Essays Commemorating Szmul Zygielbojm Edited by Michael Fleming
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Essays Commemorating Szmul Zygielbojm Edited by Michael Fleming Essays Commemorating Szmul Zygielbojm Essays Commemorating Szmul Zygielbojm Edited by Michael Fleming The Polish University Abroad, London Essays Commemorating Szmul Zygielbojm Edited by Michael Fleming The Polish University Abroad, London v © PUNO PRESS, 2018 Contents The Polish University Abroad, 238-246 King Street, London, W6 0RF, United Kingdom. Notes on Contributors vii E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)20 8846 9305 Introduction 1 Michael Fleming Printed and bound in Great Britain by CE Print Limited in Bristol. Message to the PUNO seminar 5 All rights reserved. No reproduction of any part of this publication may take Dr Arthur I. Zygielbaum and Paul S. Zygielbaum place without the written permission of PUNO PRESS. PUNO PRESS has no responsibility for the accuracy or continuation of The Struggle to Memorialise Zygielbojm in London 6 URLs of third-party internet websites referred to in this publication. David Rosenberg ‘I cannot be silent, and I cannot live’ – The Szmul Zygielbojm The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of the Warsaw Monument on the Memorial Route to the Struggle and work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. Martyrdom of the Jews 1940-1943 20 Halina Taborska ISBN: 978-0-9568839-7-1 Reflections on Mur (The Wall) (2002) 45 Mieczysława Wazacz Szmul Zygielbojm, Jan Karski and the news from Poland 50 Wojtek Rappak Zygielbojm in London: Labour, the Holocaust and the Politics of Memory 60 Michael Fleming Appendix – Workshop Programme 101 v © PUNO PRESS, 2018 Contents The Polish University Abroad, 238-246 King Street, London, W6 0RF, United Kingdom. Notes on Contributors vii E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)20 8846 9305 Introduction 1 Michael Fleming Printed and bound in Great Britain by CE Print Limited in Bristol. Message to the PUNO seminar 5 All rights reserved. No reproduction of any part of this publication may take Dr Arthur I. Zygielbaum and Paul S. Zygielbaum place without the written permission of PUNO PRESS. PUNO PRESS has no responsibility for the accuracy or continuation of The Struggle to Memorialise Zygielbojm in London 6 URLs of third-party internet websites referred to in this publication. David Rosenberg ‘I cannot be silent, and I cannot live’ – The Szmul Zygielbojm The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of the Warsaw Monument on the Memorial Route to the Struggle and work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. Martyrdom of the Jews 1940-1943 20 Halina Taborska ISBN: 978-0-9568839-7-1 Reflections on Mur (The Wall) (2002) 45 Mieczysława Wazacz Szmul Zygielbojm, Jan Karski and the news from Poland 50 Wojtek Rappak Zygielbojm in London: Labour, the Holocaust and the Politics of Memory 60 Michael Fleming Appendix – Workshop Programme 101 vi vii Notes on Contributors Michael Fleming is a professor of history and vice-director of the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad, London. His recent publications include Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust (2014); Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944-1950 (2010). Wojtek Rappak was born in Gdańsk and studied philosophy and history in Canada, Warsaw, Paris and London. He has a doctorate from the University of London for research into the foundations of logic and the early philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is a Reader in history in the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad in London and heads the Unit of Contemporary British Culture. He is currently completing a post-doctoral history research project at University College London on Jan Karski. David Rosenberg was born in London in 1958. His grandparents came to the East End as Jewish immigrants from the Tsarist Russian Empire in the 1900s. David divides his working time between adult education teaching, training teachers, working on educational and cultural projects, writing, giving talks and guiding people on radical history walks. As a teacher and educationalist he has participated in projects in Uganda, South Africa and India. His writing on history and current affairs has featured on several Channel 4 websites and in many print publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Red Pepper, Morning Star and Time Out. He is the author of Battle for the East End: Jewish Responses to Fascism in the 1930s (2011) and Rebel Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Radical History (2015). He has a longstanding commitment to Yiddish – the mother tongue of many of the East End’s Jewish immigrants. David blogs at https://rebellion602.wordpress.com Halina Taborska is the director of the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad. She joined the university in 2002 as head of the Contemporary British Culture Unit before becoming the university’s pro-rector (deputy chancellor) (2007-2011) and later rector (vice-chancellor) (2011 to 2017). Between 1966 and 1998 she was an academic teacher and researcher in London in the fields of aesthetics, the history of art, the history of ideas, and contemporary public art. She vii Notes on Contributors Michael Fleming is a professor of history and vice-director of the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad, London. His recent publications include Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust (2014); Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944-1950 (2010). Wojtek Rappak was born in Gdańsk and studied philosophy and history in Canada, Warsaw, Paris and London. He has a doctorate from the University of London for research into the foundations of logic and the early philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is a Reader in history in the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad in London and heads the Unit of Contemporary British Culture. He is currently completing a post-doctoral history research project at University College London on Jan Karski. David Rosenberg was born in London in 1958. His grandparents came to the East End as Jewish immigrants from the Tsarist Russian Empire in the 1900s. David divides his working time between adult education teaching, training teachers, working on educational and cultural projects, writing, giving talks and guiding people on radical history walks. As a teacher and educationalist he has participated in projects in Uganda, South Africa and India. His writing on history and current affairs has featured on several Channel 4 websites and in many print publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Red Pepper, Morning Star and Time Out. He is the author of Battle for the East End: Jewish Responses to Fascism in the 1930s (2011) and Rebel Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Radical History (2015). He has a longstanding commitment to Yiddish – the mother tongue of many of the East End’s Jewish immigrants. David blogs at https://rebellion602.wordpress.com Halina Taborska is the director of the Institute of European Culture at The Polish University Abroad. She joined the university in 2002 as head of the Contemporary British Culture Unit before becoming the university’s pro-rector (deputy chancellor) (2007-2011) and later rector (vice-chancellor) (2011 to 2017). Between 1966 and 1998 she was an academic teacher and researcher in London in the fields of aesthetics, the history of art, the history of ideas, and contemporary public art. She viii viii 1 has lectured as a guest speaker or visiting professor at universities in Introduction Great Britain, the United States and Poland. Her current research and Michael Fleming writing is focused on public monuments commemorating civilian victims of the Second World War and on contemporary public art in Szmul Zygielbojm was a Jewish socialist and a leading figure of European cities. The latter is examined in the wider context of urban the General Jewish Workers’ Union – the Bund. Between March 1942 planning, new or regenerated architecture, and its impact on city culture and May 1943 he served as one of two Jewish representatives on the and civic open spaces. Her publications include (in Polish National Council. The Polish National Council was the English): Monuments of Fighting Warsaw (1995), Current Issues in consultative body of the Polish Government in Exile that was based in Public Art (1998), Contemporary Public Art and Architecture London from 1940. Prior to the Second World War Zygielbojm had (1999); (in Polish): Współczesna sztuka publiczna. Dzieła i problemy been a councillor in Warsaw and later in Łódź. Following the German (1996), Nowy Londyn – miasto i jego sztuka publiczna (2004), Miasto, invasion, Zygielbojm was sworn in as a councillor in Warsaw once które nie zginęło: Ludność Cywilna Warszawy 1939-1945 i pomniki jej more. He was among those Warsaw councillors taken hostage by the poświęcone (2014). Germans to ensure that the city complied with German demands. In the first months of the German occupation Zygielbojm protested against Mieczysława Wazacz trained as a filmmaker at the Polish Film School German plans to establish a ghetto in Warsaw and was forced to escape in Lodz. She is the author of critically acclaimed collections of short Poland. He reached the United States in early 1940 where he stayed stories published in her native Poland and in London. Wazacz is also a until he was asked, in February 1942, by the Polish Government in playwright, scriptwriter and filmmaker. She has worked for Polish films Exile to join the Polish National Council. Zygielbojm arrived in and television before settling in the UK. Her television play Russian London in late March 1942. Roulette about the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky was produced by ITV and Zygielbojm tirelessly sought to draw attention to the situation of starred Freddie Jones. Her plays Marathon and The Flower of the War Jews in German-occupied Poland.