Chaim Goldberg, Purim Parade, 1993, oil painting on canvas
Volume 23, No. 1 Gazeta Winter 2016
A quarterly publication of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Editorial & Design: Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Shana Penn, Vera Hannush, Alice Lawrence, Maayan Stanton, LaserCom Design. Front Cover Photo: Chaim Goldberg; Back Cover Photo: Esther Nisenthal Krinitz J.D. Kirszenbaum, Self-portrait, c. 1925, oil on canvas
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Message from Irene Pipes ...... 1
Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn ...... 2
RESEARCH PROJECT The Holocaust in the Eyes of Polish Youth By Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs ...... 3
ART AS FAMILY LEGACY A Daughter Returns with Memories in Art By Bernice Steinhardt ...... 7
Resurrection of a Painter: “From Staszów to Paris, via Weimar, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro” By Nathan Diament ...... 12
Creating a New Museum in Kazimierz By Shalom Goldberg ...... 16
CONFERENCES, SPRING/SUMMER PROGRAMS, AND FESTIVALS Conference on Launch of Volume 28 of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry By Dr. Antony Polonsky ...... 20
2016 Opportunities in Poland Offered by the Auschwitz Jewish Center By Dara Bramson ...... 22
Spring/Summer Programs and Festivals By Maayan Stanton ...... 23
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n i EXHIBITIONS Frank Stella at the POLIN Museum By Maayan Stanton ...... 26
FILM MAMELE: National Center for Jewish Film By Maayan Stanton ...... 28
BOOK REVIEW The Crime and the Silence. Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne By Anna Bikont. Translated by Alissa Valles Reviewed by Dr. Joanna Beata Michlic ...... 29
Publications By Maayan Stanton ...... 33
NEW RESEARCH Graffiti in Poland By Dara Bramson ...... 34
ii n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 President of the American Association Message from for Polish-Jewish Studies Irene Pipes Founder of Gazeta
Dear Members and Friends,
There were a number of events of our American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies. Since I was not able to attend I shall rely on Antony Polonsky’s reports.
A launch of volume 28 of POLIN edited by Monika Adamczyk- Garbowska, Eugenia Prokop-Janiec, Antony Polonsky, and Sławomir Żurek took place at the Polish Embassy in London on January 21, 2016. The meetings were well attended and a success. Its theme is “Jewish Writing in Poland.” For more details, see Dr. Polonsky’s article on p. 20.
On December 9, 2015, Susan Starring of University College London Irene Pipes gave a talk about her journey to Lithuania in search of her mother’s shtetl, which helped many reach a better understanding between Litvaks and Lithuanians.
On March 16, 2016, The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies will host Joanna Beata Michlic of Bristol University, who will introduce the award-winning documentary film No. 4 Street of Our Lady. It is the story of Franciszka Hallamajowa, a Polish Catholic woman who, in her little town of Sokal, saved sixteen of her Jewish neighbors while passing herself as a Nazi sympathizer entertaining the enemy in her home whilst hiding and feeding her Jewish neighbors.
Conferences took place at the Catholic University in Lublin and the Jewish Studies Institute of the Jagellonian University in Kraków, with discussions about Polish Jewish literature. A future session is scheduled at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw.
We in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have invited Dariusz Stola, the director of the POLIN Museum, to give a talk on June 18 at the Harvard Hillel.
With all good wishes,
Irene Pipes President
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 1 Message from Chairman and Executive Director Tad Taube and of the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Shana Penn
ducation is a central factor in shaping the beliefs of the next generation. That is one message we take from Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs’s Elead story in this issue of Gazeta, examining the attitudes of today’s young Poles toward the Holocaust. But as the three succeeding Gazeta stories show, education is not solely a matter for the schools. Paintings and tapestries can also educate through their ability to bring the past to life and to offer glimpses of lost worlds that can move the heart and mind.
Their impact can be all the greater when they reveal connections of personal experience or heritage previously forgotten, overlooked, or lost. Bernice Steinhardt discovered her family’s ancestral village in Poland when Tad Taube her mother, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, a Holocaust survivor, decided to sew tapestries of her experiences as a girl before, during, and after the war. Nathan Diament, an Israeli born in Belgium during the war, discovered his family’s close connection with Poland through the art of his great-uncle, J.D. Kirszenbaum, which he has traced to museums around the world. Shalom Goldberg of the United States undertook the founding of a museum devoted to Polish shtetl art to honor the artistic career of his father, Chaim Goldberg, and in the process came into intimate contact with his Polish Jewish heritage. He also found paintings of shtetls done from memory by his father with such fidelity to reality that individuals depicted in them can be identified by name. Shana Penn Whether the rediscovery is of works of art or the memories that inspired them, the stories convey a sense of satisfaction and enlightenment, a personal education that complements the formal learning of schools and universities. They also express an understanding of past events, lives, and experiences, not only for those of us who may have known them directly, but for those now coming of age who must experience them through the vivid testimony and images provided by their elders. We hope that you, whatever generation you belong to, will find this issue stimulating, evocative, and worth a careful read.
Tad Taube and Shana Penn Chairman and Executive Director
2 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs The Holocaust in the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Centre for Holocaust Studies, Eyes of Polish Youth Jagiellonian University
hen walking through in many cases at the hands of evaluate good educational the streets of Polish neighbors who collaborated practices. My project began Wtowns and villages we pass with the Nazis. in 2008 at the Centre for by buildings that were once Holocaust Studies (CHS) built and inhabited by Jews. How can we tell the story of at Jagiellonian University These buildings – now shops, the Holocaust so that survivors and was supported by the occasionally museums, can recognize their own history International Holocaust and even more rarely open in the narration? How can Remembrance Alliance synagogues – used to be we tell it to the descendants (IHRA) and the Fondation places where Jews, who had of victims, executioners, and pour la Mémoire de la lived in Poland for almost a witnesses of the Holocaust? Shoah. The members of my thousand years, used to pray. In the foreword of Auschwitz research team are Szymon Are we aware of that? and After, a collection of short Beźnic, Maja Brand, Adam stories by Charlotte Delbo, Dąbrowski, Dagmara When traveling along Polish a member of the French Mrozowska, Elisabeth roads we tend not to think Resistance movement who Büttner, Katarzyna Kopff- about how many of them were was deported to Auschwitz, Muszyńska, Joanna Stöcker- built by Jews forced into slave Laurence Langer gives the Sobelman, Katarzyna labor by the Germans and their example of a Polish policeman. Suszkiewicz, and Agnieszka collaborators during World This man was “hunting” for Zajączkowska-Drożdż. War II. Polish territories, Jews and at the same time he both those annexed by the was hiding a Jewish girl at The scope of research has Third Reich and those by his home. Langer is unable to encompassed a nationwide the Soviet Union, as well as explain the man’s behavior. survey, with a control group those constituting the General Are we aware of the existence of 1,000 people aged 17–18 Government, along with of such paradoxes? and a focus-group interview the territories of the Baltic with teacher-experts carried States, Belarus, Romania, and Scarce Knowledge out by CEM Market & Public Ukraine, became the epicenter My research has focused on Opinion Research Institute of the Jewish genocide. examining the attitudes of in Kraków. It also included Millions of Jews were killed Polish youth toward Jews, the an evaluation of educational in death camps on Polish land, Holocaust, and remembrance. curricula about Jewish history while others died near home, Another objective was to and an assessment of projects
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 3 The Holocaust in the Eyes of Polish Youth, Continued
connected with Holocaust do not have the information or town looked like before the remembrance, using an capability to include Jews in Holocaust, before World War experimental group of 1,110 their own civil polity. II. It was devastating.” students of secondary schools “Young people have and universities or colleges. Students of the 64th Secondary The analyses took account of open minds toward School told us it was an participant observations of the memory of the emotional experience they selected educational curricula Holocaust, although they would remember. What they in Tykocin and Treblinka, found important was the often lack knowledge Kielce, Lublin, Bodzentyn, approach of the teacher, who Starachowice, and Warsaw, about basic facts.” did not leave them alone but and benefited from individual still gave them time to think on interviews with teachers and Emotions their own. “The fact that there local leaders. It is crucial that the percentage was no hurry … no such thing of young people for whom as ‘Quick, quick, let’s move One crucial finding was knowledge about Nazi crimes on, there’s no time to stop, let’s that knowledge about the is important has not decreased have it done and go on.’ There Holocaust among students in the last 10 years, that is, is a chance to feel. Not only to was scarce. Only 14% of them since the first measurement find out what happened to those were able to give the correct in 1998, but has increased by people but to feel it,” concluded number of Jewish victims 5%. In my own observations, a student. These thoughts are in World War II. It is worth for example, I noticed consistent with the current noting that the memory of moments of reflection during discourse about how to teach the Holocaust is important a trip to memorial sites by a about the Holocaust and the for 38% of Polish youth for teacher and students of the importance of the intellectual personal reasons, while 47% 64th Secondary School in approach, that is, the transfer of of young Poles do not have Warsaw. I could see emotional knowledge, and the emotional, an opinion about whether this responses from the visits empathetic approach in talking memory is important to them. to Tykocin and Treblinka. about a difficult past. They lack the knowledge that “Tykocin. A ghost town, nearly 90% of approximately we saw no more than three Creating Memory 3.5 million Polish Jews died people,” remarked one of the Most of the students who during World War II, and they students. “I imagined what the participated in the research
4 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 The Holocaust in the Eyes of Polish Youth, Continued
Jewish cemetery in Bodzentyn near Kielce. Photo: CHS archives
disagree with the statement, toward antisemitic graffiti, in create a common narrative and “The Holocaust is not spite of so many initiatives to memory encompassing both important today because it remove such inscriptions on Poles and Jews with regard to took place more than 60 years Polish streets. the Holocaust. They are still ago,” although one third of defensive about the attitude the participants do not have a Young people have open of Poles toward Jews during specific opinion (“agree” or minds toward the memory of World War II. “disagree”). While only 10% the Holocaust, although they agree with the statement, it is often lack knowledge about The focus-group interview worrying that youth show a basic facts. Secondary school of teachers in Kraków by large degree of indifference students are not ready to Szymon Beźnic from CEM
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 5 The Holocaust in the Eyes of Polish Youth, Continued
Market & Public Opinion scientists and to develop our Research Institute led to library here at the Center for recommendations concerning Holocaust Studies. We would the curricula for teaching also like to deal with difficult, Jewish history. However, the even controversial issues such effectiveness of the previous as those connected with the curricula is unknown. Were lives of the rescuers, who they successful? How did often feared the reaction of young people react? What neighbors to the fact that they should be emphasized in were saving Jews. n particular? As a result, it is impossible to compare Cooperation: Sociology different versions of curricula Students Scientific Group, in their effectiveness. Teachers Social Research Section. may often be discouraged Consultants: Professor from addressing the Holocaust Antoni Sułek; Professor because they must devote their Ireneusz Krzemiński; personal time and energy, and Marek Kucia, PhD because there is no reward for doing so. Those who are www.projektor.uj.edu.pl/sp/ involved in teaching about inside-society/holocaust- the Shoah and shaping the polish-youth attitudes of young people accordingly deserve much recognition.
As the research progresses, we are gathering information about grassroots initiatives that are related to the heritage of Polish Jews. We would like to create an audiovisual workshop for students and
6 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 ART AS FAMILY LEGACY Bernice Steinhardt A Daughter Returns President and Chairperson, Art & Remembrance with Memories in Art ESTHER NISENTHAL KRINITZ 1927-2001
mother, Esther during the war but also before bringing her art and story back Nisenthal Krinitz, the war. with me. Thanks to a grant Myhad an enormous story to tell. from the Koret Foundation, She was 12 years old in 1939 “How much it would I traveled to a handful of when the Nazis occupied her cities and towns near my village, Mniszek, and the have meant to my mother’s childhood home, nearby town of Annopol, then mother to know that her presenting the documentary known by its Jewish name of memories had returned to film Through the Eye of the Rachów. After three years of Needle: The Art of Esther brutal occupation, the Jews Poland, and particularly Nisenthal Krinitz. I had known of the region were deported, to her home village.” about these places from my ordered by the Germans to mother’s stories and had been leave their homes and report Years later, when Esther was touring the exhibit of her art to the train station in Kraśnik, about 50, she decided that in the United States since about 15 miles away. My simply telling her stories was 2003. But now, in Poland, they mother refused to go. Instead not enough. She wanted my came to life for me in a new she created new identities sister and me to see what her and deeply moving way. for herself and her 13-year- home and family looked like. old sister, Mania, as Polish She had never been trained in My journey began in Lublin at Catholic farm girls separated art, never thought of herself the Brama Grodzka (Grodzka from their families. Armed only as an artist, but she could sew Gate). Once the passage to with this story they eventually anything. Creating things from the city’s Jewish quarter, the found work in the village of fabric was second nature to her. gate now houses a namesake Grabówka, where people were So she came to tell her story organization that is dedicated willing to take them in. Near in a way that only she could to preserving the memory of the end of the war, in 1944, do: she embroidered a series of the many cultures that once she learned that none of their stunningly beautiful tapestries lived side by side in Lublin, family had survived. with stitched narrative captions focusing on the thriving, that depicted her life before centuries-old Jewish culture I grew up hearing these and during the war, along that was extinguished in just stories. In fact, I can’t recall a with her postwar arrival in the a few years in the 1940s. The time when I didn’t know my United States. Lublin audience was made mother’s stories. Unlike many up of local residents familiar other Holocaust survivors, my In October 2015, exactly 73 with the history of the German mother couldn’t keep from years after my mother left for occupation and the fate of talking about her life, not only good, I returned to her home, the Jews. One woman in the
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 7 audience had been imprisoned as part of a touring exhibit. aunt traveled to once they as a young child in Majdanek, Many people returned to left their family. Walking in the concentration camp on Gościeradów for the film Esther’s footsteps, so to speak, the outskirts of Lublin. For screening, including the town we retraced her journey. them the film and program officials. I wanted everyone to Starting from Mniszek, we introduced a first-hand view know how much it meant to went to Dombrowa (Dąbrowa of what life had been like me to be in their hometown, Tarnowska), the village where for the Jews in the villages once my mother’s hometown, Esther’s father’s friend Stefan outside of Lublin. too. How much it would had lived and where Esther Near my mother’s village have meant to my mother and Mania went in hope of of Mniszek we came to to know that her memories finding work and shelter. the town of Gościeradów. had returned to Poland, Earlier in the year an exhibit and particularly to her Next, we drove to of photographic images of home village. Gościeradów and my mother’s tapestries had Księżomierz. These were the been displayed in the library On our way to Kraśnik, the villages where Esther and and community center, next stop on our tour, we Mania went after being sent presented by the Galicia decided to drive to all the away by Stefan, for fear that Jewish Museum of Kraków places that my mother and the Germans would come
8 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 after him and them. No one in Gościeradów and Księżomierz was willing to take them in without papers proving their identity. Finally, we drove to Grabówka, the village where they ultimately found refuge. Because I had been there before, I could recognize some landmarks, particularly the Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, The Bees Save Me, 1994, embroidery on cloth remnants of the village well and the house in which Esther had lived, with its large yard where her employer, the old farmer, once kept beehives.
All along our way, we drove by golden woods, sunlight radiating through the leaves. I kept thinking that this was how the woods appeared when Esther and Mania made their journey in the same month (October), 73 years earlier, when these woods, stately and calm, were their hiding place.
Being there, traveling these same roads, visiting these same places but without my mother, only her art and story – was an exhilarating, joyous, and at the same time sad experience. I felt deeply both her presence and absence. Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, Depths of the Forest, 1994, embroidery on cloth
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 9 A Daughter Returns with Memories in Art, Continued
I wished she had been there with us to see Mniszek looking full of life today. I wished she had been there to know that her memories there will endure.
We continued on to Kraśnik, the largest city close to Esther’s home, where she and Mania were supposed to have gone with all the other Jews of their village. Our program was held in one of the public libraries that had earlier displayed the exhibit of photo images. As in Gościeradów, the people in Kraśnik greatly admired my mother’s art and Bernice Steinhardt, third from right, with the women of Kraśnik story and returned to see the film and to meet me. rynek of which they were so community center beautifully proud was where the Jews restored by the Foundation In particular, a group of of Rachów were assembled for the Preservation of Jewish women had been inspired before being loaded onto train Heritage in Poland. Zamość to create their own tapestry, cars to Bełżec, the death camp itself is a beautiful baroque a depiction of the rynek, or where they were slaughtered. city, and the synagogue has town square, in Kraśnik. Many of the Jews never made the ornate and light-filled Constructed of fabric and it to Bełżec and met their end style of that era. There, we yarn, with pinecones and in that town square. also screened the film before other decorations, the piece an overflowing audience of was an act of civic pride, an The next day, we left for local high school students, expression of love of their Zamość and the opening of who toured the exhibit before city. In its spirit the work the exhibit of photo images viewing the film. echoed my mother’s own love of my mother’s work. The of home. But I noted with a exhibit was in the Zamość When we returned to Warsaw sense of poignancy that the synagogue, now a cultural and before heading home, we spent
10 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, Janiszew Prison Camp, 1994, embroidery on cloth our last days visiting POLIN museum in Warsaw stands Museum of the History of as evidence of that revival. Images of Esther Nisenthal Polish Jews and the Emanuel In its own intimate way my Krinitz’s art work can be Ringelblum Jewish Historical mother’s art also fills in some viewed on the website of Institute. From the intensely of the history of Jewish life in Art and Remembrance, personal history of my mother’s Poland. Her stories of Jewish artandremembrance.org. family and home, we broadened holidays celebrated before Through the Eye of the our scope to the thousand-year the war, of life during the Needle can be viewed online history of Jews in this country, occupation, of the search for at www.youtube.com/ a history largely unknown to family at the end of the war watch?v=HCvlhYCKruQ; me before. How could this – my mother only wanted her with Polish subtitles history have ended so starkly in daughters to know that history. at www.youtube.com/ just a few short years? She created her art just for watch?v=HOEv_ us. But her art was clearly NTZmDU&feature=youtube. Perhaps it had not. The meant to be seen by the world, interest in Jewish life and and nowhere more so than in culture in present-day Poland Poland, where I was grateful is very striking; the existence and honored to be able to of the magnificent new return it to its home. n
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 11 Resurrection of a Painter: By Nathan Diament “From Staszów to Paris, via Weimar, Great-nephew, J.D. Berlin and Rio de Janeiro” Kirszenbaum J.D. KIRSZENBAUM 1900-1954
October 2015, while years I have worked to rescue published in Paris in 2013. attending the first from obscurity the works of Inanniversary celebration of my great uncle, the painter J.D. Kirszenbaum was born in the Grand Opening of POLIN J.D. Kirszenbaum. His artistic 1900 in Poland in the village Museum of the History of creations remain an integral of Staszów in the district of Polish Jews, I was finally able part of the legacy of the Jews Sandomierz. The son of poor to realize the true extent of of Poland, and the full story Hasidic parents, he emigrated my family’s connection with of their rescue is told in the to Germany and in 1923 the Jewish history and culture book J.D. Kirszenbaum 1900- joined the Weimar Bauhaus. of Poland. For the past 20 1954: The Lost Generation, His teachers were Wassily
Nathan Diament, great-nephew of J.D. Kirszenbaum. Photo: Dudu Bachar, Haaretz
12 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Resurrection of a Painter: J.D. Kirszenbaum, Continued
brothers, and I are survivors from Belgium (where my parents immigrated from Poland in the 1930s), saved by three Christian families, all recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Nearly all my mother’s family originating from Staszów perished in the ovens of Majdanek. I grew up with portraits of my mother’s family and paintings by my mother’s uncle describing daily life in Staszów.
I met my great uncle in 1946, when he came to Brussels J.D. Kirszenbaum, The Jewish Villagers Greeting the Messiah, 1937, to reunite with my mother, oil on cardboard his only surviving relative Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and ended his dreams. He survived in Europe. I can still see this Lyonel Feininger. He then the war years in various work fragile, shattered man sleeping moved to Berlin and worked camps in France, but his in my room, which we’d as an illustrator and cartoonist wife perished at Auschwitz. vacated in his honor. One day, under the pseudonym His paintings, numbering we took a walk and he said to Duvdivani. over 600 and stored in a Paris me, “The field of art would suit studio, were looted and largely your personality.” Maybe it In 1930 he fled to Paris destroyed by the Nazis. At was his will and legacy that I with his wife, Helma, the end of the war, he was a would be the one to restore his where the next period in broken man. rightful place in the history of his painting career began art, and Jewish art in particular. when he discovered French I belong to the generation of In 1949 we emigrated to Israel Impressionism. World War II the Holocaust. My parents, and I never saw him again.
13 n GAZETA VOLUME 22, NO. 2 GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 13 Resurrection of a Painter, Continued
depicted in his painting St. Jean Festival, Sao Paulo (1952), today part of the National French Collection.
My search for his oeuvre uncovered works that had survived in museums, galleries, and private collections. I started by
visiting the office of the Art J.D. Kirszenbaum, Self-portrait, c. and Loss Registrar in London, 1925, oil on canvas which tracks stolen works of my great uncle that detailed art. Then I went to the French the works in his prewar National Archives in Paris to collection and studio. J.D. Kirszenbaum, St. Jean Festival, Sao Paulo, 1952, oil on canvas confer with staff responsible for looted or destroyed The research has been both He had returned to Paris works of art. There I found frustrating and tremendously and to painting with the documents signed in 1945 by exciting. Significant moments help of the Baroness included discoveries of Alix de Rothschild, who his works at the Ein Harod commissioned three large Museum, the Tel Aviv paintings, The Prophets Elias, Museum, and the Jerusalem Jeremiah and Moses (1947). Museum in Israel; the Franz Today they are in the Tel Halls Museum in Holland; the Aviv Museum in Israel. In French National Collection 1948 he traveled to Brazil (F.N.A.C.); the Emanuel and later to Morocco, where Ringelblum Jewish Historical his art gained a new energy. Institute in Warsaw, Poland, There the landscapes and and the Genève Petit Palais inhabitants provided him in Switzerland. I discovered with the inspiration for a new, J.D. Kirszenbaum, The Shtetl Violinist, about sixty caricatures in beautifully colored style as c. 1925, oil on canvas the Berlin press of the late
14 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 J.D. Kirszenbaum as Duvdivani, The Sporting Housewife J.D. Kirszenbaum as Duvdivani, Long Ago Times
1920s and approximately one musicians and Hasidim and Montparnasse. In February hundred negatives of photos the majestic poetry of eastern 2016 an exhibition of his of his works in the Kandinsky Jewry. He also painted tragic works opened at the Villa Library archives at the scenes of refugees on the Vassilief, previously called Pompidou Museum in Paris. roads with their empty and the Museé du Montparnasse. desperate looks. He painted A dream has come true. My Many of his subjects are in the Jewish art renaissance great-uncle J.D. Kirszenbaum from his youth. In paintings, avant-garde, a folkloric-based returned at last to Paris in the drawings, and sculptures art that started in Russia and Montparnasse he loved. n he reconstructed houses, spread to Poland and appears synagogues, images of in the works of Marc Chagall, www.kirszenbaum.com bearded men, and other scenes J. Riback, El Lissitsky, and of his childhood. In works other Jewish artists. such as The Jewish Villagers Greeting the Messiah (1937), Like many painters who now in the collection of the belonged to the School of Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Paris in the 1930s, my great he depicted cheerful scenes of uncle lived and painted in
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 15 Creating a New Museum By Shalom Goldberg in Kazimierz Son, Chaim Goldberg CHAIM GOLDBERG 1917-2004
Establishing a museum an eternal record of the life he I contacted Dr. Waldemar of Jewish shtetl history had witnessed before the war. Odorowski, curator of the as seen through fine Through his shtetl paintings Muzeum Nadwiślańskie Chaim recreated the unique in Kazimierz Dolny, to get art was not my goal in lifestyle of the inhabitants, a sense of what needed to life until quite recently, enabling the village that be done. A joint Kazimierz although the family once existed by the Vistula Dolny/Clearwater, Fla., always talked about River to live through his art. effort began to unfold, Although his art had been resulting in the opening of creating a museum for exhibited in numerous shows an exceptional one-man my father’s work. in Poland, Israel, and the show on December 9, 2013 United States, the idea of a that ran for nine months at Chaim Goldberg had been museum to permanently house the new museum building a prolific painter, sculptor, his works did not come to the located at the entrance to the and engraver, starting at age foreground until more than Kazimierz Dolny market. seven in his father’s tiny shoe two decades after his death. Many people contacted me repair shop in the picturesque with glowing comments after Jewish village of Kazimierz My parents, Chaim and they visited, and I felt it was Dolny in southwestern Poland. Rachel Goldberg, passed away an overwhelming success. But When he was fourteen, his in 2003 and 2004. Then came still, I wanted permanence. natural artistic abilities were the US financial meltdown. discovered by a visitor, who Art seemed like a thing of the After the show closed I flew helped find sponsors to send past until, quite by chance, to Poland several times to him to art school. With formal in 2011 I received an email explore museum opportunities. training his youthful style from Poland that drove me Kraków was my favored took on a more mature and into action. It was from a location, but it was not until expressive shape. His earliest hotel owner in Kazimierz an exhibit ran in Warsaw that shows, 1931-37, were mostly Dolny who encouraged me Kraków suddenly became Polish landscapes. to look into mounting an a real possibility. I received exhibit of my father’s work in a call from a collector who After the Holocaust he viewed his hometown, that magical needed authentication of two his survival as a sign that he village by the Vistula River. of my father’s oil paintings, was responsible for making which he had bought a few
16 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Creating a New Museum in Kazimierz, Continued
weeks prior. I gave him the century building in Kraków’s collection of my father’s shtetl authentication, and we began Kazimierz district. “It’s a paintings. The museum will be talking more about my father perfect spot,” he beamed. called Museum, I Remember. and my dream for establishing his legacy. At the end of my Since May 2015 we have Chaim Goldberg began story the collector said, “I’ll been putting the details creating his body of shtetl find you a location.” A week together and making the work after returning from passed and then he Skyped needed modifications to the Siberia to Warsaw aboard me with a live feed of a 6,000-square-foot space a cattle train in 1946. He newly renovated space in a that will soon be opened was one of the many sons of prominently located 18th- as a museum to house the Holocaust victims who had
Chaim Goldberg, Purim Parade, 1993, oil painting on canvas
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 17 survived by escaping to the USSR. When the train reached the outskirts of Warsaw, he burst into tears. The capital of Poland had been turned into piles of rubble; entire buildings lay pulverized.
Jewish life in his village of Kazimierz Dolny had not survived. Its prewar Jewish population, except those who escaped, was snuffed out, but the village never left my father’s mind or heart. It called out to him, driving him to create a painted memorial to the shtetl life he had experienced and remembered. As a child, and then as a teenager, he had Chaim Goldberg, Eternal Orchestra, 1995, oil painting on canvas closely observed his family and other shtetl folk and their best creations, and dry looking for a simple souvenir painted them. As in so many goods merchants crowded the of his art, while others were of the 2,200 shtetls, water square and sold their wares survivors from Kazimierz was carried by yoked buckets, at makeshift wooden stands Dolny who had made it to and the regular marketplaces covered by a canopy. Israel. Although they all were held each Tuesday and admired his paintings, those Thursday. During market days My earliest memories of my few who were from his village the horse traders could be seen father are of him working long were in awe of his accurate in a side street while the fruit hours in his studio just north memory. They were able to sellers, shoe sellers, pots and of Tel Aviv in 1960. Visitors recognize the faces of some pans merchants, bakers with were frequent. Some were of the people they had known,
18 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 The Museum Challenge, Continued
and even called out their names. When this happened I could see the satisfied smile on my father’s face and sense his happy approval.
Although this memorial to Jewish life in the shtetl was ever present in his life, my father felt compelled to “air- out” his mind of disturbing Holocaust scenes as well. My father’s focus on art saved Museum, I Remember at 19 Miodowa Street, Kazimierz district, Kraków him; it became therapy. He felt guilty for having survived a clever way to divide his While painting this final group the genocide while his family time to be able to do different of canvases and watercolors, was almost completely wiped types of art during any day my father did not lose his out. He was tormented by by having two work areas. other voice. He kept working dreams of evil shapes. In one, He was able to move from in both worlds until 1998, his he saw himself running with the shtetl memorial theme at final productive year. After a me toward a light on a river of one workstation to abstract long illness he passed away in thin cracking ice. He painted shapes at another with agility 2004. This part of his creative this dream on a large canvas and determination. By the journey will be highlighted at and later cut it up. mid-1970s he was drawing the the end of the museum’s core shtetl less often. At that point exhibit and will be presented Through his lifetime output he found his other voice: as along with his graphics in the of nearly 4,500 works we see an observer and critic of the temporary exhibit room. the pain and observations of society around him. This voice a contemporary expressionist. continued until 1987, when he Museum, I Remember will be He could capture the likeness decided that a series of large open to the public in 2016. n of a person with a few strokes, oil paintings had to be done and had an exceptional to complete his memorial to www.museumiremember.org memory for faces. He devised Kazimierz Dolny.
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 19 CONFERENCES, SPRING/SUMMER PROGRAMS, By Dr. Antony Polonsky AND FESTIVALS Chief Historian, POLIN Conference on Launch of Vol. 28 of Museum of the History of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Polish Jews
n Thursday, January literatures in Poland from Sławomir Żurek of John 21, 2016, more than a the point of view of both Paul II Catholic University Ohundred scholars attended linguistic and geographic in Lublin analyzed the an all-day conference at the diversity. development of Polish-Jewish Polish embassy in London to writing in the State of Israel. launch volume 28 of Polin: The conference was opened by Studies in Polish Jewry. the Hon. Deputy Ambassador The second panel examined The theme of the volume is Dariusz Łaska and Ben aspects of Polish-Jewish “Jewish Writing in Poland.” Helfgott, chairman of the literature. Antony Polonsky Since the Enlightenment the Institute for Polish-Jewish examined “Bal w Operze” cultural creativity of Polish Studies, which, with the (“A Ball in the Opera”), an Jews has found expression American Association for apocalyptic poem written by not only in Hebrew and Polish-Jewish Studies, is the Polish-Jewish poet Julian Yiddish but increasingly in responsible for the publication Tuwim in the 1930s. Karen Polish. A dynamic interaction of Polin. Underhill of the University of has characterized the Illinois at Chicago described cultural systems, but until The first session was a a previously unknown set the end of Communism the roundtable in which three of of essays by Bruno Schulz trilingual Jewish culture of the editors explained what in reaction to the work of Poland was little studied. In they had tried to do in the Ephraim Moses Lilien, the this volume scholars from issue, what topics had been Galician Zionist painter, which Argentina, Israel, Italy, covered, and where there were greatly clarified Schulz’s Poland, and the United still gaps in our knowledge. attitude to Jewish issues. States investigate writers Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska Marzena Zawanowska of the from across this spectrum of Marie Curie-Skłodowska Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish and consider how they saw University in Lublin described Historical Institute in Warsaw their Jewish (and sometimes the development of Polish- gave a fascinating account of Polish) identity and what Jewish literary interactions how an interwar Polish Jewish they thought of the authors during the interwar period. poet translated the works of in the other linguistic or Eugenia Prokop-Janiec of Haim Nahman Bialik, and cultural camps. This scholarly Jagiellonian University in how, because of the war, the enterprise constitutes the Kraków discussed the nature translation was lost for nearly first examination of Jewish of Polish-Jewish writing. seventy years.
20 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Conferences, Spring/Summer Programs, and Festivals, Continued
François Guesnet, Antony Polonsky, Karen Underhill, and Marzena Zawanowska at the launch of Polin’s volume 28 in the Polish Embassy, London.
The last section was a University College London representation of Jews roundtable devoted to and the School of Slavonic in postwar Polish Jewish reactions to the volume and and East European Studies literature. Presentations by also to Jewish dimensions in examined three works – Magdalena Marszałek of the contemporary Polish writing. Andrzej Szczypiorski’s University of Potsdam and by Eva Hoffman, author of the Początek (The Beginning, Ursula Phillips of University highly praised memoir Lost translated into English as The College London and the in Translation, discussed Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman), School of Slavonic and East the volume in the context Tadeusz Konwicki’s European Studies analyzed of theories of hybridity and Bohin, and Jarosław the portrayal of Jews in more of diasporic literature, and Rymkiewicz’s Umschlagplatz recent Polish fiction. Katarzyna Zechenter of – that transformed the
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 21 Conferences, Spring/Summer Programs, and Festivals, Continued
The conference concluded all backgrounds are eligible with a showing of the film 2016 Opportunities to apply; need-based financial in Poland Offered “Raise the Roof” directed by aid is available. by the Auschwitz Yari Wolinsky. It describes Jewish Center how Rick and Laura Brown, Familiarization Tour for Dara Bramson, who are neither Jewish nor Abroad Directors Manager of Programs Polish, set out to rebuild the NEW Fall 2016: Long- Abroad for the Auschwitz synagogue of Gwoździec weekend tour in Kraków Jewish Center (today Hvizdets in Ukraine), and Oświęcim designed to a magnificent 18th-century introduce Abroad Directors to The Auschwitz Jewish Center wooden building destroyed the experience and pedagogy in Oświęcim, an affiliate by the Nazis. Their vision of the AJC’s educational of the Museum of Jewish inspired hundreds of people offerings and international Heritage—A Living Memorial to join them to bring programs. Open to Study to the Holocaust in New Gwoździec’s history, religion, Abroad Directors in Europe, York, is a Polish cultural culture, and art back to Israel, and the region. and educational institution, life. The film follows their offering established adventure, culminating in the international academic Customized Programs installation of the hand-painted opportunities and local Customized educational synagogue roof in the new educational programming programs in Poland for POLIN Museum of History since 2000. groups of all backgrounds of Polish Jews in Warsaw. A and sizes. Programs include celebration of the triumph of Program for Students logistical arrangements, preservation and creation over Abroad accommodations, local destruction, it made a fitting transportation, meals, and climax to a conference devoted Applications are open for guided tours. to recovering the remarkable Spring 2016 sessions in April literary creativity of Polish and May. The long-weekend For more information on Jews in Polish, Yiddish, programs are offered during these opportunities as well and Hebrew. n Fall and Spring semesters in Kraków and Oświęcim for as programs for graduate students and military cadets, www.littman.co.uk/cat/ students in Europe, Israel, click here. Please contact polin-28.html and the region. Students of
22 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Conferences, Spring/Summer Programs, and Festivals, Continued
Dara Bramson at DBramson@ the largest annual gathering 2016 ASEEES-MAG mjhnyc.org with questions and of Polish Jews in Poland, Summer Convention to learn about the pilot summer and that it provides Jewish Lviv school in partnership with culture and tradition through June 26-28, 2016 Jagiellonian University. community for Polish Jews www.aseees.org/summer- who do not have regular convention access to such practices. Focusing on the topic of Memory-Place-Presence “Images of the Other,” this SPRING/SUMMER Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN / PROGRAMS AND conference is co-organized Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre FESTIVALS by the Association for Slavic, Lublin East European & Eurasian Spring/Summer June 3-July 3, 2016 Studies (ASEEES) with the Programs teatrnn.pl/activities/ International Association summerschool/program for the Humanities (MAG). Limud Polska/ Limmud Poland There will be 80-100 panels, This summer program aims to including around 300 Warsaw preserve, commemorate, and presentations, all focusing on March 11-13, 2016 disseminate knowledge about the construction and definition limmudpoland.org/en/ the Jewish heritage and history of the “Other”; instrumental of Lublin. First learning use and abuse of the “Other” Now in its 9th year in through artistic, educational, in politics, cultural and social Poland, Limud Polska is and technological means, practices; the role of ethnic, one of hundreds of Limmud the student and professional cultural, social, and gender International conferences held participants pass on their stereotypes; representations around the world. Since their knowledge by collecting the of the “Other” in memory establishment over 30 years oral testimonies of witnesses politics, art, public discourse, ago in the UK, the Limmud to history, organize Polish- and media; and scholarship conferences bring Jewish Jewish youth meetings, regarding the “Other” as a communities together through and implement educational social construct. workshops, seminars, and activities such as workshops lectures. Limmud’s special and seminars. draw in Poland is that it is
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 23 Conferences, Spring/Summer Programs, and Festivals, Continued
Uriel Weinreich Program The summer school aims approaches and topics, in Yiddish Language, at providing high-quality cultural history, memory, and Literature & Culture learning about up-to-date heritage studies. An important YIVO Institute for Jewish research on Jewish history part of the program is practical Research and Bard College of East Central Europe, work with resources and New York developing critical thinking exploring different formats June 27-August 5, 2016 skills in analyzing various of implementing projects yivo.org/Summer-Program narratives of the past and in the public space of the their usage in the present, city. The program includes Established in 1968, this and finally building up a tours to historical sites and program is the oldest network of young academics, towns, meetings with experts, intensive Yiddish summer practitioners, and faculty in researchers, local community, program in the world. Eastern Europe and beyond and discussions. Classes from beginner to engaged in the research, advanced levels are offered preservation, and promotion of Festivals alongside Yiddish cultural Jewish heritage as part of the Międzynarodowy Festiwal activities from East European multi-ethnic past of the region. Filmowy Żydowskie
Jewry and its Diaspora The school gives space to Motywy / Jewish Motifs International Film Festival communities. Uniquely, researchers and practitioners Warsaw the program treats Yiddish from Eastern Europe (Belarus, May 18-22, 2016 as a living language and Poland, and Ukraine), and jewishmotifs.org.pl emphasizes spoken Yiddish. Russia to engage in shaping more participatory historical Jewish Motifs is one of the Jewish History, Common culture and heritage practices Past and Heritage: and to challenge top-down largest European film festivals Culture, Cities, Milieus modes in practicing both to focus on Jewish themes in L’viv Center for Urban history and heritage. The contemporary cinematography. History program includes lectures in Through its international Lviv the Jewish history of Eastern selection, the festival strives July 11-August 5, 2016 Europe during the 19th to 20th to promote tolerance and www.lvivcenter.org/en/ centuries; an introductory cultural diversity. summerschools/jewish- course of Yiddish; and seminar history-2016/ courses on transnational
24 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Conferences, Spring/Summer Programs, and Festivals, Continued
Life Festival Oswiecim Oświęcim June 16-19, 2016 lifefestival.pl/en
The Life Festival Oswiecim was established by a citizen of the town of Oświęcim to break the association of the town with the Auschwitz death camp. The Festival’s mission is to send a message of peaceful relations beyond cultural and state borders where there is no place for 2015 Jewish Culture Festival grand finale concert. Photo: Michał Ramus anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of xenophobia. the world come to play at Sir Elton John is headlining this festival in Kazimierz, this year’s edition. Kraków’s old Jewish quarter. Education programming on Festiwal Kultury Jewish history, arts, culture Żydowskiej /Jewish Culture Festival and sport accompanies the Kraków concerts, and the Kraków June 25-July 3, 2016 JCC hosts the ever-growing jewishfestival.pl 500+ person Shabbat dinner during the filled week of n Now in its 26th year, the celebrations. Kraków Jewish Culture Festival remains the largest Compiled by Maayan celebration of Jewish culture Stanton, Program Associate, in the world. Top artists of Taube Foundation for Jewish Jewish music from around Life & Culture
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 25 EXHIBITIONS Frank Stella at the By Maayan Stanton POLIN Museum
etween February 19 and American painter. Frank Polish Village series. Each of June 20, 2016, POLIN Stella was himself present at his works received the name BMuseum of the History of POLIN Museum for the Grand of a town where a wooden Polish Jews is hosting an Opening of the exhibit; this synagogue once stood. exhibition of works by Frank was his first time in Poland. Stella, one of the leading Close to 1,000 people attended The exhibition curators, Artur minimalist artists of the 20th the opening. Tanikowski and Clifford century. This is the European Chanin, in close cooperation premiere of Stella’s work. Frank Stella had come across with Frank Stella, decided In addition to showcasing a book devoted to wooden to present selected reliefs the New York-based artist’s synagogues by Polish from the series alongside extraordinary works, the architects Kazimierz and examples of Stella’s creative exhibition will explore the Maria Piechotka that became process. The exhibition history of their creation and a link between various eras will follow Stella’s sources to find out how Jewish sacral and different cultures. In the of inspiration, such as the architecture – destroyed early 1970s, fascinated by the pre-war photographs and by the Nazis and no longer beauty of Jewish synagogues, architectural drawings of extant – inspired this modern Stella began working on the Polish synagogues created
Frank Stella, Odelsk I, 1971, mixed media on board, Frank Stella, Bogoria IV, 1971, mixed media, collec- courtesy of the artist, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New tion of Ralph DeLuca, © 2015 Frank Stella / Artists York and Dominique Lévy, New York and London, Rights Society (ARS), New York © 2015 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
26 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Grand Opening of Frank Stella exhibit at POLIN Museum, February 19
as part of the inventory Poland exhibition is a unique been created, visitors have the conducted by the Warsaw opportunity to meet the opportunity to learn about the University of Technology’s celebrated artist. His works vitality of Polish Jewish culture, Polish Architecture Unit, are displayed in the largest which continues to inspire with which the Piechotkas contemporary art museums despite the material destruction closely cooperated. Many around the world and reach of Poland’s pre-war Jewish of the photographs from prices of more than $10 world. n the inventory were taken by million at auction. Frank Szymon Zajczyk, a Jewish Stella has become a living Exhibit Sponsors: cataloguer and art historian legend – he is still working DESA Unicum who perished in the Warsaw and his oeuvre continues Taube Foundation for Ghetto. Visitors will be able to fascinate subsequent Jewish Life & Culture to follow subsequent stages generations of art lovers. of Frank Stella’s work on the Teatr Wielki-Polish National Polish Villages: preparatory The new exhibition at the Opera and dimensional drawings, POLIN Museum goes beyond wooden monochromatic relief a standard monograph of an www.polin.pl/en/news/2015/ models, painted cardboard individual artist or a single 12/03/frank-stella-and- models and finally the series. By presenting the synagogues-of-historic-poland process’s culmination – large- achievements of the researchers format painted reliefs. and students affiliated with the Warsaw University of The Frank Stella and Technology, without whom Synagogues of Historic Stella’s works would not have
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 27 FILM MAMELE: National By Maayan Stanton Center for Jewish Film
National Center for Jewish Film The(NCJF) has released a digital restoration of the 1938 Yiddish classic Mamele, staring Molly Picon. The film was shot on site in Łódź, Poland, and through the eyes of today’s viewers, offers a glimpse of a Jewish Poland beyond the image of a shtetl. Directed by Joseph Green and Konrad Tom, the film is in Yiddish, and now, after restoration, with English subtitles. The restored Mamele has been screened to sold-out shows at film festivals around the world. “Mamele,” Photo: National Center for Jewish Film
Molly Picon (1898-1992, born For 30 years, the National Małka Opiekun) was a theater Center for Jewish Film has and film star of the 1920s, her been rescuing, restoring, and career lasting well into the screening films that show 1960s. She began her career in the vibrancy of Jewish life. Yiddish performances (most They specialize in rare and famous for East and West in endangered film materials and, 1923 and Yidl Mitn Fidl in to date, NCJF has restored 1936) but eventually turned to more than 100 such films, those in the English language. 44 of which are Yiddish. n The daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants to New York, View the trailer and Picon’s beginning productions restoration demo at: that brought her to fame were vimeo.com/84252252 focused on the clashes of “old” and “new” cultures.
28 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 BOOK REVIEW The Crime and the Reviewed by Dr. Joanna Silence. Confronting the Massacre Beata Michlic Department of Historical of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne Studies, Bristol University By Anna Bikont. Translated by Alissa Valles New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Original title, My z Jedwabnego (Warsaw: Prószyn´ski i S-ka SA, 2004)
nna Bikont’s The community. Her account Crime and the Silence: begins during the early stage AConfronting the Massacre of of the Jedwabne debate in late Jews in Wartime Jedwabne August 2000 and ends in the investigates the aftermath post-Jedwabne era – the late of the events of summer spring of 2004. 1941, when townspeople killed the Jews of Jedwabne The book is a masterpiece in the Łomża region of of historical journalism and northeastern Poland. The received the prestigious Jedwabne massacre has come European Book Prize for the to symbolize the “heart of French edition in 2011 and the darkness” in Polish-Jewish National Jewish Book Award relations during the Holocaust in 2015 in the Holocaust in contemporary debates and category. Bikont’s work can historical writings in Poland, be compared to the writings and defensiveness, not only yet it was a non-event in both of the French journalist Jean among the perpetrators and Polish history and Holocaust Hatzfeld about the aftermath their families but among studies until 2000. Then Jan of the Rwandan genocide. cross-generational Jedwabne Tomasz Gross uncovered it Both Bikont and Hatzfeld community members. in his slender Neighbors: The are masters in revealing Bikont’s portrayal of the Destruction of the Jewish how genocide is a haunting most aggressive local Community in Jedwabne, reality for survivors, one protagonists of the self- Poland, which challenged the they cannot erase from their defensive approach, such Polish memory both of World memories even if they opt as the late Father Edward War II and of the destruction for silence. In contrast, for Orłowski, is a disturbing of Polish Jews. The Crime perpetrators, it is a reality record of the suppression of and the Silence investigates to be met with silence, historical truth in the name of the formation, scope, and lies, and self-defensive a falsely understood defense dynamics of various strands rationalizations. The Crime of the good name and honor of memory of the Jedwabne and the Silence demonstrates of Poland and the local massacre among the local the immense impact of lies community.
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 29 The Crime and the Silence, Continued
Conversely, The Crime Radziłów, Wizna, and Wąsącz, Bikont’s investigation and the Silence paints a and of the causes that led suggests that the Jews of moving portrayal of the to those horrific crimes. Its Jedwabne in the summer individuals who publicly findings point out multiple of 1941 were, to use a term espoused a critical approach. and interwoven factors such as coined by the psychologist Krzysztof Godlewski was intense ideological and Robert Jay Lifton, “a one of a few representatives designated victim.” The local of the Jedwabne elite who “[A] chilling voyage ethnic Polish community participated in the official to a reality in which denied them life in order commemoration of the to reassert its rule after massacre on July 10, 2001. individuals and small the Łomża region had Leszek Dziedzic cherished the communities manage to emerged from the harsh memory of his grandmother, keep deeply troubling Soviet occupation. The the late Leokadia Dziedzic memories from gruesome descriptions of (nee Dmoch), the rescuer of the violence also suggest Jewish fugitives from the disturbing everyday that the perception of Jews massacres. Bikont describes consciousness.” as cultural outsiders played what a heavy price both a salient role in the way the Godlewski and Dziedzic political anti-Semitism; the massacres were rationalized and their families paid for persistence of earlier forms of by the perpetrators. The upholding their position anti-Jewish stereotypes during Crime and the Silence also during the debate about World War II, reinforced by touches upon the under- Jedwabne, including verbal the Soviet occupation of the researched subject of the role abuse and physical threats, region between September of women in the incitement of loss of jobs, social stigma, and 17, 1939, and June 22, the massacres and in robberies finally forced removal from 1941; economic greed; “the of what remained of Jewish their communities. interregnum moment” after possessions. the Soviets fled the region The Crime and the Silence is a and Nazi Germany did not Yet the book’s greatest strength first-class journalistic attempt yet firmly establish power; lies in the investigation of at the reconstruction of the the Nazi condoning of the contemporary memory among main anti-Jewish massacres massacres; and a seemingly the Jewish survivors and their of the region in Jedwabne, primordial desire to kill. families, the Polish rescuers,
30 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 The Crime and the Silence, Continued
the perpetrators and their In contrast, the moving case of the Ramotowskis, supporters, and eyewitnesses. portrayal of an aged married dedicates an entire chapter. Like Agnieszka Arnold’s couple, the survivor Marianna Wyrzykowska and her first documentary films Gdzie mój Ramotowska (Rachela husband, Aleksander, from starszy brat Kain (Where Is Finkelsztejn) and her rescuer Janczewka near Jedwabne, My Elder Brother Cain, 1999) Stanisław Ramotowski, provided a refuge for seven and Sąsiedzi (Neighbors, sheds light on the causes Jewish survivors on their 2001), and Sławomir of repression of the painful farm, between November Grünberg’s documentary past. The Ramotowskis, who 1942 and January 1945. In film The Legacy of Jedwabne until the early 2000s lived the aftermath of the German (2005), The Crime and in close proximity to the site defeat in January 1945, the the Silence is a chilling of the massacre, repressed rescuers were harassed and voyage to a reality in which the memory of the killing of physically abused by neighbors individuals and small Rachela’s family, her rushed who suspected that they were communities manage to keep conversion to Catholicism, a hiding Jews. Wyrzykowska deeply troubling memories quick marriage to Stanisław, was severely beaten by local from disturbing everyday and their subsequent going into men and was forced to move consciousness. It also depicts hiding together. Repression from her home three times. many instances of how these of painful events bonded Even recently, after the official memories, triggered by a them together and preserved recognition of Wyrzykowska’s certain event, could instantly their emotional equilibrium. deeds by the state authorities resurface and lead to vivid It was interwoven with a fear during the commemorative recollections – “flashbulb for their lives and of being ceremonies of July 2001, she memories” – and to a “re- robbed, especially in the early remained silent about the experiencing” of the past. postwar period when they were fellow townspeople who had That is a characteristic receiving death threats from threatened her life on many feature among the former the local perpetrators. occasions in the postwar Jewish survivors and also period. This silence was not among those Christian Polish Selective memory, repression, only a manifestation of fear, eyewitnesses who felt deep and visceral fear were an but can also be interpreted as empathy for their Jewish intrinsic part of the life of the Wyrzykowska’s attempts at neighbors and privately late Antonina Wyrzykowska, an effacement of painful condemned the crimes. to whom Bikont, as in the memory traces.
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 31 The Crime and the Silence, Continued
Fear of a very different kind commentary, interwoven The Crime and the Silence was an intrinsic part of the life with notes and citations from demonstrates that in-depth of Szmuel Wasersztajn, another testimonies, newspapers, journalistic investigations key character in Bikont’s book. and other archival sources, can significantly inform A survivor of the Jedwabne all supported by secondary historical analyses of anti- massacre and the author of historical studies. Although Jewish violence during the key testimony to the Jewish the book contains light and Holocaust in Central and Historical Commission in warmhearted anecdotes about Eastern Europe, and that such 1945, before his emigration Bikont’s friends and family, works could interact in novel from Poland, Wasersztajn and parenthetical mentions and mutually beneficial ways feared that no one would ever of the author’s discovery with conventional history learn what had happened to of her Jewishness and her books. Its findings expose the the Jedwabne Jews on July 10, daughters’ assertive embrace intellectual and moral pitfalls 1941. He devoted his life to of their lost Jewish heritage, of the monumental, glorious holding on to that traumatic it is not for the faint of heart. national history writing history and to fighting oblivion The vivid accounts of the that rejects and suppresses with “unheard words” and massacre and the subsequent discomforting and shameful with an increasingly fragile human dramas are deeply past misdeeds committed memory. Bikont’s portrayal of moving and disturbing. by members of one’s own Wasersztejn indicates that his Nevertheless, The Crime collective. n strong imperative to make the and the Silence should be massacre known was motivated required reading for younger us.macmillan.com/ by external considerations such generations in contemporary thecrimeandthesilence/ as a perceived duty to record Poland and other regions annabikont the events for posterity and to of today’s Europe haunted honor the fallen. The recording by demons of exclusivist and retelling of past events also radical ethnonationalism, brought him personal healing. racism and anti-Semitism. It should also be recommended In its 15 chapters, The as an essential reading for Crime and the Silence any genocide course for presents a mosaic of undergraduate and graduate interviews, reportage, and students, taught worldwide.
32 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 Publications By Maayan Stanton
EAST EUROPEAN funded by individual donors, (Yeshiva University), who JEWISH AFFAIRS grants, and foundations. supplemented Schaechter’s Volume 45, Numbers 2-3, files with more recent August-December 2015 jewish.pl/pl/2016/01/29/ published data and with Special Issue: “New Jewish zapraszamy-do-jidisze-zoo/ Internet sources, particularly Museums in Post Communist with respect to official names. Europe” YIDDISHLAND: Although Schaechter collected Guest Editors: Olga COUNTRIES, CITIES, Yiddish names from around Gershenson and Barbara TOWNS, RIVERS the world, the present work Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Published by YIVO is limited to approximately Institute for Jewish Research 3,000 locations in Central and JIDISZE ZOO / Eastern Europe, specifically This is the first attempt to present-day Austria, Belarus, YIDDISHER ZOO collect and publish all Yiddish Czech Republic, Estonia, Published by Czulent place names of Central and Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Czulent, a Jewish young adult Eastern Europe in one book. Moldova, Poland, Romania, organization in Kraków, has The late Mordkhe Schaechter, Slovakia, and Ukraine, as well published Yiddisher Zoo, a leading Yiddish linguist, took as the European regions of children’s book filled with it upon himself to collect Russia. poems by pre-war Yiddish and publish a definitive list authors. The poems are in of Yiddish place names. The book, and more their original Yiddish, with Although he did not live to information on the research, translations into Polish and complete the project himself, is now available online at: English, and are accompanied his extensive card files, with yivo.org/Yiddishland by contemporary illustrations. nearly 6,000 Yiddish place This book is the most names culled both from recent of Czulent’s Yiddish oral interviews and printed publications, preceded by sources, were donated to Majn Alef Bejs, a children’s YIVO. The gazetteer, titled Yiddish alphabet book that Yiddishland: Countries, was awarded the 2014 prize Cities, Towns, Rivers, has at the Bologna Children’s been compiled in its present Book Fair. Yiddisher Zoo was form by Paul Glasser
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 33 By Dara Bramson RECENT RESEARCH Manager of Programs Abroad Graffiti in Poland for the Auschwitz Jewish Center
the invitation Implications. The topic started during the Festival, I was of the Jewish as conflict-analysis research eager to assemble a team of ATCulture Festival in Kraków, I conducted as a Rotary experts who could do justice I organized a panel, which Peace Fellow in Thailand to its complexities. took place at the JCC Kraków, the previous year. When I titled Deconstructing Symbols: returned to Kraków and was Graffiti always fascinated me Graffiti and its Broader invited to explore the topic as an accessible, subjective means of communication that has the potential to transcend cultural boundaries. In Poland especially, graffiti piqued my interest, inextricably and unambiguously intertwining the past and present. Since my first trip to Poland in 2008, I was jarred—as many others are—by the words Anty Jude (“Anti Jews”) and even more perplexed at scribbles reading Jude Gang (“Jewish Gang”). Even since 2011, when I began living and working in Kraków, I was drawn to the ambivalent reactions these words and the corresponding images provoke. The topic never fails to be the source of stimulating discussion during programs I lead through the Auschwitz Jewish Center. My research, which began as an exploration of foreigners’ Photos: Wojtek Wilczyk perceptions of graffiti in
34 n GAZETA VOLUME 23, NO. 1 School fence - Anty Jude graffiti and the image of the Pope. Photo: Bogna Wilczyńska
Poland, was greatly enriched for the topic and ongoing Jewish figurines, graffiti in by my fellow panelists, survey-based research. After Poland is uniquely provocative Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, presenting again in Kraków as a topic that yields many Bogna Wilczyńska, Stanislav at Massolit Bookstore and interpretations and sparks Lukáč, Michał Strzyżowski, the Galicia Jewish Museum dialogue. With the goal of a and Wojtek Wilczyk. later in the year, I wrote a broader, collaborative project, piece for The Economist titled I look forward to continuing Nearly 50 people attended Writing on the Wall. My aim this research in 2016. n our panel, during which was to contextualize the topic we each covered an aspect for English-speaking visitors Link to Dara Bramson’s of the topic: historical who often identify the graffiti article, “Writing on the Wall,” background, documenting as a sign of pervasive anti- The Economist, October 19, graffiti, sports context, other Semitism. The immediate 2015 European cities, perceptions result—57 reader comments— and implications, and local underscored the complexity of Link to Facebook Page initiatives. Afterwards, the issue, which is becoming thoughtful questions and increasingly relevant amidst discussion inspired us to the refugee crisis and reigning create a Facebook page government in Poland. Similar as a dedicated resource to my previous research on
Crossed out Star of David on one of the main streets of Jude Gang district. Photo: Bogna Wilczyńska the city. Photo: Bogna Wilczyńska
GAZETA WINTER 2016 n 35 Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, Janiszew Prison Camp, 1994, embroidery on cloth
[email protected] www.taubephilanthropies.org