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Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland 11 This book is an anthropological essay which aims to capture the elu- sive phenomenon of hideouts employed by Jews persecuted during Marta Cobel-Tokarska the Second World War. Oscillating between life and death, the Jewish hideouts were a space of the most diverse and extremely complex hu- man relations – a specific realm of everyday life, with its own inherent logic. Based on different literary sources, especially wartime and post- war testimonies of Jewish escapees, the author seeks to examine the realm of hideouts to develop a novel, interdisciplinary perspective on this often neglected aspect of the 20th-century history. Desert Island, Burrow, Grave Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland Marta Cobel-Tokarska is a Polish sociologist working at the intersection Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland Wartime of sociology of culture, anthropology, literature, and recent history. · Studies in Jewish History and Memory Marta Cobel-Tokarska ISBN 978-3-631-67438-3 www.peterlang.com SJHM_011 267438_Cobel-Tokarska_TL_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd 1 04.10.18 01:44 11 This book is an anthropological essay which aims to capture the elu- sive phenomenon of hideouts employed by Jews persecuted during Marta Cobel-Tokarska the Second World War. Oscillating between life and death, the Jewish hideouts were a space of the most diverse and extremely complex hu- man relations – a specific realm of everyday life, with its own inherent logic. Based on different literary sources, especially wartime and post- war testimonies of Jewish escapees, the author seeks to examine the realm of hideouts to develop a novel, interdisciplinary perspective on this often neglected aspect of the 20th-century history. Desert Island, Burrow, Grave Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland Marta Cobel-Tokarska is a Polish sociologist working at the intersection of sociology of culture, anthropology, literature, and recent history. Studies in Jewish History and Memory Marta Cobel-Tokarska · Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland · Wartime Marta Cobel-Tokarska www.peterlang.com SJHM_011 267438_Cobel-Tokarska_TL_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd 1 04.10.18 01:44 Desert Island, Burrow, Grave Studies in Jewish History and Memory Edited by Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-P dich ę Volume 11 Marta Cobel-Tokarska Desert Island, Burrow, Grave Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland Translated by Katarzyna Błachnio-Sitkiewicz Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. The Publication is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Program for the Development of the Humanities in years 2016-2018. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. ISSN 2364-1975 • ISBN 978-3-631-67438-3 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-06881-8 (E-PDF) • E-ISBN 978-3-631-70852-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-70853-8 (MOBI) • DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06881-8 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Marta Cobel-Tokarska, 2018 Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Introduction to the English edition Desert Island, Burrow, Grave. Wartime Hiding Places of Jews in Occupied Poland book was published in Polish by IPN [Institute of National Remembrance] Pub- lishing House in 2012. It was well received, nominated to “Polityka” Historical Award and Professor Tomasz Strzembosz award, and won an award for the best historical monograph “KLIO”. It was discussed on “Przystanek Historia” (IPN) [“History station”], and during “Spotkania z Książką” [“Meetings with book”] at Academy of Special Education in Warsaw. It was debated at academic seminars, including ones at Institute of History at the University of Warsaw, at Institute of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw, at Jewish Historical In- stitute (Holocaust Literature Research Group), in Międzyzakładowa Pracownia Pamięci Społecznej [Interdepartmental Workshop of Social Memory] in Insti- tute of Sociology at the University of Warsaw, in the department of History and Historiography of Eastern Europe at Catholic University of Lublin. I know that this monograph is being used during classes with students of, inter alia, history and sociology. This book was reviewed by important Polish sociological maga- zines: “Societas/Communitas” 2 (14) 2012, “Kultura i Społeczeństwo” [“Culture and Society”] 1 (LVII) 2013, “Porównania” [“Comparisons”] 13 (2013) and in a Czech magazine “Slavica Litteraria” 1–2/2013. Awareness-rising online portals have also published their reviews. Those include historia.org, przezhistorie.pl, dzieje.pl and website of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Cop- ies of the book in Polish were sent to the most distinguished scientific facili- ties, including Yad Vashem and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington. The time has come to present this work to a broader group of readers by trans- lating it into English. It was possible thanks to getting a grant from Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki [National Programme for the Development Hu- manities] (3aH 15 0143 83) and Peter Lang publishing house. Despite the time that has passed since the book was published in Polish, I can still sign off on every word from the “Introduction”. Numerous notable papers on the Shoah have been published since that time. The subject of hiding places, where the Jews were trying to save their lives on the territory of occupied Poland, has not yet been presented in any significant monographs solely on that subject. However, this subject is still present in the scientific, journalistic and artistic dis- course. There are still authors who consider hiding places to be worth deliberat- ing, describing, and presenting. For example, I can mention Oscar nominated 7 Agnieszka Holland’s movie In Darkness [W ciemności] (2011) based on memo- ries of the Chiger family, hiding in the sewers of Lviv, Oscar winning Paweł Paw- likowski’s movie Ida (2013), a play based on history of Apolonia Starzec: Hideout/ Kryjówka (2015, directed by Paweł Passini, screenplay by Patrycja Dołowy), or the most recent The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017) movie based on memories of An- tonina Żabińska, who was sheltering Jews in the Warsaw ZOO. Therefore, my book still serves its purpose and is still needed. I would like to thank everybody who contributed to creation of this book, both the original version and translation. I apologize to everybody I have not mentioned. At the same time, I would like to stress that all the mistakes and inconsistencies in the book are my doing alone. In the acknowledgements, I go back in time to when my adventure with writ- ing and science was only just beginning. It all began in 2001–2003 at the Uni- versity of Warsaw, in the Institute of Polish Culture, where professors Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak conducted a seminar entitled Getto Warszawskie. Próba odczytania doświadczenia Holocaustu w kontekście historii i kultury Żydów [An attempt to comprehend the experience of the Holocaust in the context of his- tory and culture of the Jews]. I happened to attend these fascinating classes thanks to Małgorzata Preuss, whom I would like to cordially thank for contributing to a breakthrough in my professional life. Later I began studies at School of Social Sciences at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of Polish Academy of Sciences [PAN – Polska Akademia Nauk], where I have learnt everything that I know about sociology today. For that I wish to thank both all the professors lecturing there and my colleagues. The biggest and most important thanks should go to professor Barbara Engel- king. If it was not for her, we would not write this book, I would not know any- thing about the Shoah, and I would never begin my research. Each chapter of my doctoral dissertation, which was the base for the text of this book, received its final shape as a result of discussions during scientific semi- nars conducted by professor Barbara Engelking at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of PAN. Małgorzata Preuss, Alina Skibińska, Ewa Koźmińska- Frejlak, Marta Janczewska, Marta Pietrzykowska, Agnieszka Haska, Aleksandra Bańkowska, Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz, and Justyna Majewska participated in those seminars. I would like to thank them all for years of fascinating work to- gether, Joanna Wawrzyniak for the first critical reading of the book, and profes- sor Małgorzata Melchior and Elżbieta Tarkowska for the first reviews. I would like to thank Michał, Włodzimierz and Grażyna Strzelczyk who let me write this book in their hospitable home. 8 I wish to thank everybody who inspired me (often inadvertently), who sup- ported me and assisted in the writing process. Their influence can hardly be over- estimated. Lectures, conversations, readings, cooperation with them allowed me to write what I did. I want to especially thank Jean-Yves Potel, Piotr Filipkowski, and professor Joanna Tokarska-Bakir. I wish to thank all my friends, who stayed by me and motivated me to work. I would like to thank Anka Grupińska and all my colleagues from Centropa, Witness to the Jewish Century and Zapisywanie świata żydowskiego w Polsce [Re- cords on the Jewish world in Poland] of Museum of the History of Polish Jews pro- jects, especially my friends, Zofia Wieluńska and Magda Bizoń, and all the people whom I had the honor to interview within the frameworks of those projects.
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