THEMUTEDMEMORY: THERECEPTIONOF THEDIARYOFANNEFRANK INPOLAND

Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska

he Diary of Anne Frank is probably the most popular text worldwide, both of documentary and literary value, in the vast and multilingual body of literature T on the Holocaust. Adapted as a play and feature film, the story became particularly well-known in the United States, where it also gave rise to a debate on 1 various representations and misrepresentations of the Holocaust. A number of critics have expressed their dismay over the Americanization of the Holocaust, of which the reception of Anne Frank's diary is a clear example. What they mean by `Americanization' in this particular case includes sentimentalization, focus on the personal story (first love, parents/daughter relations) and the erasing or downplaying of the Jewishness of the author for the sake of a universalized and artificially optimistic message.1 2 Compared with the United States and other Western countries, the book and the story behind it had a rather limited reception in . In spite of the relatively small number of critical voices, a closer look at these is very telling since they reveal various attitudes towards Jews and the Holocaust in postwar Poland. For thirty-two years between the first edition (translated from German) and the next (translated from Dutch), the book was practically unavailable in Poland. It might be thought that its long absence was due to the fact that Anne Frank was a foreign author, when Poland had its own young diarists who had perished during the Holocaust, such as Dawid Rubinowicz and Dawid Siera- kowiak. However, this explanation is unconvincing because the absence of Anne Frank was caused by political and ideological factors contributing to the general erasure of the memory of the Jews in Poland (school curricula are very meaningful in this respect) and a neutralization or `Polonization' of the Holocaust, that is, emphasizing Polish suffering and erasing the distinction between the fate of and Jews during the war.2 Para- doxically, it is only due to the gradual opening up to the West from the early eighties and especially since the abolition of censorship in 1989 that Polish readers and viewers have been exposed to other versions of the Holocaust, through American works such as Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, William Styron's Sophie's Choice and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. Although usually even more dismayed than American critics by the Americanization of the Holocaust and what they perceive as an unfair treatment of Poles, Polish audiences are forced to re-examine some of their beliefs about the nature and complexity of the Holocaust. 3 As a reviewer of a recent biography by Melissa MuÈller remarked, `how one reads the story of Anne Frank says a lot about how one views European history, Jewish history and the Holocaust itself.'3 In the United States Anne Frank's diary is undoubtedly the most popular text connected with the Holocaust, so popular that it has led a number of critics

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J. K. Roth et al. (Eds.), Remembering for the Future © Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2001 The Reception of The Diary of Anne Frank in Poland 685 to voice reservations about it. They include Cynthia Ozick, who has gone so far as to state rhetorically that given the way the diary has been misinterpreted it would have been better if it had never been published.4 Alvin Rosenfeld presents the American way of reading the diary as an example of Americanization of the Holocaust. He also examines its reception in Germany and Israel and gives examples from other countries including Japan and Russia, concluding that `if one were to carry out a study of the reception of the diary in the various other countries and cultures where Anne Frank is known, one would almost certainly find still other responses to the girl and history her image reflects.'5 Peter Novick in his latest and widely discussed book, The Holocaust in American Life, devotes substantial space to the reception of the diary in America.6 Although I was born and raised in Poland, and as a teenager read dozens of books about the Second World War and the Holocaust, my first encounter with Anne Frank's diary was through the American edition in the early eighties. Earlier, although I had heard of Anne Frank, I never had a chance to read her diary or see its stage adaptation. It was not a widely accessible text in Poland, at least not in the mid-sixties or seventies. At a time when the book was gaining plenty of attention in Western Europe and the United States, Stalinist cultural policy banned most literature from the West in Poland, as much as in other countries of the Communist Bloc. Anne Frank was not a politically correct author at the time, among other things because of her middle-class origin. We should remember that at this time even Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was censored: in the Polish edition of the mid-fifties a sentence in which Alice is afraid she has turned into her less talented and much poorer friend, Mabel,7 disappears, as books for young readers at that period could not allude to inappropriately presented class divisions. Soon after the 1956 thaw, when a great deal of Western literature was translated and published, the diary of Anne Frank found its way to Polish readers. Even before the Polish edition of 1957, information about the diary and its stage adaptation could be found in Polish periodicals. The second Polish edition was published in 1960,8 but it was not reissued until the early nineties, when the unabridged translation from Dutch appeared.9 Altogether the two early editions amounted to 10,000 copies each ± which seems a sizeable quantity today when the book market in Poland is very competitive and numerous books are published but was rather modest at the time, when Polish or Soviet books with war themes were published in editions of 50±100,000 copies. One may add that generally Western books about the Holocaust had a hard time reaching Poland, since they were treated with suspicion as anti-Polish or anti-Communist `imperialist' propaganda.10 Anne Frank's diary is addressed primarily to the young reader and young readers in Poland were especially protected against a fair presentation of the Holocaust. Since Jewish history was manipulated in textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education and used all over People's Republic of Poland, this could hardly have been a recom- mended book. How was the diary received when it was first published? Reviews fall into different categories. A number of reviews comment on both the documentary and literary qualities of the book and discuss it in a clear and matter-of-fact way; others focus on the personal character of the protagonist and choose a eulogical mode. Some voices, as might be expected in a Catholic country, seek to Christianize the Jewish victim, presenting Anne Frank as a Jewish saint, but they are rare. The most curious review essay of this type was published in Homo Dei, a periodical published by the Redemptorist order. The author, JoÂzef Marian SÂwieÎcicki, states that the diary, like any great tragedy and like a number of other memoirs from concentration camps, purifies 686 The Arts

and `elevates' the reader. The attitude to Anne Frank is very paternalistic. SÂwieÎcicki expresses regret that the girl bears the `Old Testament mentality' of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and does not understand the brotherly Christian imperative to forgive the sins of thy neighbour, but he admits that the girl is, as it were, on the right track, as can be seen in her attitude both to the oppressors and to her parents. Although her `Old Testament soul' has a hard time in granting forgiveness, her innate kindness helps her overcome grudges and initiate something resembling Christian self-examination. 10 In sum, her alleged predispositions to Christian religiosity are underlined. The author goes even further in adopting Anne Frank not only for Christianity in general but for Polish Catholicism in particular: `Under the influence of suffering, Jewish messianism is born in her soul, so close to ours, as if she had read the three bards [three Polish romantic poets: , Juliusz Søowacki, Zygmunt KrasinÂski]; messianism that sees in suffering a special message from God. Her desire to be immortal is first of all as in Søowacki a desire for human appreciation after death.' The reviewer goes on to say that in the last sentence of the diary ± `[I] keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if . . . there weren't any other people living in the world' ± Anne falls into romantic misanthropy, and comments that as an `Israelite' Anne could not understand the mystery of grace and the fact that a human being who has to rely on his or her self alone is very weak. Anne's references to God are undoubtedly genuine, but she does not understand that God should be the highest love. Nevertheless the author seems to see glimpses of such understanding and nobility in `little Anne's' heart, for examples when she expresses the wish that the whole thing would end and the imprisoned Jews did not have to risk their benefactors' lives.11 11 The antisemitic sentiments apart, this statement paradoxically resembles some for- mulations from President Reagan's address at Bergen-Belsen, where he stated that memories evoked there `take us where God intended his children to go ± toward learning, toward healing, and, above all, toward redemption.'12 12 It is curious how many literary and mythical heroines Anne Frank was compared to by Polish critics: a Jewish Antigone, the prototype of FrancËoise Sagan, a modern Juliet, Anne of Green Gables, a young Eve who creates her Adam, or Iphigenia. However strange or inappropriate these similes may seem, they pale beside Garson Kanin's comparison of Anne Frank to Peter Pan and Mona Lisa.13 13 What strikes one in some Polish reviews is the uneasiness of talking about Jews. For . . instance there are authors who as if hesitating to use the word `Zydo. Âwka' or `zydowska dziewczyna' (`Jewess' or `Jewish girl'), instead use the word `ZydoÂweczka' (`a little Jewess') or `Izraelitka' (`Israelite'). When referring to the Frank family one reviewer calls them `an Israelite crew in the house in Prinsengracht' and describes their shelter as `an Israelite planet'.14 14 This tendency to use. euphemisms has its roots in the 19th century. Since in the the word `Zyd' has often had negative connotations connected with the gen- erally negative stereotype of the Jew in Polish culture, there were a number of attempts by both Poles and assimilated Jews to use different substitute terms to create a positive context.15 One possibility was to add a positive and gratifying adjective like `decent', `brave' or one evoking pity like `poor' or `disdained'. Another option was to use a term referring to the religious tradition, like `[a person] of Mosaic faith' or `Israelite'. There was also a widespread custom of using diminutive forms in reference to Jews that one knew better or found more likeable than others; such diminutives were used by all strata of Polish society: gentry, clergy or peasants. No wonder the diminutive form was often used ironically by Polish Jewish writers in reference to themselves (e.g. the well-known The Reception of The Diary of Anne Frank in Poland 687

. poem Zydek [A Little Jew] by Julian Tuwim). Even today some people in Poland use the diminutive form or the ancient-sounding form `Israelite', quite often with good inten- tions without realizing that the terms may sound paternalistic, derogatory or. simply awkward.16 In the context of Anne Frank's story the critics probably felt that `ZydoÂwka' would be too ugly a word for such a sensitive and refined young girl. 15 When examining the reception of a literary work it is always tempting to quote some of the most curious and unusual statements like that from Homo Dei, or those that reveal the authors' uneasiness in dealing with Jewish matters, but fortunately most Polish reviews of the diary, although not numerous, were sensible. The reviewers appreciated the fact that the diary is devoid of pathos, that it is not abstract but focuses strongly on the personal story; they admired the maturity of the author, her talent and intelligence. The journalist Olga Wormser, in an article that discusses both Anne Frank's story as well as the diary and its adaptations, makes an appeal to multiply editions of the book all over the world but at the same time warns against turning it into into a clicheÂ, a myth, a fashionable topic, a sentimental postcard or `hagiography of our feelings and guilty conscience', a warning that embodies the reservations and fury expressed by Ozick forty years later.17 16 It seems that the stage adaptation of the diary in 1960/1961 attracted more attention in Poland than the text itself. This might have been due to the fact that in Poland immediately after the war, and before Stalinist policy was imposed, literature on the Holocaust was quite prolific, while the event rarely appeared on the stage and if it did, was usually treated in a more schematic way.18 Thus the adaptation of Anne Frank's diary was a new experience for Polish audiences, showing the well-known tragedy from a more personal point of view. It did not use lofty words, slogans or ideology, though there were those who did not like this indirect treatment of the Holocaust ± one reviewer criticized the last scene for the absence of Nazi police on stage.19 17 It must be emphasized that in contrast to the general response in the United States, the story of Anne Frank was generally not seen as a message of hope but rather as a reminder and a warning. For example, one reviewer said that the play made the audience understand the cruelty and nonsense of Nazi racism and that Anne's words ± `I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart' ± are the most serious accusation.20 Some of the reviewers, Polish Jews, survivors themselves, saw it in a particularly personal way. One survivor commented: `This play is worth discussing, it is for us Jews something very dear and close to our experience. It not only reminds us of the hardest moments for the Jewish people, but it is also an ominous warning.'21 18 The play was performed in all major cities of Poland including Warsaw and Wrocøaw, and even smaller towns like Kalisz or Bielsko-Biaøa. Most performances took place in 1960 and 1961, and they were reviewed both by major newspapers and local ones. Some eminent critics expressed their opinion, including Jan Kott, who considered it the most important theatrical event of 1956±57, next to Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He said that throughout the whole performance emotion had wrung his heart and he had the impression that a moral boundary was crossed, since Anne Frank's diary cannot be looked at as other plays. He stated there was nothing in the play that most Polish viewers would not be familiar with, since the majority knew all this from their own experience. Kott thought the impact of the play was even stronger because there were no explicitly horrible scenes.22 Other well-known critics like Jacek FruÈhling or Stefan Treugutt were more critical, and considered the stage adaptation as too free and idealized.23 19 By the mid-sixties there was less and less information about Anne Frank in the press. The only review from 1967 just before the anti-Semitic campaign was instigated within 688 The Arts

the Polish Communist Party concerns the adaptation of the play at a performance at a . èoÂdz (Lodz) factory (at that time bearing the name of Feliks DzierzynÂski (Dzerzhynski) and presented at the festival of amateur groups sponsored by trade unions. At that time it is likely that The Diary of Anne Frank could only have been performed by an amateur theatre group as it would not reach a large audience and the censorship was less strict in such cases. The review of the performance did not focus on the contents of the play or on Anne Frank's plight but on the fact that it was performed by working-class girls; the reviewer stresses the fact that the actress playing the main role came from a working- class family (father a railroad worker, mother a factory hand), while Anne's sister Margot was played by a 19-year-old dressmaker who had a very difficult start in life but is impressive with her moral strength and ambitions.24 20 Anne Frank's story ± it is hard to say whether in its written or stage form ± inspired a number of Polish poets including Ada KopcinÂska, Mikoøaj Bieszczadowski and Maøgorz- ata Krynicka,25 but since the poets themselves are not of the first rank, their responses are practically unknown in Poland. 21 After many years of absence, Anne Frank returned to Poland in a limited way in the mid-nineties with the further opening of Poland to the West and more informed discussions of the Holocaust.26 A special issue of Yidele, a periodical published by young Polish Jews, was largely devoted to Anne Frank. This was obviously the result of American influence since the issue designed as an educational tool to be distributed in schools all over Poland was sponsored by the Lauder Foundation. The publication of the unabridged translation itself did not meet with interest. There was also the exhibition Anne Frank's World which toured a number of Polish cities. A review of the exhibition published in a prestigious liberal Catholic weekly in Cracow which has always devoted considerable space to Jewish topics underlines the importance of the exhibition and shows it as an example for Poles:

Dutch authors of the exhibition do not conceal Dutch support for the Nazis and their collaboration with them. A seemingly obvious thing, and yet thought provoking. Could we discuss the history of antisemitism in Poland so candidly? I haven't seen a similar exhibition in Poland, an exhibition that while documenting the fate of Polish Jews prepared for them by the Nazis would go back before 1939 to show the atmosphere of the thirties in Poland, Polish responses to the Nazism, infiltration of the Nazi ideas to our country, and then the occupation, the shmaltzovniks, the merry-go-round near the Warsaw ghetto wall, articles from the underground press etc., until the Kielce pogrom, demonstrations against Zionists in 1968, photos showing partings at the GdanÂsk station in Warsaw from which Polish Jews who were forced into exile were leaving. The list could be continued (of course this presentation could be counterpointed with a documentary story about the Polish righteous among nations ± there is enough material for this). I think that the educational and cautionary value of such an exhibition would be enormous and perhaps more effective than refuting the unfair accusations against Poland with the counter-argument of antipolonism.27 22 In sum, the Polish reception of Anne Frank's diary demonstrates to some extent the Polish reception of the Holocaust. Some relaxation and interest in the late fifties, virtual absence of the topic from late sixties to early eighties, and a gradual but rather muted return in the nineties. 23 A number of American scholars dealing with the Holocaust deplore the fact that Anne Frank's diary is so popular in the United States while other diaries which show the tragedy of European Jews in a more explicit and documentary fashion are practically unknown, even if published in English. One of the reasons (apart from the fact that the The Reception of The Diary of Anne Frank in Poland 689

latter possess more of documentary than literary value) might be that for the American reader, especially of the younger generation, it is much easier to identify with a relatively well-off educated girl from the Netherlands than with a poor boy from a Polish shtetl (like Dawid Rubinowicz) or a Polish city (like Dawid Sierakowiak). Also, the tragic plight of Jews is less tangible and consequently less painful in Anne Frank's diary, as it is rather indirectly implied by what happened later than in the depiction of daily events. Not many readers are like Jan Kott, who was able to experience the pain for the very reason of its seeming absence. We don't know what happened to Dawid Rubinowicz, we don't even know what he looked like and one cannot imagine that his story could be read as hopeful or redemptive in any way, and if adapted for the stage it could only be a gloomy docudrama. 24 The fact is, however, that these Polish Jewish diarists are only slightly better known in Poland than in the West. Students who enrol in my seminar on the literature on the Holocaust are, I assume, generally better informed than others if they decide to pursue this difficult topic, but they know as little or nothing about Sierakowiak and Rubinowicz as about Anne Frank.28 Polish specialists in the field are definitely familiar with the diaries but the texts and the life stories of their authors have not achieved wider circulation and are not used much in education. Perhaps this will gradually change now that most history textbooks in Poland have been revised, there is more focus on the Holocaust in school curricula, and the popularity of Hanna Krall's works stimulates interest in the topic, as ± albeit on a more limited scale ± do workshops for teachers and students organized by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw or publicity surrounding the `March of the Living'. Perhaps Anne Frank will also gradually be more present in Poland and paradoxically will pave the way for her forgotten Polish Jewish counterparts.29

n o t e s 1 One of the critics who consistently has expressed his negative views on the way the diary was received and used in America is Lawrence Langer. See e.g. his `The Americanization of the Holocaust on Stage and Screen', in Sarah Blacher Cohen (ed.), From `Hester Street' to Hollywood: The Jewish- American Stage and Screen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp.213±230. 2 Another possible term is `dejudaizing', used by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld in reference to `the deemphasis of the Holocaust's Jewish dimensions within the Soviet Union and other eastern-bloc nations during the Cold War'. See his `The Politics of Uniqueness: Reflections on the Recent Polemical Turn in Holocaust and Genocide Scholarship', Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1 (1999): 33. 3 Jonathan Rosen, `No Exit', New York Times Book Review (1 November 1998): 198. 4 Cynthia Ozick, `Who Owns Anne Frank?' New Yorker (6 October 1997), 87. 5 Alvin H. Rosenfeld, `Popularization and Memory: The Case of Anne Frank', in Peter Hayes (ed.), Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World (Evanston, Illinois: North- western University Press, 1991), p.277. 6 Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999). 7 `I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn' (chapter 2). 8 Both were published as Dziennik Anny Frank by PIW publishing house in Warsaw in Zofia Jaremko- Pytowska's translation. 9 Dziennik Anny Frank, tr. Alicja Dehue-Oczko (PoznanÂ: Kantor Wydawniczy SAWW, 1993). 10 For instance Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are very little known in Poland. Levi's Is This a Man? was published in 1978 and one of Wiesel's books as late as 1991. Saul Bellow's Mr Sammler's Planet and Leon Uris's Mila 18 had their first Polish editions only in 1999. 11 JoÂzef Marian SÂwieÎcicki, `PamieÎtnik Anny Frank' [Anne Frank's Diary], Homo Dei. PrzeglaÎd Ascetyczno-Duszpasterski 3 (1959): 448±454. 690 The Arts

12 Quoted after Rosenfeld, in Hayes, Lessons and Legacies, p.261. 13 Garson Kanin was the play's first director in New York. Quoted in Rosenfeld, p.253. . 14 Bogdan Danowicz, `Tragedia nowozytna'. [A Modern Tragedy], .Nowa Kultura 17 (1960): 8, 11. 15 See the excellent study by Aleksander Zyga `Wymienne nazwy ZydoÂw w pisÂmiennictwie polskim w . latach 1794±1863 na tle gøoÂwnych orientacji spoøeczno-politycznych i wyznaniowych zydostwa pols- kiego. Rekonesans' [Substitute Names for Jews in Polish Writings in the Years 1794±1863 against the Major Socio-political. and Religious Orientations of the Polish Jewry], in Eugenia èoch (ed.), Literackie portrety ZydoÂw [Jewish Literary Portraits] (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 1996), pp.317±363. 16 Editors of a periodical for young Polish Jews consciously gave it a provocative title Yidele to look at themselves with some irony and distance. 17 Olga Wormser, `Anna Frank a dzien dzisiejszy' [Anne Frank and the Today's World], WidnokreÎgi 8 (1959): 19. 18 See e.g. a very interesting discussion of a schematic play on the Holocaust performed in the Jewish State Theatre in Warsaw on the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Seth Wolitz, `Performing a Holocaust Play in Warsaw in 1963', in Claude Schumacher (ed.), Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp.130±146. 19 See Bogdan BaÎk, `Ania z amsterdamskiego poddasza' [Little Anne from an Amsterdam Attic], Søowo Polskie 43 (1961): 3. . 20 See Salomon èastik,. `Sztuka, ktoÂra uwrazliwia i oczyszcza' [The Play That Makes One More Sensitive and Pure], Zoønierz Polski Ludowej 106 (1957): 4. 21 Arnold Grys, `List w sprawie wrocøawskiego przedstawienia Anny Frank' [A Letter Concerning the Wrocøaw Performance of Anne Frank], Søowo Polskie 55 (1961): 3. 22 Jan Kott, `Prawda i zmysÂlenie' [Truth and Fiction], in Jan Kott, Miarka za miarke, [Measure for Measure], (Warszawa 1963), (review from a performance done in Warsaw in Teatr Wojska Polskiego in 1957). . 23 See Jacek FruÈhling, `Tragiczny dziennik' [A Tragic Diary], Nowe KsiaÎzki 22 (1957): 1355±6; Stefan Treugutt, `Getto i sÂwiat' [The Ghetto and the World], Polityka 6 (1957): 5. 24 See Zofia Sieradzka, `Z AnnaÎFrank na scenie i za kulisami' [With Anne Frank on the Stage and behind the Scenes], Gøos Pracy 88 (1967): 3. 25 Ada KopcinÂska, `Rozpoznanie Anny' [Anne's Recognition] in Ada KopcinÂska, I nosze, to [And I'm Carrying This] (èoÂdzÂ: Wydawnictwo èoÂdzkie, 1965); Mikoøaj Bieszczadowski, `Dom Anny Frank' [Anne Frank's House], in Brzegiem nadziei [On the Edge of Hope] (Warszawa: Pax, 1972); Krynicka's poem dedicated to Anne Frank was printed together with a lengthy review article by Zygmunt Lichniak, `PamieÎtnik zamordowanej nadziei' [A Diary of the Murdered Hope], Kierunki 41 (1957): 8, 11. 26 See for example an article by the well-known journalist Monika WarnenÂska, `Kasztan na Prinsen- gracht' [A Chestnut Tree at Prinsengracht], Kierunki 4 (1990): 5. 27 Adam Szostkiewicz, `SÂwiat Anny Frank' [Anne Frank's World], Tygodnik Powszechny 10 (1997): 15. 28 A similar observation was made by M.M. Altman about the limited knowledge of the Holocaust and Anne Frank in particular among Russian high school students. See `Teaching the Holocaust in the Framework of the Russian Literature Curriculum' (in Russian), in I.A. Altman (ed.), Shadow of the Holocaust. Second International Symposium `Lessons of the Holocaust and Contemporary Russia' (Moscow: The Russian Holocaust Library, 1998), p.213. 29 The diary of Dawid Sierakowiak was published in 1960 and has not been reissued since then. Dawid Rubinowicz's diary was also published in 1960 (the same year as the second edition of Anne Frank's Diary) and reissued in 1987. After the submission of this paper a new Polish edition of the Diary was published by Znak publishers in Cracow (KrakoÂw, 2000).