Jonathan Webber. Rediscovering Traces of Memory: The Jewish Heritage of Polish Galicia. Photographs by Chris Schwarz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Illustrations. vi + 186 pp. $27.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-253-22185-8.

Reviewed by Karen Auerbach

Published on H-Judaic (March, 2011)

Commissioned by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion)

Rediscovering Traces of Memory embraces and “People Making Memory Today.” This struc‐ contradictions in memory of the Jewish past in ture is in a sense artifcial resulting in much over‐ contemporary . The album reproduces sev‐ lap, as Webber’s introduction acknowledges, but enty-four color images of synagogues, cemeteries, the approach strives for theoretical coherence. Holocaust memorials, Nazi camps, and other The second approach separates the photographs, traces of Jewish presence and absence. Photo‐ accompanied by brief captions, and extensive graphs and accompanying analysis explore mem‐ notes in the last third of the book for almost every ory of Polish Jewish life through its material her‐ image. The division allows the photographs to itage on the Polish landscape. On one level, the stand mostly on their own while permitting in- book, by the social anthropologist Jonathan Web‐ depth analysis. ber and the photographer Chris Schwarz (who Webber and Schwarz searched out little- died in 2007), is intended partly for a general known sites, and Schwarz returned to locations readership, challenging those who see only ne‐ repeatedly to capture a particular mood, evoked glect. On another level, however, Rediscovering by snow, shadows cast on a monument, some‐ Traces of Memory is the work of a scholar explor‐ times a visitor’s expression. The images are from ing narratives of the Jewish past preserved a collection that also forms the basis for the per‐ through its physical remnants while also attempt‐ manent exhibition at the Galicia Jewish Museum ing to access the history beyond that narrative. in Krakow and for a catalog by Schwarz (Pho‐ Two structural elements characterize the al‐ tographing Traces of Memory: A Contemporary bum. The frst is its division into fve sections: View of the Jewish Past in Polish Galicia/Podąża‐ “Jewish Life in Ruins,” “Jewish Culture as It Once jąc śladami pamięci: Współczesne spojrzenie na Was,” “: Sites of Massacre and De‐ żydowską przeszłość Galicji [2005]). struction,” “How the Past Is Being Remembered,” H-Net Reviews

Documenting the Jewish material heritage in Rediscovering Traces of Memory emphasizes Poland has been an increasing focus of scholar‐ preservation over neglect. Several images docu‐ ship and public attention in recent decades. Polish ment connections to Poland among Polish Jews scholars and intellectuals began to take more in‐ and their descendents abroad, as well as Jewish terest in the fate of physical traces of Jewish life communities in contemporary Poland that pre‐ particularly in the early 1980s, when discussion serve memory through their very presence. Reli‐ about Polish-Jewish relations emerged as part of gious life, especially Hasidism and synagogues, is the anti-Communist opposition. An early example a particular focus. Krakow and Auschwitz are rep‐ is Monika Krajewska’s black-and-white album of resented more so than other locations; there is Jewish tombstones in Poland (Czas Kamieni more to depict there than elsewhere, since only [1983] and A Tribe of Stones [1993]).[1] sixty synagogues and prayerhouses survive in Pol‐ Webber’s notes, in particular, distinguish Re‐ ish Galicia, Webber notes. Several photographs discovering Traces of Memory from other albums. portray the lesser-known death camp at Bełżec, His analysis takes the form of a lengthy rif on including a new memorial that was dedicated in Jewish life, the Holocaust, Polish-Jewish relations, 2004. Images of village synagogues and cemeter‐ and memory of the Jewish past. Some explana‐ ies bring to the fore understudied aspects of Jew‐ tions, such as the history of Hasidism, will not be ish life connected with Galicia, which is historical‐ entirely new to specialists. Yet close attention to ly more rural than many other parts of Poland. detail, together with cooperation between photog‐ (Since the album focuses on Polish Galicia, it does rapher and anthropologist, makes the work an not include the parts of Galicia further east, which important contribution to scholarship; interaction were occupied by, and then incorporated into, the between image and analysis often tells a diferent during and after the Second World story than the photograph alone would. One of War. These eastern areas are part of contempo‐ the most efective images has an impact precisely rary Ukraine.) because of this analysis. The photograph depicts a By depicting both presence and absence, the broken tombstone that was used to pave the en‐ book attempts to untangle tensions between histo‐ trance to a farmer’s home. On its own, the scene ry and memory of Polish Jewry: forgetting and re‐ testifes only to destruction. Webber’s comments membering, preservation and neglect, legacy of tell a more nuanced story, however. The farmer diverse Jewish life and the Holocaust’s shadow, an told Schwarz that his father-in-law had taken the image of Poland as a “paradise for Jews” and the tombstone from the cemetery decades earlier, but stereotype of Poland as a country of antisemites that the farmer “was uncomfortable about what (p. 137). A photograph of a Jewish cemetery in the had been done and wanted to return the stone to village of Stary Dzików portrays these ambiguities the cemetery.” Decades after the father-in-law starkly. No tombstones survived at the burial took the tombstone, Webber comments, “the past ground, which is an empty feld. But according to yields up the dead” (p. 38). But the desecration Webber, absence has symbolically preserved the also led to an irreversible loss of that past, he graveyard: “in the minds of the local villagers the notes; the date and parts of the tombstone are feld is still the Jewish cemetery and they let the missing. One might also ask what impact the pho‐ site remain undisturbed” (p. 111). tographer’s presence--an outsider inquiring about This interpretation is consciously optimistic. a shameful act--might have had on the farmer’s Yet the album does not overlook troubling aspects refections. of Polish-Jewish relations. One image, for exam‐ ple, depicts a tombstone marking the murder of

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Jews during anti-Jewish riots in seventeenth-cen‐ present-day Poland; and anti-Jewish sentiment is tury Krakow. Antisemitic grafti is evident in sev‐ probably no worse than in other European coun‐ eral photographs, and Webber addresses this de‐ tries” (p. 157). A more pessimistic reading would facement. Here, too, he challenges generaliza‐ challenge this interpretation as overly optimistic, tions, pairing on one page an image of antisemitic and in other contexts as apologetic. Yet Webber grafti on a cemetery gate with a smaller photo‐ seems to take an intentionally polemical approach graph of anti-Nazi grafti. Webber’s accompany‐ to draw attention to Poles’ active involvement in ing notes examine antisemitic violence in Poland remembering the Jewish past. before, during, and just after the Holocaust. An‐ At times, Webber’s focus on rapprochement other image shows a Holocaust memorial in a only hints at complexities. One photograph, for Jewish cemetery in the town of Wieliczka that example, depicts a painting by a Polish student in was defaced with the words “Nazi OK.” Webber’s the city of Oświęcim (Auschwitz in German) of a optimism again takes precedence. The caption young Jewish couple standing in front of a church does not mention . In the notes, Web‐ adjacent to a synagogue. Webber concludes that ber explains frst that non-Jews are increasingly “sympathetic teaching of the younger generation involved in preserving Jewish memory, a refec‐ of Poles about both the Holocaust and the Jewish tion of improving Polish-Jewish relations. This ar‐ past of their country” has been a focus of Polish gument threads throughout Rediscovering Traces education since the fall of Communism (p. 116). of Memory, and the book documents such eforts Several Polish scholars have noted a simultaneous well. For Jewish visitors, antisemitic grafti often trend, however. They have concluded that most overshadows Polish eforts at commemoration; young Poles know relatively little about the Jew‐ Webber sees frst the preservation rather than the ish past and the Holocaust and that most Poles re‐ desecration of memory. ject scholarship by Jan Gross and others docu‐ Webber then delves into the treacherous ter‐ menting anti-Jewish violence by Poles just after rain of stereotypes of the “other” by Jews abroad the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June and non-Jews in Poland. In doing so, Webber and 1941.[2] Schwarz are asserting their voices in ongoing Webber is refective about the narratives that public and scholarly discussions about Polish-Jew‐ photographs have constructed about the Polish ish relations. Addressing the grafti, Webber re‐ Jewish past. The most insightful example traces jects the stereotype of “Polish antisemitism.” To be the many uses of an image depicting a courtyard sure, he notes, the grafti is a “particularly in Krakow’s mostly Jewish Kazimierz section. The painful sight inside a Jewish cemetery in Poland, scene is more evocative of a small-town setting as for many Jews it brings to mind a long history rather than a large urban one. Webber notes that of anti-Jewish disturbances--not to mention the Roman Vishniac’s postwar albums included a pho‐ Holocaust itself--in that country, as well as the an‐ tograph of this courtyard taken in 1937; the scene tisemitic policies of the Polish government in the was also depicted by a nineteenth-century Jewish 1930s and post-Holocaust pogroms.... They say photographer, Ignacy Krieger (Album fotografi that ‘the Poles’ helped the Germans to kill Jews, dawnego Krakowa z atelier Ignacego Kriegera and even that the Poles were worse than the Ger‐ [Album of photographs of old Krakow from the mans.... The daubing of ‘Nazi OK’ on a Holocaust studio of Ignacy Krieger] [1989]), and by the Pol‐ monument would seem to many Jews to confrm ish-Jewish historian Majer Bałaban in a 1935 such feelings” (pp. 156-157). But, Webber contin‐ guidebook (Przewodnik po żydowskich zabytkach ues, antisemitic grafti is present in many coun‐ Krakowa [Guide to Jewish relics of Krakow]). The tries: “Anti-Jewish violence is in fact quite rare in

3 H-Net Reviews courtyard is “probably one of the most famous ways, Rediscovering Traces of Memory can be single images of an urban scene,” according seen as a corrective to Vishniac’s albums. Vishni‐ to Webber (p. 59). ac, who chronicled East European Jewish life in He then focuses on Vishniac’s erroneous de‐ the second half of the 1930s, created a skewed and scription of the image as “the entrance to Kaz‐ sometimes inaccurate narrative that emphasized imierz, the old of Cracow” and the assump‐ poverty and persecution. Vishniac’s focus on eco‐ tions its viewers often make (p. 145). Kazimierz, nomic desperation and religious life, the re‐ Webber explains, was not a ghetto in the sense of searcher Maya Benton recently found, stemmed an enclosed, enforced Jewish space, and the court‐ from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Com‐ yard was not the neighborhood’s entrance. He mittee’s instructions for his trips, which were part notes that Steven Spielberg also set scenes of of a fundraising project.[4] Vishniac then cast the Schindler’s List (1993) in the courtyard, using Kaz‐ photographs in the Holocaust’s shadow in post‐ imierz to stand in for the wartime ghetto, which war publications. was located elsewhere in Krakow. The nostalgic The narrative of Polish Jewish life told view of the shtetl and the retrospective lens of the through Vishniac’s photographs, Jefrey Shandler Holocaust help to explain why this and other has argued, evolved after the war as uses of the scenes have become iconic images. At the same images changed with cultural agendas. As a re‐ time, this nostalgia is partly a result of the iconic sult, the “time of Vishniac,” in ’s words, status created by Vishniac’s and others’ uses of is not only the prewar period but also “a time that these images. extends ... beyond the Holocaust itself into the dy‐ Webber’s analysis draws on similar inquiries namics of post-war remembrance,” according to as those posed by Jennifer Tucker and Tina Campt Shandler.[5] Recent photobooks, such as Rediscov‐ in a recent article about the use of visual images ering Traces of Memory, can be seen as part of a as historical sources: “What role does the inten‐ new stage in this “time of Vishniac,” when Jewish tion of photographers play?... Why, and in what visitors are rediscovering the countries where ways, do some pictures, and not others, acquire prewar East European Jewish life and the Holo‐ iconic power and come to represent in condensed caust took place. Where Vishniac kept the land‐ fashion a historical moment?” They note that scapes of Eastern Europe in the background, Web‐ scholars are increasingly paying attention to pho‐ ber and Schwarz place those landscapes in the tographs as sources of study in themselves. This foreground. And where Vishniac emphasized iso‐ scholarship has used “photographs to enact a lation, Rediscovering Traces of Memory highlights reckoning with history that takes the measure of interactions with non-Jews and the specifcity of the residual efects of the past in the present, as the settings where Jews lived. well as in the future.”[3] Webber and Schwarz’s Yet Rediscovering Traces of Memory is char‐ album is a notable example of such analysis. Like acterized inevitably by the same contradictions as Vishniac’s work, Webber and Schwarz emphasize Vishniac’s work. The latter’s albums, Shandler has religious life with less attention to the increasing‐ argued, preserved memory of Jewish life but also ly secularizing prewar Jewish population. (In contributed to the “vanishing” of memory be‐ Webber and Schwarz’s case, this focus is mostly cause of the retroactive lens of the Holocaust, pragmatic. Synagogues and cemeteries preserve which has obscured prewar history.[6] Webber memory of Jewish life more obviously than do and Schwarz cannot avoid this efect, either. Al‐ more mundane traces, such as buildings that though synagogues, cemeteries, and other rem‐ housed secular Jewish institutions.) Yet in other nants serve as placeholders for Jews who once

4 H-Net Reviews lived in these towns and cities, the absence of peo‐ by Marek Web (New York: Metropolitan Books/ ple in almost every photograph testifes to the Henry Holt, 1999). communities’ vanishing as well. [5]. Jefrey Shandler, “‘The Time of Vishniac’: Even more so than written documents, per‐ Photographs of prewar East European Jewry in haps, photographs underscore the challenges of Post-war Contexts,” Polin 16 (2003): 316. accessing history beyond memory. Yet Webber’s [6]. Ibid., 317. analysis and Schwarz’s photographs accomplish more than fnding traces. Rediscovering Traces of how Memory tries to reach beyond a Jewish memory of Poland that is at once nostalgic and skewed by has been shaped the Holocaust’s shadow. They trace the shaping of move beyond  memory, progress in overcoming barriers to dia‐ logue, and the limits of remembering. Notes [1]. See also Jefrey Gusky, Silent Places: Land‐ scapes of Jewish Life and Loss in Eastern Europe (Woodstock: Overlook Duckworth, 2003); and Zal‐ man Gostinski [Gostynski] and Adam Buyak, Bate- keneset u-vate-‘almin be-Polin ve-hurbanam/Pol‐ ish Synagogues and Cemeteries and Their De‐ struction (Tel Aviv: Muze’on ha-arets, Muze-on le- etnografyah u-le-folklor, 1971), also published as Shteyner dertseyln (Paris: Farband fun di Mizrekh Eyropeishe Yidn in Frankraykh, 1973). [2]. See, for example, Włodzimierz Mich, “Wokół (nie)pamięci Zagłady,” [About the (non)memory of the Holocaust], in Pamięć Shoah: Kulturowe reprezentacje i praktyki upamiętnienia [Memory of the Shoah: Cultural representations and practices of commemoration], ed. Tomasz Ma‐ jewski and Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska (Lodz: Of‐ cyna, 2009): 349-352. [3]. Jennifer Tucker with Tina Campt, “En‐ twined Practices: Engagements with Photography in Historical Inquiry,” History and Theory 48, no. 4 (December 2009): 6, 3. [4]. Alana Newhouse, “A Closer Reading of Ro‐ man Vishniac,” New York Times Sunday Maga‐ zine, April 1, 2010, 36. Compare Vishniac’s albums with the more diverse representations in Alter Ka‐ cyzne, Poyln: Jewish Life in the Old Country, ed.

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Citation: Karen Auerbach. Review of Webber, Jonathan. Rediscovering Traces of Memory: The Jewish Heritage of Polish Galicia. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. March, 2011.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=29290

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