68 in the light of exactly that. and we are recognising current relations with Israel? For the full interview with its effects to this day. The Professor Dariusz Stola: We Professor Dariusz Stola, de-Stalinisation policy of may not be responsible for please visit: https://dzieje.pl/ 1956 was supported by the the events of the past that we aktualnosci/d-stola-o-marcu- masses as well and, at the had no control over—and the 68-fala-oszczerstw-i-klamstw- time, the people supported majority of the current Polish bezkarnego-szczucia-na- Gomułka and trusted him; population were either born zydow he was unquestionably the after 1968 or had no part in most popular political figure Dariusz Stola is the director the campaign at all—but we right after Cardinal Stefan (since 2014) of the POLIN are responsible for what we Wyszyński. And the same Museum of the History of are doing with this past today. Gomułka, although no longer Polish Jews. Concurrently he This is why, as a historian, I as popular as in 1956 but still is a professor (since 1994) am pleading: first, to respect respected by many, agreed to at the Institute for Political the truth and never cloud the launch of the anti-Jewish Studies, Polish Academy of or deform it through words campaign in 1968. Sciences. and gestures referring to He did not have to do so. March ’68; second, to have There was no similar situation these words and gestures in any other communist serve to draw conclusions country at the time. All signs from the past for today and indicate that it was a local tomorrow for the benefit of initiative of Poland alone. conscientious and critical There is no proof that it was thinking; and third, to prevent inspired by the authorities them from being empty

28 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 To Leave or to Stay? An interview Agnieszka Drotkiewicz with Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota

gnieszka Drotkiewicz manifestations. It would have They left in turns, and we used interviews Bella seemed that those two events to go to the Gdański Railway ASzwarcman-Czarnota about had nothing in common, but Station to see them off. I heard her experiences of March 1968. it soon transpired that they dramatic stories of formalities led to an ultimate revenge on one had to go through before Agnieszka Drotkiewicz: In Jews—initially only those departure. I remember my 1998, Anna Frajlich published who represented the Party friend’s sister, who arrived a text devoted to March ’68 in apparatus. Many people felt home in tears after officials at the journal Midrasz where you emboldened to eliminate Jews, the Ministry of Internal Affairs work as an editor. It was titled regardless of their positions on forced her to “voluntarily” “March Began in June.” the social ladder, from work renounce her Polish citizenship. Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota: or from university. They were Right next to her, a Greek In June 1967, almost a year encouraged to manifest their woman had been signing her before the March events, overt animosity, even hostility, documents—she was off to the the Six-Day War broke out towards Jews. country of her grandparents, between Israel and the Arab AD: You were a philosophy to Greece, yet was permitted states. Israel won, and the student then. to keep her Polish citizenship. entire socialist bloc—including My family too was hit by the BSC: Poland, obviously—led by I was in my final year. We repressions—an anonymous the Soviet Union, condemned were busy writing our master’s voice on the phone, asking if we the “attack by Israeli theses, so we would meet up in still enjoyed the taste of Polish imperialistic power” on the small groups. At some point, bread, or asking to speak with Arab countries.[It] thereby our department was closed, Abram Szwarcman, a filthy gave the signal to launch an and we had to apply to be Jew. I felt as if I were castaway anti-Semitic campaign in readmitted...The vast majority on a desert island. I had my Poland—convincing the Party of professors and lecturers Polish friends, but very few “apparatchiks” that “hidden from our department managed were willing to acknowledge allies of the Israeli aggressor” to retain their integrity. It was the anti-Semitic tone of the should be pursued. It is now more complicated with fellow events—they regarded them common knowledge that students—some thought that in purely political terms. They the ban imposed in March those who felt Polish should were hesitant to admit that 1968 on the Forefathers’ Eve stay, while those who felt normal people who had been theater production directed Jewish should leave Poland. averse to the authorities were by Kazimierz Dejmek gave Practically all my Jewish now siding with them. Two rise to student protests and friends decided to emigrate. years passed before I grew

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 29 Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota (in the patterned shirt) as an educator at a TSKŻ summer camp in Dziwnów, 1966. Courtesy of Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota. able to talk about these events I felt as if I were staying, that it was more like with new acquaintances, castaway on a “I’m going to stay for the time colleagues who came to desert island. being.” They recognized my Poland from Germany to write hesitation, the limbo I was in. I doctorates on Polish history. I BSC: I have never heard have never heard one word of felt they sympathized with my anything like that from my criticism from them. emotions—the emotions of friends. They sympathized with Once, I visited my aunt in someone who had grown up in my predicament. Sometimes, Śródborowianka, a lodge not far the Yiddish-speaking Jewish people would say that it was from Warsaw that belonged to milieu then was deprived of it wrong to stay, thus legitimizing the Social-Cultural Association all almost overnight. what was happening then. of Jews in Poland and was AD: Have any among those However, none of my friends frequented by Jews from all who had emigrated then have ever said to me: “You over Poland and from abroad. ever made you feel they were made the wrong decision to It was 1969 or 1970, and better in some way because stay.” They knew, anyway, that Eliasz Rajzman, a wonderful they’d left? I had never been adamant about Yiddish poet from Szczecin,

30 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 was staying at the lodge. He of my family and friends, I Excerpted from To leave or said to me: “What’s a Jewish experienced awfully bitter to stay?: Bella Szwarcman- girl like you still doing here? personal chagrins—those made Czarnota and Irena Grudzińska- Leave, you won’t find a husband me feel terribly lonely at times, Gross talk to Agnieszka here.” [Laughter.] He saw me and much less trusting than I’d Drotkiewicz about their primarily as a Jew, rather than been before. Such experiences experiences of March ’68 a Pole of Jewish origin, whom transformed me. People may and its consequences, which in a sense I was. I stress that say that “suffering offers appeared in Estranged. March because it’s typical to perceive incentive for development.” ’68 and Its Aftermath, a Jews in Poland as Poles who I truly do not wish anyone to catalogue edited by Justyna feel connected with Jewish owe their development to such Koszarska-Sczulc and Natalia religion or culture and for whom dramatic events. Romik to accompany the Polishness is something obvious. AD: Do you suppose that exhibition of the same name. This was different, in my case: March ’68 affected women Published by POLIN Museum I am a Jew who feels connected more than men? Was the and reprinted with permission. to Polishness, especially to the women’s situation any different Polish language. from that of the men? AD: One could try to assess BSC: I would not like to look March ’68 in terms of the back on March reflecting on dictum “What doesn’t kill gender differences—that would you makes you stronger.” merely undermine the gravity Those who left made careers of what happened. A war abroad, while in Poland, Jewish was waged against Jews, and tradition has been revived. You against political opponents, once wrote in Midrasz that regardless of their sex. Anti- “March was akin to the Shoah.” Semitic violence is often One must never forget damage expressed differently towards and trauma when talking about women and men, but that is a a success. truism. Both prior to and after Definitely. I can talk about March ’68, I experienced anti- some kind of success myself— Semitism aimed specifically had I been living in another at me, as a girl and later as country, perhaps, I wouldn’t a woman. March was no have become who I am, I exception here. n wouldn’t write, or translate Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota is from Yiddish… Still, I feel I’m a writer, editor, philosopher, carrying a terrible psychological and translator. She has written burden left by March. I was extensively about issues related deprived for many years to Jewish women.

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 31 Krystyna Janda Reflects on Dorota Wyżyńska Notes from Exile by Sabina Baral

otes from Exile, based on play. I always believed that it is a professor, has her own Nthe memoirs of Sabina would be a tough challenge. business, and was privileged Baral and directed by Magda And I was right. to the great honors and Umer, is one of several plays This is some very special splendors of this world. And written to commemorate the material about March ’68. she clearly states that none of 50th anniversary of March This book was written not it would have happened had ’68. The play premiered at by a historian, not by a she not been forced to leave Teatr Polonia, in Warsaw, on writer, but by someone who Poland in March 1968. March 9, 2018, and starred had experienced everything This is the book of a person Krystyna Janda. in person when she was representing a generation, Following is an excerpt twenty years old. which—according to Sabina from an interview with These are very moving Baral—entered the world with Krystyna Janda that Dorota records, which were written a bang. It was the emigrants Wyżyńska conducted on rather spontaneously. Sabina from Poland who were among February 9, 2018. Baral returned to Wrocław the pioneers in Silicon Valley Dorota Wyżyńska: “I spend after many years for a class and the author contributed my nights at the hotel reunion and she was asked to to things like development reading Notes from Exile by write a few pages of memoirs. of one of the first Intel 8080 Sabina Baral, a very special This short text, which flew microprocessors, which was a book about the exile of ’68. out of her like a bird, led to a milestone in the evolution of This is a report, so simple, book—a special book, which is personal computers. so obvious, so logical, which written straight from the heart. After all the years, she says makes you realize things These records are hot, that she would like to see no one had ever said in the emotional, and at the same something of her left behind open.” You wrote this in the time completely devoid of in Poland. She came to look summer of 2016. Did you sentimentalism. And they for some traces, but there are know of the play back then? include plenty of details we none! She has tried to enjoy Krystyna Janda: Not yet. had no idea about, I had no Poland’s successes throughout I took the book on vacation idea about. That is why I was the world, but she can see that in Italy and gave it to Magda so impressed. Furthermore, Poland is no longer her own. I Umer to read. Magda decided they are written by someone read many books about March that we should make it into a who succeeded in life. She ’68, I saw a lot of movies,

32 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Krystyna Janda in Zapiski z wygnania. Photograph by Katarzyna Kural-Sadowska/Teatr Polonia. Press materials. but I have never read such on the Institute of National like this happening before our a book like this one, never Remembrance? very eyes. experienced such reflections. Unfortunately. Whatever you Many people from all around This is a common, human touch, life tends to add some the world made plans to come story, which does not pick cruel PR. I never thought to Poland and attend the at old wounds but instead that I would be taking part ceremonies commemorating attempts to analyze, to look at in a play about March ’68 in the 50th anniversary of March the March emigration from a such an atmosphere, that I ’68. Many announced their rather unexpected perspective. would return to those events attendance at our premiere. We are now gone, and anti- and discuss them from the And now they are starting to Semitism is your problem. perspective of today. reconsider coming here at all. Sabina Baral stresses the I couldn’t sleep at night. International diplomatic visits following: “I wrote this book I would read the posts on are being called off. So how for myself, for you, and as the amendment to the law will these ceremonies look? a warning.” As a warning! on the Institute of National The situation is changing as It must be hard to work Remembrance. Where is though after a tsunami. on the play when you hear it going to lead us? I am The “side effect” of this about the events related to outraged, sad, and ashamed. work is having to read the the amendment to the law And amazed to see something disgusting anti-Semitic posts

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 33 online under pretty much any Foundation for Culture and considered myself mission- material concerning the matter the beginnings of the Polonia oriented. And mission: of Jews. There are dozens Theatre. accomplished. n of hideous and unbelievable And I read it with tremendous Krystyna Janda is an actor. posts under every song sentiment, as well. A new In 2005, she founded Teatr associated with Jews or chapter in uncharted waters. Polonia in Warsaw. performed in Yiddish. I was A great unknown and the never aware of the scale of fear of what it will lead This production of Notes from such hate. to. I was not at liberty to Exile premiered on March The fact that the theaters write about everything back 9, 2018, at Teatr Polonia in decided to contribute to then, I couldn’t reveal all Warsaw. It was adapted from the commemoration of the business and human aspects, Sabina Baral’s memoir and 50th anniversary of March the harassment. And now I directed by Magda Umer. ’68, to take a stance, to say am supplementing the part The cast of Krystyna Janda something in the words of covering the years 2005 and Janusz Bogacki was art, is a wonderful thing. I am and 2006, the time when we accompanied by live music. very happy that the Polonia were building the Polonia Mr. Bogacki was also the Theatre is one of them. What Theatre, with various official music director. In May, the will our play look like? I am documents concerning the production will travel to other doing everything in my power artistic program, the plans, the theaters throughout Poland. to keep it from becoming dreams. They were love letters This interview has been a homage celebration. to officials, which include translated and edited from Fortunately, Ms. Baral’s book everything that I did not cover the original, which appeared, is effectively protecting us at the time. I am including in Polish, in Co Jest Grane from such a situation. these letters in the book under 24: http://cojestgrane24. In Notes from Exile, Ms. the appropriate dates and feel wyborcza.pl/cjg24/1,13,22997 Baral writes the following: like they complete it. 712,146964,Krystyna-Janda- “I am who I feel I am. I Those dreams you wrote przed-premiera-spektaklu-o- carry my homeland inside of about in the letters to Marcu--6.html. me. What right does anyone officials, did they come true? Reprinted with permission. have to tell me where my They did. What’s more, homeland is?” no title mentioned by me In your “Journals,” you in the letters was omitted. also covered the beginnings Everything was done. And of Krystyna Janda’s this surprised me. I always

34 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 REPORTS Conference on Volume 30 of Antony Polonsky Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry

one-day conference historical records. Historians out. It also places male and organized by the Institute of the early modern and female education on a par with Afor Polish-Jewish Studies modern eras frequently point each other, and considers with and the Institute of Jewish to the centrality of educational equal attention students of all Studies, University College institutions and pursuits within ages, religious backgrounds, London, and co-organized and Jewish society, yet the vast and social classes. supported by the Embassy majority treat them as merely The conference was opened by of the Republic of Poland, a reflection of the surrounding welcoming addresses by His the Polish Cultural Institute culture. Only a small number Excellency, Arkady Rzegocki, in London and the American note how schools and teachers Ambassador of the Republic Association for Polish-Jewish could contribute in dynamic of Poland, Vivian Wineman, Studies, was held at the ways to the shaping of local President of the Institute for Polish Embassy in London communities and cultures. Polish-Jewish Studies and on January 16, 2108. The Volume 30 of Polin: Studies in Ben Helfgot, Chairman of the conference marked the launch Polish Jewry addresses this gap Institute for Polish-Jewish of Volume 30 of Polin: Studies in the portrayal of the Jewish Studies. These were followed in Polish Jewry, edited by past by presenting education by a conversation between Eliyana R Adler and Antony as an active and potent force Eliyana Adler (Pennsylvania Polonsky, on the theme of for change. It moves beyond State University), in “Jewish Education in Eastern a narrow definition of Jewish conversation with Antony Europe.” education by treating formal Polonsky (Chief Historian, An emphasis on education and informal training in POLIN Museum of the History has long been a salient feature academic or practical subjects of Polish Jews, Warsaw) on of the Jewish experience. with equal attention. In so “Jewish Education in Eastern The pervasive presence of doing, it sheds light not only Europe: An Introduction to schools and teachers, books on schools and students, but the Volume.” and libraries, and youth also on informal educators, The second session, chaired by movements, even in an youth groups, textbooks, Eliyana Adler, addressed the environment as tumultuous and numerous other devices issue of Jewish education in as that of nineteenth- and through which the mutual Poland in the interwar period twentieth-century eastern relationship between education and during the Holocaust. Europe, is clear from the and Jewish society is played

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 35 Sean Martin (Western Reserve Volume 30 of Polin: Antony Polonsky, PhD, is Historical Society, Cleveland, Studies in Polish Jewry Chief Historian at POLIN Ohio) gave an account of Museum of the History of Jewish religious education in addresses this gap in Polish Jews. Polish state schools; Jordana the portrayal of the de Bloeme (York University, Jewish past by presenting Toronto) examined the way the Vilna Educational Society education as an active in interwar Vilna sought to and potent force for form the Jewish identity of students in the Jewish school change. system; and Katarzyna Person (Jewish Historical Institute, Korczak, King of the Children Warsaw) gave a moving directed by Agnieszka Ziarek account of day-care centers in 2000. This documentary at refugee shelters in the was triggered by the Warsaw Ghetto. publication in 1998 of the diaries of the physician, The final session, chaired by author, and pioneer of François Guesnet (University children’s education, Janusz College London) was a round- Korczak (1878-1942), who table discussion with the died alongside the children theme “Education in Times in the Warsaw Ghetto’s of Political Transformation: orphanage in Treblinka. It Comparative Perspectives.” The is based on interviews with participants were Eliyana Adler, people in different parts of the (Pennsylvania State University); world who had been educated David Brown (Chief Executive in institutions headed by Director, Union of Jewish Korczak, and who preserved Students); Tali Loewenthal a unique attachment to “the (University College, London); old doctor,” as Korczak and Elaine Unterhalter (Institute was known in the interwar of Education, University period. It formed a moving College, London). climax to a fascinating and The conference concluded enlightening day of discussion with a showing of the and debate. n documentary film Janusz

36 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 March ’68 at POLIN Museum Antony Polonsky

n March 1968, Polish victory in the Six Day war of its institutions, forcing at least universities witnessed a June 1967. By appealing to thirteen thousand people to Iwave of protest. Students and the anti-Jewish resentments leave the country. the intelligentsia opposed the still prevalent in some On the fiftieth anniversary restrictions on intellectual sections of Polish society, of these events, the POLIN freedom and the retreat from the government sought to Museum organized a series the hopes of change which had discredit its opponents. This of commemorative events. followed the return to power confrontation took against the These took place against the of the reformist communist background of a struggle for disturbing background of the Władysław Gomułka in the leadership of the ruling widespread articulation of October 1956. They were also Polish United Workers’ Party antisemitic views in the media inspired by the attempt in (Polska Zjednoczona Partia and especially on the internet, neighboring Czechoslovakia Robotnicza—PZPR) between provoked by the opposition to create “socialism the established leadership, in Poland and abroad to the with a human face.” The many of whom had spent changes in the law on the demonstrations, which began the war in the Soviet Union Institute of National Memory at the University of Warsaw, and some of whom were of which laid down that anyone escalated into a mass youth Jewish origin. A younger who publicly and against revolt and marked the onset group also emerged, headed the facts ascribes to the of one of the most complex by the Minister of the Interior, Polish nation or the Polish crises in the post-war history Mieczysław Moczar, who had government responsibility of Poland. mostly been in Poland during of co-responsibility for the the war and who sought to The regime responded with crimes committed by the Third make the party more popular brutal repression of the German Reich or other crimes by adopting a more nationalist students and a large-scale against humanity, mankind, stance. The purge in the state antisemitic propaganda peace and war crimes—will and party apparatus, carried campaign, which attacked be punished by a fine or out under the slogan of the Jewish origin of some of imprisonment up to three combating Zionism, proved a the protesters and portrayed years. This same penalty will convenient tool to get rid of itself as ‘anti-Zionist’ since it be applied to those responsible political rivals and to create was ostensibly provoked by for the gross reduction of the new elites. The antisemitic the joy and relief manifested responsibility of the actual campaign affected the entire by Polish Jews at the Israeli perpetrators of these crimes. community of Polish Jews and

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 37 It is certainly the case that the use of terms such as ‘Polish concentration camps’ and collective accusations of participation in genocide against the ‘Polish Government’ or the ‘Polish Nation’ is offensive. However, serious doubts were expressed about the use of the law to deal with this problem. In addition although investigation of the Holocaust in Poland in the context of ‘artistic or scholarly activity’ is specifically excluded in the legislation, the vagueness of these terms has aroused alarm. Anti-Zionist protest in March 1968. Do they include journalists Public domain. and students or survivors and since the fall of communism, their families? Critics of the first event was a debate held Adam Michnik, former law were suspicious that it at the Museum on 25 February dissident, public intellectual could be used to discourage and organized by the Polish and editor-in-chief of Gazeta legitimate investigation. What section of B’nai Brith on the Wyborcza and Piotr Osęka, was alarming was that the topic “How did March 1968 Professor at the Institute of attempt to point out these affect social and political Political Science of the Polish problems was met by a wave changes in Poland. What Academy of Science. of antisemitic invective which remains of the inheritance of 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980 echoed in a disturbing way the This was followed on March and 1989?” It was chaired language used in 1968. 8 by an improvised theatrical by Anna Dodziuk, a well- performance, organized with At the same time, concern known publicist of Jewish the Shalom Foundation, at the about the way the antisemitic origin and Sergiusz Kowalski, Gdańsk station from which tropes of March 1968 were a prominent member of the most emigrants from Warsaw now again being resorted to Polish B’nai Brith. Among in 1968 left Poland and in gave a special relevance to those who participated were which actors from the Ester the series of events organized Jan Lityński, a long-time Rachel and Ida Kamińska by the Museum and ensured a opposition activist who has Jewish Theatre took part. wide audience for them. The remained active in politics

38 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 The participants met under the plaque commemorating those who were forced, unveiled in 1998, with its inscription from Henryk Grynberg, Here they left behind more than they had (Tu więcej zostali niż mieli). They then attended an open- air performance of a short play directed by Agata Duda Gracz, Packed up, a short story about who did not take what (Spakowani, czyli Police chase protesters on ul. Krakowskie Przemieście in Warsaw, March 8, 1968. From the Instytut skrócona historia o tym, kto Pamięci Narodowej archives. czego nie zabrał). On the same day a theatrical Warsaw, conducted a question The following day marked performance based on and answer session with the the opening of the impressive Sabina Baral’s book, Zapiski writer Mikołaj Grynberg temporary exhibition Obcy w z wygnania (Notes from on his recent book, Księga Domu. Wokół Marca “68”’ exile, 2015) describing her Wyjścia, an account of the (Estranged. March 1968 experiences in 1968 took experiences of Jews who and its Aftermath), which place at the Polonia Theatre. experienced March 1968 was curated by Justyna The part of Sabina was played and today live in Israel, the Koszarska-Szulc and Natalia by Krystyna Janda, one of United States, South America, Romik and which gives a Poland’s leading actresses. Denmark, Sweden and also vivid and striking account This was followed two days Poland. There was also a of the events of that year. It later by a meeting at the performance at the Polski contains a section on hate- POLIN Museum where the Theatre of the play, Kilka speech showing clearly the audience could discuss the obcych słów po polsku (Some similarities between the play with those involved in foreign words in Polish), language of 1968 and that of its production. written by Michał Buszewicz today. This has even provoked and directed Anna Smolar, On March 10 at the Museum one of those quoted, who based on a series of interviews Barbara Engelking, Director accused a Polish politician conducted by Mike Urbaniak of the Polish Center of of changing his name to hide in Israel, the United States Holocaust Research at the his Jewish origin, to attempt and Europe. to sue the Museum. The Institute of Philosophy and exhibition will be open until Sociology at the Polish March 12 marked the premiere September 24, 2018. Academy of Sciences in of Agnieszka Arnold’s film

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 39 U Siebie (On one’s own), an account of the destruction because of his forced emigration of the career of a rising star of Polish popular music, Michał Hochman, a reflection on what this brutal uprooting meant in terms of the loss of one’s language and cultural context.

On March 12 and 13, in conjunction with the Department of Literary A train of March emigrants departs from Gdański Station. Anthropology of the Adam Photograph by Elżbieta Turlejska. Courtesy of POLIN Museum. Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the Department book, Ani tu, ani tam Marzec the role of the media in of Polish Literature at the ’68—powroty (Neither here March 1968 and today. Jagiellonian University in not there. March 1968— The panel discussing these Kraków a two-day symposium returns) which describes the complex problems included on “(Auto)biographical experiences of those who left Professor William Grueskin, The Experiences and Identity. The Poland in 1968 but returned former chief editor of Wall Street Journal Writings of the March ’68 in the 1990s and now live and Generation” was organized and work here. Two days today a faculty member of at the Museum. This was later a discussion took place the School of Journalism followed by what was in many at the POLIN Museum on at Columbia University. It ways the central feature of the the ‘language of hate.’ This was moderated by Andrzej month of commemoration: a roundtable, supported by a Skworz, the principal editor Press major international conference donation New York-based of , and the other organized at the POLIN Fellowships at Auschwitz participants were Dariusz Museum and the University of for the Study of Professional Stola, Director of the POLIN Warsaw on March ’68: After Ethics (FASPE), sought to Museum, Ewa Milewicz, Fifty Years. (This is discussed examine what problems formerly a journalist with Gazeta Wyborcza in a separate report in this journalists face in describing , Sławomir Krytyka issue of Gazeta.) national religious and political Sierakowski of conflict, particularly those Polityczna and Andrzej On March 17, at the conditioned by disputed Stankiewicz of Onet. n POLIN Museum, Krystyna interpretations of the past. Naszkowska discussed her It sought both to examine

40 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 POLIN Museum’s GEOP International Conference Report Krzysztof Persak 2018: March ’68—Fifty Years Later

n March 1968, Polish Students and the were the Institute of History universities witnessed intelligentsia opposed and the Institute of Sociology Ian outburst of protests at the University of Warsaw. the restrictions of against the policies of the The proceedings took place communist authorities. intellectual freedom and both at the Museum building Students and the intelligentsia the withdrawal from and at the University campus, opposed the restrictions of where the students’ revolt had post-Stalinist intellectual freedom and begun back in 1968. the withdrawal from post- liberalization of the The conference brought Stalinist liberalization of the system. The regime together scholars from system. The regime responded responded with brutal Poland, USA, Israel, Sweden, with brutal repressions and Germany, the Netherlands, a widespread anti-Semitic repressions and a Belgium, Czech Republic, propaganda campaign, widespread anti-Semitic and Romania, who delivered launched under the pretext of propaganda campaign, 36 presentations divided the Jewish origin of some of into nine thematic panels. the protesters. The ensuing launched under the Among issues intensely purge in the State and Party pretext of the Jewish discussed were: the anti- apparatus, executed under the origin of some of the Semitic propaganda campaign slogan of combating Zionism, and the purge of people of was a convenient tool to get protesters. Jewish descent from different rid of political rivals and to professions; international create new elites. The anti- To mark the 50th anniversary response to state-sponsored Semitic campaign affected the of these events, which had anti-Semitism in Poland; entire community of Polish developed into one of the emigration of Jews from Jews, and its institutions, most complex political crises Poland and their integration forcing over thirteen thousand in the postwar history of in new homelands; youth people to leave the country. Poland, POLIN Museum’s disobedience in socialist Suppression of intellectual Global Education Outreach countries. The conference freedom and decline of Program (GEOP) held a major featured two round-table organized Jewish life were the international conference on discussions on patterns of aftermath of March ’68. 13-15 March, 2018. The co- organizers of the conference students’ protests between

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 41 1968 and 2015 and on the legacy of March ’68.

The distinguished keynote speakers were POLIN Museum’s Chief Historian, Professor Antony Polonsky, and University of Warsaw psychologist, Professor Michał Bilewicz. The latter’s lecture, Hate Speech Epidemics. Are We Far from March ’68?, provoked wide discussions in the Polish media.

The conference was conceived as part of a wider POLIN Museum program of commemorating the March ’68 anniversary. Its core From a 2008 production of Dziady, a play from 1967 whose production and subsequent cancellation triggered student protests against the communist element was a temporary government. The 2008 production was performed on the 40th anniversary of the exhibition Estranged: March play’s last public appearance. Public domain. ’68 and Its Aftermath. The conference attendees had a Recordings of the conference of the Jewish Historical chance to visit the exhibition are available at http:// Institute of Poland, and the and participate in a podium www.polin.pl/en/conf68. University of Warsaw. n discussion with its curators, A publication of selected Krzysztof Persak is Senior Justyna Koszarska-Szulc and presentations is being planned. Historian, POLIN Museum of Natalia Romik. The conference, as part of the History of Polish Jews Over 400 people attended the POLIN Museum’s Global the conference, among Education Outreach Program them former activists of the (GEOP), was sponsored students’ movement and/ by the Taube Foundation or 1968 exiles who came to for Jewish Life & Culture, Warsaw to take part in the the William K. Bowes, Jr. commemoration events. Foundation, the Association

42 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Traces of Memory in South Africa Jakub Nowakowski

and Tali Nates, the Director of Jakub Nowakowski is the the Johannesburg Holocaust director of the Galicia Jewish & Genocide Centre. An Museum in Kraków. audio recording of Mr. Nowakowski’s speech on contemporary Polish- Jewish relations delivered in Johannesburg Holocaust & Johannesburg on 14 March Genocide Centre. 2018 is available here: Image courtesy of Jakub Nowakowski. https://soundcloud.com/ user-858426360/14-march- n March 11, 2018 Galicia polish-jewish-relations-in- Jewish Museum Director, O contemporary-poland Jakub Nowakowski, opened Ambassador of the Republic the traveling exhibition Traces A traveling version of the of Poland to South Africa, Andrzej Kanthak; Director of the of Memory: A Contemporary GJM’s core exhibition has so Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Look at the Jewish Past far been presented in museums Centre, Tali Nates; Director of the Galicia Jewish Museum, Jakub in Poland at the Durban and institutions throughout the Nowakowski (from left to right). Holocaust & Genocide USA, Israel, Germany, UK Image courtesy of Jakub Nowakowski. Centre in South Africa. As and Ireland. Showings of the a part of the 2018 program, exhibition in South Africa are the exhibition will be also co-financed by the Ministry of displayed at the Cape Town Culture and National Heritage Holocaust Centre and the of Poland. Johannesburg Holocaust & An article about Mr. Genocide Centre. Nowakowski’s lecture was During his stay in South Africa, published in the South African Jakub Nowakowski gave Jewish Report, available at the Jakub Nowakowski, director several talks and presentations, following link: http://www. of the Galicia Jewish Museum, including meetings with sajr.co.za/docs/default-source/ lecturing on Polish-Jewish relations in contemporary Poland Andrzej Kanthak, the print-edition/2018-03-23613e7 at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Ambassador of the Republic a4047cf6007affdff0000014754. Genocide Centre. Image courtesy of Jakub Nowakowski. of Poland to South Africa, pdf?sfvrsn=fdf11a13_4 n

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 43 Report on the 5th Annual Polish Natalia Aleksiun, Halina Goldberg, Jewish Studies Workshop and Nancy Sinkoff

he 5th Annual Polish It was a very special project in Palestine, and to the Jewish Studies Workshop experience for me, and diaspora. Karolina Szymaniak Ttook place at Rutgers University (Wrocław) reconstructed the on March 5-6, 2018 with the this is not something correspondence between Max goal of discussing new research I often say about Weinreich and Jan Bystroń on Polish Jewish history and academic conferences. to show multifaceted ways furthering the international of mapping out relationships Somehow, sitting in an scholarly conversation that between Polish and Yiddish began in 2014. Centering American setting, all cultures, marginality, and the Periphery: Polish Jewish of us together: people expertise in the interwar years. Cultural Production Beyond Samuel Zerin (New York) from Poland, the US the Capital hosted more than raised provocative questions thirty scholars from Poland, and Israel, and re- about translating into Yiddish Israel and North America who constructing pre-WWI texts of classical compositions examined topics on cultural Jewish Poland, was from the repertoire of Jewish production in Polish lands after choral societies in Vilna. Jess partition and before World simply moving. Olson (New York), Wojciech War II, and beyond the capital Tworek (Toronto), Agnieszka Arbor, MI), Ofer Dynes city of Warsaw. The workshop Legutko (New York), and (Montreal) analyzed two highlighted new, innovative Karen Underhill (Chicago) poems: one by Antoni scholarship by younger offered their comments and Słonimski, “Conversations of scholars who focused on high raised additional questions, a Countryman” (1923), when and low cultures, including creating a lively and the author visited Palestine, dance, music, and literature, collegial exchange for all the and the other, “Monologue translation projects, intercultural symposium’s participants. in Plain Yiddish,” by Aharon exchanges, memorial projects, Zeitlin, written after the Leah Garrett (New York) among others, with several war in New York. Reading chaired the second panel, participants employing digital these two texts together “Geographies,” which opened humanities methodologies. illustrated new insights into the with the presentation of In the opening panel, complexities of the authors’ Marcin Wodziński (Wrocław) “Translations,” chaired by relationships to home and via video conferencing. While Geneviève Zubrzycki (Ann longing, the Jewish national discussing several maps that

44 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 showed the geographic shifts facilitated by comments and of “Eastern otherness” within of Hasidic centers, Wodziński questions raised by Samuel a region often imagined as argued for a careful reading Kassow (Connecticut), “Eastern.” David Fishman of these maps in temporal and Kathryn Ciancia (Wisconsin), (New York), Robert M. Shapiro spatial contexts to uncover Cecile Kuznitz (New York), (New York), Ofer Dynes new aspects of Hasidic Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka (Montreal), and Ela Bauer (Tel networks and the influence (Kraków), and Sarah Zarrow Aviv) commented. of tzaddikim (Hasidic (Bellingham, WA). On the second day of the leaders). Eugenia Prokop- Nancy Sinkoff (New Jersey) workshop, the conversation Janiec (Kraków) used maps chaired the next panel, continued with a panel, to discuss the ways in which “Traditions.” First, Wojciech “Embodiments and Spaces,” Jewish women created Jewish Tworek presented on the with Nancy Sinkoff as chair. cultural institutions in both efforts to create a new religious Sonia Gollance (Goettingen) historically Jewish and non- tradition by the Chabad argued for a close reading Jewish locales of Kraków. Hasidic movement, when it of the dance scenes in I. Her creative approach showed moved from the Soviet Union J. Singer’s The Brothers how close reading of the to interwar Poland. With its Ashkenazi. She showed maps of 1899, 1919, and 1939 new center in Otwock, near how these scenes can be revealed deep connections Warsaw, Chabad developed a interpreted through themes between cultural production, ritual associated with reading of pleasure and humiliation ethnicity, and gender. While “The Scroll of the 19th of to offer a new understanding Jagoda Wierzejska (Warsaw) Kislev” to consolidate its of cultural shift and crisis as was unable to attend the leaderships authority. Uriel Poland’s Jews modernized. workshop in person, her paper Gellman (Ramat Gan) explored Cecile Kuznitz focused on was presented by a proxy. the spatial aspects of Hasidic Jewish urban space in Lublin It brought to our attention society. By analyzing Hasidic by examining the Chochmei the changing conception of culture in eastern Europe, he Lublin yeshivah and the Peretz the “idea” of Jewish Galicia made a fascinating case for Folkshoys. These buildings, after anti-Semitic violence connecting the perspectives of designed for very different during the First World War social and intellectual history branches of Polish Jews, and the Polish Ukrainian War. with “the spatial turn.” The were united by the concept She cited An-sky and Emil tour of the Palestine-born of creating modern Jewish Tenenbaum’s work—among singer Bracha Zefira to Poland, space in Poland, and reflect others—to show the gradual in 1929, was the focus of the the optimistic conviction about disillusionment of Galician presentation by Magdalena Jewish rootedness in the city Jews with the region of Kozłowska (Warsaw). She and region. At the same panel, their birth. A discussion was raised interesting questions Kathryn Ciancia (Wisconsin)

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 45 Participants in the 5th Annual Polish Jewish Studies Workshop. Courtesy of the workshop organizers. explored urban space in the call for a new interpretation (Portland, Oregon), Michael Polish borderlands. Examining of the acculturation Steinlauf (Philadelphia), Łuck in Volhynia, she showed paradigm. Zehavit Stern Eugenia Prokop-Janiec, and the limits of the civilizing (Tel Aviv) continued this Sonia Gollance. mission that this city’s non- theme by examining the In the last session, “Audiences,” Jewish elites envisioned with concept of “The Folksy Naomi Seidman (Berkeley) a majority population that Avant-garde” embodied by challenged the notions of was Jewish and traditional. Moyshe Broderzon and the a strict gender division in Uriel Gellman, Marcos Silber Ararat Cabaret Theater in traditional schools for Jewish (Haifa), and Natalia Aleksiun Łódź. Ela Bauer showed girls by looking at theatrical (New York), engaged the how movie theaters, often productions in the Bais scholars who presented at owned by Jews, as well Yaakov movement. These this session. as the vogue for attending performances were often movies, became spaces of The following panel, “High surreptitiously attended and cultural renegotiation in the and Low Cultures,” chaired envied by Jewish boys. Sarah interwar period. She made by Karen Auerbach (Chapel Zarrow focused on Cecylia a compelling argument for Hill, North Carolina), began Klaften’s understanding of close reading of the personal with Marcos Silber’s thought- women’s artisanal crafts in accounts of Polish Jews who provoking discussion of Lwów and the ways in which had attended movie theaters popular and mass culture in this well-respected communal in small towns. Interlocutors Poland, which led him to activist raised the questions included Natan Meir

46 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 of gender relations, self- a group of people who truly Natalia Aleksiun, PhD, sufficiency, and aesthetics in care about this lost world, is Associate Professor of the Jewish community. Sylwia was simply moving, as well as Modern Jewish History at the Jakubczyk-Ślęczka (Kraków) inspiring… I think the workshop Graduate School of Jewish gave a fascinating overview of format worked really well, and Studies at Touro College. diverse musical activities of encouraged discussion and Halina Goldberg, PhD, is Jewish audiences in interwar interchanging ideas. Professor of Musicology Kraków and Lwów. Last, at the Jacobs School of The Monday night concert, Alicja Maślak Maciejewska Music at Indiana University Soundscapes of Modernity: reconstructed the history of Bloomington. Nancy Sinkoff, Jews and Music in Polish an unrealized attempt to build PhD, is the director of the Cities, presented music of a monument for Casimir the Center for European Studies Polish Jews that is little known Great by Polish Jews. Seven at Rutgers University. to American audiences—choral years of painstaking research pieces from 19th-century in the Polish press revealed this progressive (“Reform”) little-known initiative, which congregations, compositions she interpreted as an instance associated with Jewish music of the limits of integrationist societies, and avant-garde strategies of the progressive works by Jewish composers. Jews in Kraków. Karen It was performed to a full Underhill, Samuel Zerin, house of delighted listeners. Zehavit Stern, and Magdalena The instrumentalists and The Kozlowska commented. Mason Gross Kirkpatrick As one participant summarized: Choir under Patrick Gardner’s It was a very special steady baton did a glorious job experience for me, and this performing music from the is not something I often say Polish Jewish past. Based on about academic conferences. extensive research, the concert Somehow, sitting in an included several modern- American setting, all of us day premieres of forgotten together: people from Poland, compositions. the US and Israel, and re- The organizers are now constructing pre-WWI Jewish preparing a proposal for Poland, and especially the an edited volume that will ‘periphery,’ with old and highlight the best work contemporary images, photos, presented at the symposium. n maps, demographics, with

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 47 ANNOUNCEMENTS / REVIEWS POLIN GEOP Conferences and Opportunities

interdisciplinary and proceeding with regard to the GLOBAL EDUCATION comparative approaches. organization and construction OUTREACH of museum exhibitions as PROGRAM NEWS Deadline for submitting applications: June 30, 2018 well as internet databases on The mission of the Global For more information please Jewish-Slavic relations by Educational Outreach see: www.polin.pl/en/ museums. The socially crucial Program (GEOP) is to further research-collections-research- issue of relations between international exchange in the global-education-outreach- communities analyzed from elds of Polish Jewish Studies program/call-for-applications- both sides—the positive and and Jewish Museum studies. research-workshops. the negative aspects of those GEOP is supported by the relations—as well as through Taube Foundation for Jewish GEOP Interdisciplinary the diffusion of culture, ideas Life and Culture, the William Research Workshops and rituals will form the basis K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and In June 2018, the POLIN for debates on exhibition the Association of the Jewish Museum will host a formulas and combining them Historical Institute of Poland. workshop within the GEOP with the electronic system of supporting education in Call for Applications: Interdisciplinary Research museums. Scholars from GEOP Interdisciplinary Workshops: the Russian Federation, Research Workshops Representations of Jewish- USA, Poland and the Czech in 2019 Slavic Relations in Museums and Internet Databases Republic will attempt to POLIN Museum of the reflect upon the compatibility Organizers: History of Polish Jews— of the two forms of museum n Center for University through GEOP—invites communication. Ideas for Teaching of Jewish individuals and institutions exhibitions (some of them Civilization “Sefer” to propose three-day research virtual) developed by various n workshops to be held at Institute for Slavic Studies museums and devoted to the the POLIN Museum on of the Russian Academy history of Jews all over the topics related to the history of Sciences world will be demonstrated n and culture of Polish Jews, Polish Academy of during the workshop, including new perspectives Sciences alongside the electronic on public history, museums, The workshop will be systems of databases used by and cultural memory. dedicated to discussions museums in Russia, Poland We especially encourage on developing standards of and the Czech Republic.

48 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 GEOP will support the has established a doctoral GEOP Distinguished 11th EAJS Congress seminar devoted to the history Lecturer Series and culture of Polish Jews. GEOP is supporting the 11th New lectures online: Participants from Polish Congress of the European n The audio report of a Association for Jewish Studies, institutions representing such fields as history, literature, lecture by Professor Searching for the Roots of A Budding anthropology, sociology, art Eyal Naveh, Jewish Traditions, which State: Aliyah, Kibbutz, history, Yiddish studies and will take place in Kraków, Urbanization other are welcome to apply , is available Poland, on July 15–19, 2018. at: www.polin.pl/en/event/ GEOP is organizing a Jewish for the fourth edition of the Doctoral Seminar. The aim a-budding-state-aliyah- Museology Section that will kibbutz-urbanization. provide an opportunity to of the seminar is to integrate n The lecture Is It Possible present the experiences of young scholars from various for All People to Speak various museums and discuss fields and academic institutions, the Same Language? The their activities and the new and to provide them with access Story of Ludwik Zamenhof challenges they face. All to experts from Poland and and Esperanto by Professor subjects related to museology, abroad. The seminar will also Federico Gobbo is with a focus on representations be attended by PhD supervisors, available at: www.polin.pl/ of Jewish traditions and the invited senior scholars, and en/event/is-it-possible-for- diversity of Jewish life, are POLIN Museum’s international all-people-to-speak-the- warmly welcomed. Lectures fellows. same-language devoted to collections, Deadline for submitting exhibitions, educational and applications: June 10, 2018. n A lecture by Dr. Sharon Women in Israel: cultural activities as well as For details on the Call Geva, Myth and Reality the newest technologies used for Applications, please , is in creating exhibitions are of see (only available in available at: www.polin.pl/ especial interest. Polish): www.polin.pl/pl/ en/event/women-in-israel- myth-and-reality More information about the nauka-i-zbiory-dzialalnosc- Congress can be found here: naukowa-stypendia-i- n The audio recording eajs2018.uj.edu.pl/. warsztaty-dla/seminarium- of the lecture How Did doktorskie-20162017 We Negotiate Peace for Call for Applications: Israel? For details on the GEOP by Elyiakhim GEOP Doctoral Seminar Rubinstein is available at: 2018/19 Doctoral Seminar please see: www.polin.pl/en/nauka-i- www.polin.pl/sites/default/ In partnership with members zbiory-dzialalnosc-naukowa- files/1.02.2018.mp3 of the Polish academic pobyty-badawcze-i-warsztaty/ community, POLIN Museum geop-doctoral-seminars

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 49 Upcoming lecture: in Belgium and the United Dr. Michał Trębacz, How States. to draw the attention of an For more information on the indifferent world? Szmul lecture please see: www.polin. Zygielbojm’s struggle to stop pl/en/event/how-to-draw-the- the extermination of Jews, attention-of-an-indifferent- 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 26 world-szmul. Seventy-five years ago, on the For more information on night between May 11 and the GEOP lectures please 12, 1943, when the Warsaw see: www.polin.pl/en/geop- Ghetto Uprising was drawing distinguished-lecture-series. to an end, Szmul Zygielbojm Audio-video recordings committed suicide. It was one of the “March ’68. Fifty of the most dramatic protests Years Later” conference against the world’s indifference are now online! in the face of Holocaust. In his suicide note he wrote: Recordings from the “My comrades in the Warsaw conference March ’68. Fifty Ghetto perished holding arms Years Later, which took place during their ultimate, heroic on March 13–15, 2018, at battle. I was not meant to die POLIN Museum and the together with them. But I do University of Warsaw, are belong with them, and with now available online at: their mass graves.” www.polin.pl/en/conf68. This lecture will be delivered The conference was organized by Dr. Trębacz, head of within the GEOP framework. the Research Department at POLIN Museum. He specializes in history of the Bund, Jewish socialist party, in interwar Poland. He is also interested in biographical studies and the Holocaust history. The author of numerous essays on these subjects, Dr. Trębacz has lectured extensively

50 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 A Voice Rescued from The Holocaust: Alex Ulam The Diary of Renia Spiegel

enia Spiegel a Jewish Renia’s diary R girl born in 1924 in describes life in southeastern Poland, kept a wartime Przemyśl, diary beginning in January which was divided 1939. Three years later, between the Soviets Renia was shot and killed and the Nazis along by Nazis on the street, in the the River San, which city of Przemyśl, along with runs through the city. the parents of her boyfriend, Before 1941, when Zygmunt Schwarzer, after they the Nazis launched were discovered hiding in an Operation Barbarosa attic outside the ghetto. Renia and invaded the has been described as the Russian section of “Polish Anne Frank.” Przemyśl, most of Zygmunt Schwarzer survived the city’s Jews lived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. there, on the Soviet- After the war, he studied occupied eastern medicine at the University bank of the city. of Heidelberg, in Germany. When the ghetto Upon graduating, he moved was established in to the United States, where July 1942, Renia he became a pediatrician. In The jacket image for Dziennik 1939–1942 by and her younger sister, Renia Spiegel. Published by Renia Spiegel the 1950s, a friend visiting Ariana, were forced to Foundation, 2016. New York from Przemyśl move there with their gave him Renia’s diary, grandparents, with whom they was allowed to live outside which she had crafted out were living. Several weeks the ghetto. He then moved of seven school books sewn later, Zygmunt, who had a work her, along with his parents, to together. Zygmunt gave the pass, was able to spirit Renia a hiding place in a garret in diary to Renia’s mother, Róża out and move her into the house the town. Meanwhile, Renia’s Maria Leszczyńska, who had of his uncle, who, because of sister, Ariana, was taken to survived the war and lived in his status at a Judenrat official, Warsaw by a Polish gentile the U.S.

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 51 named Ludomir Leszczyński In 2016, the Foundation and reunited with her mother, published, in Poland, who was passing as a Pole and Renia’s nearly 700-page working in a hotel overrun with Wermacht officers. diary (Dziennik 1939–

When Renia’s hiding place in 1942). Magierski is now the garret was exposed by an leading the effort to informer, the Nazis executed have the diary translated her and Zygmunt’s parents in the street, only a day after into English. Ariana had escaped from the ghetto. Ariana survived the war, This is an edited and abridged settled in the US, and received version of an article, “Why the diary from her mother. Renia Spiegel is Being Called the ‘Polish Anne Frank,’” Many years later, at the that appeared in the Forward urging of her daughter on February 12, 2018: Alexandra, Ariana showed https://forward.com/ Renia’s diary to Tomasz culture/394032/why-renia- Magierski, a Polish-American spiegel-is-being-called-the- documentary filmmaker who polish-anne-frank. Reprinted lives in New York. Magierski with permission. was impressed with the diary. He joined Ariana and Alex Ulam is a contributing her daughter in forming the writer for The Forward. Renia Spiegel Foundation in Renia’s memory. In 2016, the Foundation published, in Poland, Renia’s nearly 700-page diary (Dziennik 1939–1942). Magierski is now leading the effort to have the diary translated into English. He is also working on producing a film based on the diary. n

52 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Naomi Seidman Awarded Inaugural Borsch-Rast Book Prize and Lectureship

he Graduate Theological Dean Uriah Y. Kim stated, Union (GTU) is pleased “Naomi Seidman’s The Tto announce that Naomi Marriage Plot is a worthy Seidman, Koret Professor of choice as the inaugural winner Jewish Culture at the GTU’s of the Borsch-Rast Prize, Richard S. Dinner Center which is among the most for Jewish Studies, has generous book awards in the been awarded the inaugural field of religion and theology. Borsch-Rast Book Prize and Dr. Seidman has set a very Lectureship for her 2016 book high bar for future winners The Marriage Plot, Or, How to meet.” Jews Fell in Love with Love, Members of the selection and with Literature (Stanford committee heralded Prof. University Press). Seidman’s work for its The newly established The jacket image for The Marriage profound exploration of Plot by Naomi Seidman. Published by Jewish cultural attitudes Borsch-Rast Book Prize Stanford University Press, 2016. and Lectureship will be toward love, sex, and awarded annually and carries The award seeks to marriage. “The Marriage a prize of $10,000. The encourage innovative Plot demonstrates a complex award seeks to encourage connection between literature and creative theological innovative and creative and romantic practices in theological scholarship by scholarship by GTU nineteenth century European GTU graduates and current graduates and current Jewish communities,” said faculty. The endowment Dr. Margaret Miles, professor for the Borsch-Rast Prize faculty. emerita of historical theology comes from the proceeds of example and collaboration of and former academic dean of Trinity Press International, Frederick Houk Borsch (1935- the GTU. “Readers are sure a venture dedicated to the 2017) and Harold W. Rast to be engaged, challenged, publication of scholarly (1933-2004). and persuaded to rethink our and often interdisciplinary understanding of all sex- theological studies. The prize In announcing Prof. Seidman’s gender systems and how they and lectureship honor the joint receipt of the award, GTU circulate both in literary form

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 53 and in the erotic choices Members of the selection we make.” committee heralded In accepting the award, Prof. Seidman’s work Prof. Seidman spoke of the for its profound deep gratification she has experienced not only in exploration of Jewish receiving the award but in cultural attitudes toward hearing from readers from the GTU community whose love, sex, and marriage. opinions she cherishes. “My book is about the The Graduate Theological challenges to community Union is currently accepting of secularization and nominations of 2017 modernization, and (despite publications by GTU faculty the title) about the bonds that and alumni for the next connect us to one another Borsch-Rast Book Prize and beyond the nuclear family, on Lectureship. Nominations which modern society rests so will be accepted through much weight,” Prof. Seidman April 25, 2018, and the said. “At the Graduate winner will be announced in Theological Union, all of us November. Visit http://www. have been part of a radical gtu.edu/borsch-rast-prize experiment, of what it might for more information on the mean to imagine community Borsch-Rast Book Prize and beyond the boundaries of Lectureship, including contest religion and ethnicity, and guidelines and a link to the I’ve been gratified to feel online nominations form. n myself embraced by this community over the past twenty-some years.”

Prof. Seidman’s inaugural Borsch-Rast Lecture will take place this spring at the GTU. The date of the lecture will be announced in the near future.

54 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Chidusz Publishes Special Edition on March ’68

n honor of the 50th anniversary of March I’68, Chidusz, a Jewish magazine based in Wrocław, published a special edition of the magazine. It features an interview with Konstanty Gebert about Polish-Jewish relations, historian Deborah Lipstadt on Poland’s “Holocaust law,” and writer and activist Teresa Bogucka on protest in the 1960s and protest today. Jerzy Kowalski, the cousin of filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, writes about his own experience of emigration in 1968. The cover, by Edyta Marciniak, depicts emigrants at Gdański Railway Station in March 1968. The few articles not explicitly related to March ’68 include a critical account of Dr. Ewa Kurek’s lectures on Polish-Jewish history, the current Political climate, and Cover art for the March 2018 edition of Chidusz by Edyta Marciniak. Courtesy of Chidusz. the story of Purim; the issue also contains an examination article will also appear in of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Chidusz’s third English- affairs and sexual harassment language edition, available in light of the #MeToo in print on April 19, 2018. n movement. Mr. Gebert’s

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 55 Anna Przybyszewska Drozd My Old New Sister and Matan Shefi

t was nothing out of the ordinary. A small family Igathering—two sisters, their husbands and children. The only thing that gave away the fact that this was not just another family meeting was the film crew, documenting every facial expression. What brought Dor Glick and the Israeli Channel 10 team all the way to the northern Polish city Half-sisters Rosa and Tzipora, in the front row (left to right), meet with their families of Szczecin was something in Szczecin, Poland. Photograph by Dor Glick. Courtesy of the Jewish Genealogy & Family Heritage Center at the Jewish Historical Institute. unusual. It was the sisters’ first meeting ever. Even the most seemingly asked her grandmother who For more than twenty years, simple questions can they were, Roza told her for we have been in contact with the first time the story of her tens of thousands of Jewish be the start of a most Jewish father, with whom she families from all over the challenging journey had lost contact when she was world who reached out to in time, leading to a little girl, just after the war. us to find out about their Roza Kujawska was born in families and the places they exciting and unforeseen 1943 in the Soviet Union. come from. Even the most discoveries. After the war ended, her seemingly simple questions parents were on the way back can be the start of a most she came across a picture to Poland. But, as Roza’s challenging journey in time, of people she had never mother always told her, leading to exciting and known about. A man and a “Your father missed the unforeseen discoveries. woman with two boys, and an inscription on the back: “For right train.” Roza never When Roza Kujawska’s my brother’s wife and Roza. saw her father, Idel, again. granddaughter searched From our family—Leon and Having immigrated to Israel, through old family photos, Szura Berkowicz.” When she he sent her a letter and his

56 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 photo, both of which she has since lost.

Leon, Idel’s brother, stayed in Poland for a longer time, until he too decided to leave with his family for Israel in the 1950s. Before he left, he contacted his young niece, Roza, for the last time. It is said among the family that Roza’s father asked Leon to bring Roza to Israel, but her mother wouldn’t agree to it.

Roza kept her wish to find her father to herself. Many years ago, she tried to find him by sending her only keepsake, a photograph of him, to an organization in Israel. She The photograph of the Berkowicz family that Leon Berkowicz sent to Roza and her never received an answer. mother, and that decades later led Roza’s granddaughter to search for her Roza’s She gave up. relatives. On the back of the photograph, the inscription reads: “For my brother’s wife and Roza, from our family—Leon and Szura Berkowicz.” It was Roza’s granddaughter Courtesy of the Jewish Genealogy & Family Heritage Center at the Jewish Historical Institute. who led the search and wrote to us. Immediately, we located much of their father, who lives today. When Roza’s family documents in the JHI passed away when she was secret wish was realized Archives, and soon after, we fourteen, but she remembers by her granddaughter, the also found the grave of Idel him speaking about the little existence of her new family and traces of his new family in daughter he left behind. was revealed to them and to Israel. He had married again Tzipora never thought she the world. n and had two children, Tzipora would find her half-sister, so Anna Przybyszewska Drozd and Avram. she never looked for her. and Matan Shefi work at When we contacted Tzipora, As a result of the contact, both the Jewish Genealogy & she was immediately willing families met soon thereafter Family Heritage Center at the to meet her half-sister Roza. in Szczecin, a Polish town Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish She doesn’t remember close to the place where Roza Historical Institute in Warsaw.

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 57 Julian and The 6th Annual Bruno Schulz Festival Fay Bussgang

he Sixth Annual Bruno In 2001, a German documentary filmmaker discovered a Schulz Festival took mural in Drohobych that Schulz had created during the Tplace in Wrocław, Poland from October 11 to 21, 2017. war for the local Gestapo chief, who had admired Schulz’s Born into a Jewish family, work. A team from Israel managed to remove some of the Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) was an outstanding author and drawings and secretly transport them to Israel, where they artist who lived in Drohobycz were turned over to the Yad Vashem Museum. (today, Drohobych, Ukraine), a city in Galicia known as the books led to productions of were found in Drohobych largest source of oil in Europe. highly regarded theatrical in 2001 when the city was Schulz started his career by plays and movies. Schulz already part of Ukraine. A being interested in drawing was recognized by the Polish team from Israel discovered and then studied architecture Academy of Literature, them in a home formerly in Vienna. He spoke German receiving, in 1938, its Golden occupied by the Gestapo chief fluently, but his primary Laurel Award. Films based of Drohobycz. They quietly language was Polish. . on Bruno Schulz’s writings communicated with the When he returned from his have received much attention, current owners of the property, studies, he became an art including a prize at the Cannes removed the murals, and teacher in the high school in film festival. secretly flew them to Israel. Drohobycz and continued These murals are now in the Schulz remained in Drohobycz drawing. He soon became possession of the Yad Vashem under the Soviet occupation in known not only for his art Museum in Jerusalem. 1939, and then, in 1941, when but for his writings as well. Following a protest by the the Germans occupied his city, He authored short stories museum in Drohobycz, which he was confined to the ghetto. and two books that won claimed rightful ownership In 1942, at the age of fifty, him much acclaim: Sklepy of the murals, the Drohobycz while walking down a street, cynamonowe (in English titled Museum and Yad Vashem he was shot and killed by a Street of Crocodiles) and reached an agreement, in German officer. Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą 2008, that while these art (Sanatorium under the Sign Murals drawn by him for pieces are the property of of the Hourglass). Both these children had been hidden but Ukraine, Yad Vashem can

58 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 Self-Portrait in Cliché-Verre (ca. 1920) by Bruno Schulz. Image available in public domain. keep them as a long-term self-portrait, drawings of his For more information on the loan. family, book illustrations, latest Bruno Schulz Festival, and fragments of his prose. see: http://brunoschulz. The first Bruno Schulz Also displayed was an dybook.pl/program-2017/. Festival was held in Epilogue depicting Schulz’s Drohobych in 2008. Wrocław Julian and Fay Bussgang death during the German followed beginning in 2011. edited Gazeta for over twenty occupation. In November 2012, the Polish years. Today, they serve as Senate commemorated the Wrocław has continued senior contributing editors. 170th anniversary of Schulz’s the tradition of a festival birth and the 70th anniversary in Schulz’s honor and has of his death. At that time, the expanded it to become an exhibit at the Polish Senate international festival of art consisted of twenty-four large and literature, including displays that included Schulz’s lectures and concerts. n

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 59 PERSONAL ESSAYS Ariella Goodman My Month in Polin

1. Summer Prelude “So what are your plans for the summer? Heading off to camp?” “No actually- I’m spending a month in Kraków, volunteering at the JCC there.” “Oh…” the reply trailed off. This exchange was typical at the end of my year in seminary. As my friends were preparing to leave for Camps Moshava and Stone, I was preparing to pick up on an old interest of mine: Polin. Typically, when I answered Ariella Goodman and her teacher Shmuel Afek in Kraków. Courtesy of Ariella Goodman. about my summer plans, I would receive several raised that journey.” To the latter Poland means the Holocaust, eyebrows, confused faces, question, I would answer “I Poland means pogroms, and and questions such as “Are had a wacky history teacher in if the class was sophisticated there even Jews there to high school.” enough to get to the postwar have a JCC?!” or “How on period, Poland also means earth did you get involved Last year, in high school, I communism. When American in something like that?” took a class titled Re-birth students visit Poland, that To the former question, I of Poland: How Does an Old means all Holocaust and no would respond “There are Nation Write a New History? Heritage—death of Jewry Poles finding out they have Typically, when history and no revival of Jewry. But Jewish roots everyday, and teachers mention Poland, our class was different—our the JCC there provides them they depict the country as class “had seen the truth!” with a safe haven to undergo a mass gravesite for Jews. Throughout our trip to Poland,

60 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 we learned about Polish I’ve learned that our relationship with the young Jews seeking to return to Polish congregants, and the people’s relationship with their religious tradition and congregants relishing each ethnic heritage. We visited the city, and with this opportunity to sing zemirot two JCCs, one in Warsaw and haunting, complicated, and to hear a dvar Torah, I one in Kraków, both of which knew I wanted to be more host a variety of workshops, beautiful and downright than an outsider, more than an brunches, book clubs, films, tragic country, cannot onlooker. I wanted to know and ulpan classes for Polish follow either the March the stories and journeys of the Jews to learn both Hebrew Polish Jews at the Shabbat and Yiddish. Our journey of the Living narrative table. So naturally, a month around Poland showed us or that of the blossoming as a JCC volunteer in Kraków more than just Jewish loss, sounded like the perfect idea. Jewish revival. it also exposed us to Jewish 2. My Month in Polin life. Whereas most Americans and even its fine collection of who travel in Poland never churches. And as I walked its I’ve now spent several meet an actual Pole, we had cobblestone streets, I thought, Shabbatonim in Kraków, and partnerships with two Polish “Now this is the real Poland. I constantly vacillate from high schools. In class, we Anybody who thinks Poland grimly thinking to myself, analyzed Jewish history is something other than this “there are no Yidn here—that’s museums in Poland, many just hasn’t come to Kraków.” a completely lost world,” different interwar Jewish In Kraków, I could imagine to marveling at how here communities, and the wealth its historic and diverse group in Kraków, in a city that of culture they left behind, of Jews. When we met with has a heartbreakingly small the latest scholarly work non-Jewish tour guides of the number of Jews, I learned six in Jewish studies, Polish Jewish district, I felt endless hours of Torah each Shabbat resistance during and after the debt and gratitude to Poles with the local community. war, communist Poland, and dedicated to preserving my I’ve had way too many of course, the renaissance of heritage—such altruism, conversations with Poles Jewish life in Poland. such good! who continue to perpetrate their historic narrative of Now you see, my teacher Months after my trip, I still victimhood, and choose to loved Polin. And I do too. remembered the buzzing believe that American and When I came to Kraków for energy and dynamism that I Israeli Jews have completely Shabbat last year, I fell in love experienced on Friday night fabricated stories of Polish with the remarkably preserved the year before at the JCC. anti-Semitism. I met a JCC city. I was in awe of its parks, As I observed the rabbi’s volunteer who shared with me medieval castles, synagogues,

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 61 that she dressed up as a Hasid cannot allow Jewish teenagers either. Nor does my Heschel for Halloween, shortly after to come to Poland and ignore High School education (sorry, telling me I was the first Jew all Jewish life. Instead, I Shmuel). The sad truth of she had ever met. But I have would ask them to think about it all is that for centuries, also met phenomenal people the life that once occurred Christians and Jews did not in Kraków: students of all here as well, not solely the live peacefully amongst religious and social walks of death. Think about the culture one another here. Poland is life who are studying the city’s and communities, not just the a historically xenophobic Jewish history or volunteering concentration camps. Honor country—and I can say this, to help preserve its Jewish and revel in this wonderfully and criticize the country’s presence. rich canon of text that our infamous prejudice throughout Polish Jewish ancestors left the centuries, without saying I came to some new us. Don’t reduce all of the all Poles are evil anti- conclusions on this second ideologies, yeshivas, social Semites—and no amount of trip. I’ve learned that our movements, and literature non-Jewish volunteers at the people’s relationship with the that came from this Jewish JCC can clean this country of city, and with this haunting, community to anti-Semitism its blood libels. Furthermore, complicated, beautiful and and death. Never forgive the I believe that Poles need to downright tragic country, brutal savagery that killed abandon their unwavering cannot follow either the all the Dovodels, all of the narrative of victimhood, March of the Living narrative Yankels, and all the Rochels, and the excuses that come or that of the blossoming never forget the sheer evil with this. Poles need to stop Jewish revival. The March and barbarism that rendered blaming Jews for hating of the Living account of millions of children orphans. them and stereotyping them, history does a disservice to Continue to speak up against and instead, step back and the rich heritage of Polish Polish collaboration and the consider that there might Jewry, choosing to ignore pogroms and the Poles who be validity and truth to the the centuries of a fascinating say, “Hitler got something comments of Jews whose and brilliant community that right in the Holocaust.” But families experienced Polish produced the rich stories make sure to leave space in anti-Semitism firsthand. and philosophy of Hassidut, the dialogue for pride and Instead of claiming that the exceptional yeshivot, and passion for the civilization only perpetrators of hatred a thriving secular Jewish that once flourished on the and prejudice toward Jews culture. Where is the Bal streets of Kazimierz, of Łódź, were the Germans, Polish Shem Tov in the March of the and of Warsaw. “activists” need to combat Living narrative? Where is their government that has Sarah Schenirer? Where’s the The Jewish revival narrative just made it officially illegal thriving Yiddish culture? We doesn’t entirely do it for me

62 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 to say Poland had a role in Though I believe that a see a kippah on the street. In the Holocaust. The Jewish more substantial Jewish a neighborhood in which both leaders in Kraków must take a Hareidim and secular Zionists stand against such tyrannical future lies in Israel and once lived on the same actions, against a government America, I also believe street, you now find a milieu whose ultra-nationalism is that both the Jew in generally ignorant of and reminiscent of the 1930s. even apathetic to the fact that And the Jews working at the Katamon and the Jew there was once a whole Jewish JCC must stop slandering in Kraków have a share civilization here. other Jews, pointing fingers in our people’s story So where does this leave at them for having an opinion me? I’ve mentioned that I about Poland that varies from and future. don’t want to pretend that theirs. What kind of achdut, “rock the boat,” I offer this: there’s something here that’s what kind of Peoplehood is don’t be a politician, be a not, but I also don’t want to that? If we want to recreate a mensch. Fight the city council dishonor the people who used truly genuine Jewish language who can allow a synagogue to live here, and I also don’t in Kazimierz, we need to to be turned into a club while want to dishonor Polish Jews fight the urban regeneration simultaneously boasting that such as Stanisław Krajewski that converts shuls and they strive to preserve the who risked his life under batei midrash into bars as district’s Jewish heritage. communist Poland to teach well as the rampant cultural “closeted Jews” the basics of appropriation that hijacks Let’s also be realistic about Judaism, and who continues and sullies a thousand-year- the country’s Jewish future. to this day to promote a more old tradition and culture. In In my trip reflection from educated Jewry in Warsaw. 2017, I refuse to hear Polish last year, I wrote that one Though I believe that a more volunteers at the JCC say, can imagine Kraków’s Jews substantial Jewish future lies “I would rather Poles sell who were wiped out by the in Israel and America, I also toy Hasidim than kill actual Holocaust while strolling believe that both the Jew Hasidim.” This kind of logic the streets of the former in Katamon and the Jew in saddens me. Poland is clearly Jewish District. This summer, Kraków have a share in our not as loving of a place if the however, with the streets people’s story and future. options we face are either full of blonde-haired, blue- anti-Semitism or creepy, eyed Poles enjoying their So I invite my readers to offensive philo-Semitism. To summer vacation at bars and spend a Shabbat at JCC the Jewish leaders in Kraków (tref) restaurants, I saw no Krakow, to witness the hesitant or even scared to Yidn. As I walked to work wonderful community that make a statement that might everyday, I was shocked to two completely different

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 63 AFTERWORD ON ARIELLA GOODMAN’S ESSAY Shmuel Afek

Jews—Jonathan Ornstein, an avowed he idea of teaching a course on contemporary atheist, and Rabbi Avi Baumol, the Poland at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High Religious Zionist rabbi from Efrat— T School in New York was born of a desire to expose our have created together, attracting a wide students to the unique, exciting transition to Western range of students and stakeholders: democracy that Poland has been undergoing since from Holocaust survivors in their the collapse of communism in Europe in 1989. For seventies to Judaic Studies students in their twenties, and converts of all ages students of history, the unique aspects of this process who have discovered their Jewish roots are invaluable. Our students follow a nation that is and want to dedicate themselves to engaged in self reflection about its own history, and their ancestral religion and want to do learn how the received narratives of Jewish presence that here, in Kraków. in Poland are being challenged in a deep, thoughtful manner. An additional factor that makes the story Some thank yous to wrap this up. of contemporary Poland so compelling, of course, Thank you to my parents for always is learning about the “de-assimilation” of Polish instilling in me a pride and belief Jews, the hundreds of young people rediscovering in Jewish peoplehood. Thank you to Shmuel, my history teacher and their Jewishness and the diverse ways in which they mentor, with whom I may disagree on are creating a new Jewish presence in the country several aspects of the Polish narrative, that once knew an uninterrupted Jewish history of a but who ignited my love for history thousand years. and initiated my relationship with this Organizing a trip to Poland as a centerpiece of the story. I would not be here without him. course is a natural outcome of the course and its goals. Thank you to JCC Krakow for taking A trip focused around personal experiences for our me on despite my lack of Polish, and for welcoming me into the community students with Polish students of the same age adds and making me feel at home during a dimension of learning that could not be achieved all of the zemirot, simchas, and Torah any other way. The interaction with Polish teens learning. I look forward to throughout the trip reinforces and further enriches my return. n what is learned in the classroom, but also adds new dimensions when the learning becomes personal and Ariella Goodman is a graduate of self-directed by curious students spending their hours Abraham Joshua Heschel School in and days together. New York City. Shmuel Afek teaches at Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City.

64 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 64 OBITUARIES Jerzy Jedlicki Antony Polonsky June 14, 1930–January 31, 2018

erzy Jedlicki (known to his He studied sociology at the reform of the party but finally friends as Jurek), a leading University of Warsaw, where resigned from it in response to JPolish social historian, died he had a distinguished career the anti-Semitic campaign of in January 2018 at the age of at the Institute of History 1968. He was a member of the 88. He was born in Lwów to at the Polish Academy of opposition discussion group, an assimilated Jewish family Science and where, after the Club of the Crooked Circle that decided not to circumcise 1989, he became head of its (Klub Krzywego Koła), one him. As a result, he was workshop on the history of of the signatories of Memoriał able to survive the war (as the intelligentsia. However, 101, the protest of intellectuals noted in Gazeta Wyborcza, because of his criticism of the against the proposed changes February 2, 2018). He grew communist government, it was in the Polish constitution in up in Warsaw, where his father only then that he was awarded 1976, and, from 1977, one of was a successful chemical the title of full professor. He the organizers of the Flying engineer, and, along with was also a member of the University (Uniwersytet his brother Witold, a leading Collegium Invisibile, an elite Latający) and of the Society émigré Polish sociologist who academic society established for Scholarly Courses died in 1995, was baptized in 1995 and modeled on the (Towarzystwo Kursów by his parents as a Protestant Oxford system, it seeks to Naukowych), which grew in 1935. His mother, but not bring together outstanding out of it. He also conducted his father, was baptized as Polish students in the private seminars on European a Roman Catholic in 1940. humanities and sciences with political thought at his When the Warsaw Ghetto distinguished scholars for home—among those who was established, the family original research. participated were, among changed its name to Jedlicki others, Marcin Król, Paweł He joined the Polish United and the two boys were Śpiewak and Adam Michnik. Workers’ Party in 1953, accepted as Roman Catholics He was a co-author of “The but was soon disillusioned by the Jesuits. Jurek, his Appeal of the 64” of August when he became aware of brother, and mother were able 20, 1980 which supported how the documents of the to survive on the Aryan side the demands of the striking history of Polish communism with forged documents, but shipyard workers in Gdańsk were falsified in official his father was denounced by and became a prominent publications. He initially a Polish acquaintance and member of Solidarity. During placed his hope in the internal murdered by the Nazis. martial law was interned from

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 65 December 1981 to July 1982. Pullquote: Jurek was was willing to engage in After his release, he wrote a gifted and percipient criminal activity. But the extensively for underground mass murder of the Jews was publications, especially for scholar, a person accompanied by the pleasure Krytyka, Nowy Zapis, and who loved a good (uciecha) of a significant part Tygodnik Mazowsze. argument, a good of the the Polish environment (otoczenie). This pleasure, After the end of communism friend, and a stimulating this laughter, which in 1989, he was actively accompanied the Holocaust, involved in the Pen Club. He conversationalist. I remember because I was was greatly disturbed by the then on the other, ‘aryan’, persistence of anti-Semitism praiseworthy exceptions— side of the wall. Until today, in democratic Poland, from such as Biuletyn our attitude and also my which he had personally Informacyjny or the leftist own has been to flee from suffered as a child during press—almost universal this topic, out of a cowardly the war. As a young boy, he and that only a small fear of the dark side of our was attacked in a streetcar number of the members of common past. as a “żydek” (roughly, the underground became “Jewboy”) and endured conscious, particularly in This led him to be one of the hostile references from his 1943, that this gave it a founders of the Association classmates to Jews during doubtful character from the for Combating Antisemitism the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ethical point of view. and Xenophobia—the Open of April 1943. Most painful Republic (Stowarzyszenia Recent efforts to contradict for him was his exclusion Przeciwko Antysemityzmowi this aroused his anger: “Why from active participation in i Ksenofobii—Otwarta are you today, gentlemen, the underground scouting Rzeczpospolita) and chair trying to deny this? That’s organization when one of his of its Programming Council. how it was and nothing classmates revealed his Jewish In 2011, he received the can change it.” On another origins. Writing of this period Commander’s Cross of the occasion he wrote: in Gazeta Wyborcza, on May Order of Reborn Poland and 3, 2013, he observed: Hatred of the Jews, contempt in 2015, the Prize of the and mockery were a part of Foundation for the Support Anyone with even a the culture of Central Europe of Polish Scholarship, superficial acquaintance in the twentieth century and popularly known as the with the underground press thus also of Polish culture. Polish Nobel prize. during the war is well I do not want to suggest aware that antisemitism Jurek was a prolific writer. that the whole society was then, with a few Among his most important

66 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 works are Nieudana wyroki krytyków nowoczesnoći of outlying countries. próba kapitalistycznej (A degenerate world. The It is hard and painful to industrializacji. Analiza fears and judgements of the acknowledge even to państwowego gospodarstwa critics of modernity, Warsaw, oneself the peripheral and przemysłowego w Królestwie 2000), translated into English marginal situation of one’s Polskim XX w. (An as A degenerate world country and its culture. unsuccessful attempt at (Frankfurt am Main, 2016), However, without such an capitalist industrialization. Błędne Koło: 1832-1864 acknowledgement it is very An analysis of state-owned (Warsaw, 2008) translated difficult to formulate a clear industry in the Kingdom into English as The vicious strategy for how to emerge of Poland, Warsaw, 1964); circle: 1832-1864 ((Frankfurt from it. Klejnot i bariery społeczne: am Main, 2014) and volume 2 At the same time, he also przeobrażenia szlachectwa of Dzieje inteligencji polskiej stressed that what united all polskiego w schyłkowym do roku 1918 (Warsaw 2008), the participants in these painful okresie feudalizmu (Jewels for which he was awarded the debates in the nineteenth and social barriers: the Jerzy Giedroyc prize. He was century was a quality which transformation of the Polish also the editor of the other he shared and which he nobility at the end of the two volumes of this three believed was essential if feudal period, Warsaw, volume work, which were Poland was to emerge as a 1968); Jakiej cywilizacji written by Maciej Janowski successful modern country— Polacy potrzebują: studia and Magdalena Micińska. All hope. Without hope, he z dziejów idei i wyobraźni three volumes were translated reflected that “the humiliated XIX wieku (What sort of into English as A history nation would be consumed by civilization do Poles need: a of the Polish intelligentsia worries about the futility of study of the history of ideas (Frankfurt am Main, 2014). everyday existence.” and social imagination in the In his work, he attempted to nineteenth century, Warsaw Jurek was a gifted and deflate Polish national myths. 1988), translated into English percipient scholar, a person In Jakiej cywilizacji Polacy as A Suburb of Europe: who loved a good argument, a potrzebują, he wrote: Polish Nineteenth Century good friend, and a stimulating Approaches to Western …the specific combination conversationalist. He stoically Civilization (Budapest, of a collective inferiority bore the pain with which he 1999); Źle urodzeni, czyli o complex with the national was afflicted in his last years. doświadczeniu historycznym megalomania, which is His was a voice of reason and (Badly born, or on historical intended to compensate for tolerance, civilized debate and experience, London, 1993); this, seems to be typical rational discussion that will be Świat zwyrodniały. Lęki i of the educated strata sorely missed. n

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 67 Remembering Sala Garncarz Kirschner Jill Vexler

ala Garncarz Kirschner and letters took on an almost I never met while I was animistic quality—writers’ Ssteeping myself in her life’s voices accompanied Sala story. But when we did meet in when lonely and gave her the tunnel into the New York strength to visualize seeing Public Library, it was an instant them again. To save the and forever kind of a friendship. letters, she risked her life Unbeknownst to Sala, she had and those of her bunkmates become my story-telling muse, by hiding them during Nazi an inspiration for continuing searches. No envelopes positively in life after profound allowed, for they took up too loss, and my personal guide into much space. Sala clung to her a lesser-known aspect of the letters through liberation. She Holocaust, the Nazi slave labor Photograph of Sala Garncarz, found two sisters, and met an camp system. Sala, born in age twelve. American GI, Corporal Sidney Image courtesy of Jill Vexler. Sosnowiec, Poland, on March Kirschner, whom she married. 5, 1924, died on March 7, 2018. For 50 years, she kept The letters went with her to By odd coincidence, March secret a cache of letters the Bronx where she hid them 7, the very day we met, was for fifty years. the opening of an exhibition she had squirreled away Written in German to pass I curated about her life. Her from Nazi guards. The censors, the letters are passing has sparked a rich collection later inspired windows into ghetto life. reflection on our friendship and “Mazal tov” adorned postcard the lessons that one person can a book and a play. corners when Sala’s sister impart to another. purposes and morale, Sala Blima got engaged. “A Sala’s subversive resistance corresponded with family and friend left for a wedding but was to save over 350 friends still in the Sosnowiec I didn’t go because I wasn’t postcards, letters, scribbled ghetto. After deportations, at home...” refers to the pieces of paper, and hand- two of her sisters and she friend’s deportation but not drawn birthday wishes corresponded labor camp- the writer. Her sister Raizel written to her. Allowed to-camp until all mail was reminds her “to fast on Yom correspondence for PR stopped July 1943. The Kippur.” A cousin’s postcard

68 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 1 describes three horrendous days in Sosnowiec’s stadium: hot July sun with no water as final deportations took place. “The small and the grey, old and young, poor and rich,” all deported. I read all of the letters over and over, and then again to pick those that told stories the best. Sala was right. Each card had a voice.

As the exhibition deadline First page of Sala Garncarz’s diary, approached, Ann Kirschner, from Monday, October 28, 1940, Sala’s daughter, excitedly sent describing the first day of the deportation from Sosnowiec, Poland, me a newly found treasure: to Geppersdorf, Germany (today, Sala’s first entry in her diary Rzędziwojowice, Poland). Courtesy of Jill Vexler. the day of deportation Monday, October 28, 1940: “If you could and left me with profound awe have looked into my heart, you at the grace and wisdom of a would have seen how desperate sixteen-year-old. n I was; still I tried to keep a Jill Vexler, PhD, is a smile on my face as best I could cultural anthropologist though my eyes were filled with and independent curator tears. One must go on bravely whose work focuses on and courageously, even if the prewar Jewish life and heart is breaking.” Her preface Holocaust-related themes. says it all. She curated the exhibition Letters to Sala, the traveling Letters from Sala. exhibition in English, Polish, Estonian, and Russian could also be named Lessons from Sala. Beyond gratitude for the trust to tell her story, knowing Sala enriched my soul, gave me an eye to the future when times are rough,

GAZETA SPRING 2018 n 69 Tisha B’av Sackcloth and Chains Sit-In at the Polish U.N. mission, August 4, 1968. From the Yeshiva University University Archives, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry Collection, 4/1.

If you would like to suggest an article and/or author for the next issue of Gazeta, or submit one yourself, please email: [email protected]. The submission deadline for the next issue is July 3, 2018.

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