“Polonia,” the largest ship of the line that travels from Poland and Vienna to Haifa and Tel Aviv, ca. 1936. Poster, The Central Zionist Archive. Courtesy of POLIN Museum.

Volume 26, No. 3 Gazeta Fall/Winter 2019

A quarterly publication of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Editorial & Design: Tressa Berman, Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Shana Penn, Antony Polonsky, Adam Schorin, Agnieszka Ilwicka, William Zeisel, LaserCom Design.

CONTENTS Message from Irene Pipes ...... 2 Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn ...... 3

FEATURES The Rise of Populism and the Threat to History Antony Polonsky ...... 4 The Legacy of Regina Lilientalowa: Ethnographer and Scholar Dorota Liliental ...... 9

COMMENTARY Michał Bilewicz’s Professorship Antony Polonsky ...... 13

NEWS REPORTS The Case against Jan Tomasz Gross is Dropped Antony Polonsky ...... 15 Chabad Regains Use of Kraków Synagogue Rabbi Avi Baumol ...... 17 Leadership Change in the Union of Jewish Religious Communities ...... 18 Warsaw’s Great Synagogue Brought Back to Life with Miniature Model Juliette Bretan ...... 19 Archive without Borders: Korczak Digital Archive Jerry Nussbaum ...... 21 YIVO Receives the Archive of Nachman Blumental ...... 23 Holocaust Sites in Lviv: Virtual Tour ...... 25 More than Holocaust: Bringing Jewish History to the Polish Classroom Edward Serrota ...... 26

ANNOUNCEMENTS BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS Borderland: On Reviving Culture By Dorota Sieroń-Galusek and Łukasz Galusek ...... 28 Polanim: From Poland to Israel By Karolina Przewrocka-Aderet ...... 29 Studying Hasidism: Sources, Methods, Perspectives By Marcin Wodziński ...... 30 Eternity Now: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and Temporality By Wojciech Tworek ...... 31 Volume 32 of Polin: “Jews and Music-Making in the Polish Lands” Antony Polonsky ...... 32

EXHIBITIONS a tsigele: one little goat. El Lissitzky’s Chad Gadyo at 100: (1919-2019) Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Francesco Spagnolo ...... 34 Gdynia–Tel Aviv at POLIN Museum ...... 36 From Home to Home at Galicia Jewish Museum Tomasz Strug ...... 38

CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS There’s No Yiddish Culture without Women Froyen Vinkl Seminar, Center for Yiddish Studies Katarzyna Markusz ...... 40 GEOP Conference: Jews against Nazi Germany during World War II at POLIN Museum Krzystof Persak ...... 42 Conference on The Great Power and Poland, 1919–2019, at University of Warsaw Antony Polonsky ...... 43 Symposium on Silesian Synagogues: A Thousand-Year History that Disappeared in One Night ...... 44 Annual Conference of Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), San Francisco ...... 45 Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), San Diego ...... 46 GEOP News ...... 47

AWARDS AND APPLICATIONS Olga Tokarczuk Receives 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature ...... 48 Roberta Grossman and Samuel Kassow Honored at YIVO ...... 49 Joanna Lisek Awarded Gieworski and Shmeruk Prize ...... 50 Yiddish Book Center Fellowships ...... 51 YIVO Opens Fellowship Applications ...... 52

ANNIVERSARIES 75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau ...... 53 Remembering Marek Edelman in 2019 ...... 54

OBITUARY Przemysław “Yosl” Piekarski: Yiddish Guru of Krakόw Agi Legutko ...... 56

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 1 President, American Association Message from for Polish-Jewish Studies

Irene Pipes Founder of Gazeta

Dear Members and Friends,

I am happy to let you know that on November 4, 2019, at the Collegium Novum of Jagiellonian University, Joanna Lisek was awarded the Józef A. Gierowski and Chone Shmeruk Prize for the best scholarly publication in the field of the history and culture of the Jews in Poland for her book, Kol Isze. Głos kobiet w poezji jidysz, od XVI w. do 1939 r (Kol Ishe. The Voice of Women in Yiddish Poetry from the 16th Century to 1939). This prize was established by the Institute of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University and the Department of Jewish Culture and History at the Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin in cooperation with Irene Pipes the Marcel and Maria Roth Foundation. (Please see pp. 50-51 of this issue of Gazeta for a detailed announcement of this event.)

On September 22, the second Jewish Roots Workshop was organized at the JW3 Jewish Center in London by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies. Its theme was how the understanding of genealogy can illuminate the fate of Jewish families during the Holocaust and help to locate long-lost relatives.

Also in September, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry produced its volume on Jews and music-making in the Polish lands. The volume will launch in January 2020 at a conference at the Polish embassy, where the main themes of the volume will be discussed. It will be followed by a concert given by Katy Carr, an award-winning British singer who has made a career performing Polish popular songs from the inter-war period to World War II.

We congratulate our colleagues on their achievements and look forward to the upcoming year’s events. Wishing you all the best for the festive season,

Irene Pipes President

2 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Message from Chairman and Executive Director, Tad Taube and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life Shana Penn & Culture

The feature stories in this issue of Gazeta make frequent use of two words—memory and history—that have great meaning for Jews everywhere, but especially those of the Polish lands and their descendants in the diaspora. We hold in memory thoughts about people and places that are part of our being and help make us who we are. We pass the legacy of memories to the next generation through history, which is our narrative of ourselves and our heritage.

To see how these two words play out, consider the feature article by Antony Polonsky analyzing the rise of political populism in Europe Tad Taube and its attempt to rewrite history for partisan ends. When memory and history become subservient to political dreams of creating national and ethnic solidarity, the study of history suffers, argues Polonsky, and with it possibly the position of Jews and others. Very different is the use of memory and history in our other feature article, which shows what carefully and sensitively deployed thinking can create. Author Dorota Liliental, an actress by profession, explains how she applied empathy and imagination to the writings of her great-grandmother, giving humanity and personality to someone whom she had previously known only as a name.

Fortunately, we have aids and safeguards for the use of memory and historical imagination, such as the actual remains of what happened— Shana Penn objects, documents, images. This issue of Gazeta offers many notices about such aids, such as the project to digitize the Dr. Janusz Korczak archives in Vancouver and the recent public showing of a prized, century- old Jewish artwork at The Magnes Collection in Berkeley, to mention just two. Aids to memory and history help us stay on the path of truth while revealing the remarkable creativity, determination, and humanity of our forebears.

Tad Taube and Shana Penn Chairman and Executive Director

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 3 FEATURES

The Rise of Populism and the Antony Polonsky Threat to History

Memory is blind to all but the groups it binds. History, on the other hand, belongs to everyone and no one, hence its claim to universal authority. —Pierre Nora

n August 1939, Shimon Dubnow wrote a letter Ito the editors of the Paris- based Yiddish monthly Oyfn sheydveg with the title “What Participants in the 2018 Independence March wave Polish flags, ONR flags, Should One Do In Haman’s Forza Nuova flags, and Italian flags. ONR is the National Radical Camp—a far- Times?”1 He singled out two right movement in Poland that takes its name from a pre-WWII fascist group. aspects of the crisis with Photograph by Jacek Smoter. Used with permission. which the Jewish world was of extermination,” which he achievements of scholarship confronted. The first was what described as a new version of in documenting where Jews he described as the “counter- Haman’s plan “to destroy, to are to be located in the long revolution,” the attempt to slay, and to cause to perish, history of Europe and how undo the achievements of all Jews.” Obviously, the the success and failures of the French Revolution and situation we face today is not integration and acculturation its successors in laying the comparable to that of 1939. should be evaluated. This foundations for the system However, we are seeing the has gone along with attempts of constitutional, liberal, widespread undermining of to rewrite the history of the and democratic states. The democratic principles and Holocaust so as to diminish second was Hitler’s “system the triumph of an illiberal the responsibility of what populism in Europe and Raul Hilberg has described 1 S. Dubnow, “Vos darf men to in homen’s tsaytn? A briv tsu der beyond. We are also seeing as “bystanders,” a not always redakstiye fun Oyfn Sheydveg.” Oyfn Sheydveg 2 (August 1939), 3-7. an attempt to undermine the appropriate term.

4 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 The rise of populism has The rise of populism has the 1980s, the debate over a number of roots. In the been accompanied by Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, and first place, it is a reaction an attack on history as a against the Reagan- and that between Martin Broszat Thatcher-era marketization scholarly discipline. and Saul Friedländer on the and globalization since validity of survivor testimony. being made in understanding the 1970s. In East-Central The research they produced the origins and character of Europe, it is characterized by has greatly clarified the the genocide which the Nazis a distaste for those who have problems of how the Nazis perpetrated during World War profited from the introduction came to power, the nature of II against the Jewish people. of market reforms after the the regime they established, This research was often collapse of communism in and how they came to adopt accompanied by acrimonious the area. It is also linked with and implement their anti- debates that have only been a national identity politics. Jewish genocide. Analogous possible in situations where It is everywhere a reaction attempts to “overcome the the political culture permitted against so-called liberal past” have been undertaken a public reckoning with the elites—from Trump’s America most notably in France and more dubious aspects of the to Kaczyński’s Poland and in the Netherlands, Belgium, national past, and where there Bolsonaro’s Brazil—that are Austria, and Switzerland, and was a high level of acceptance perceived by their opposition elsewhere in Western and of the practice of national as lacking in patriotism. Central Europe. self-criticism. However, these Linked with this has been exchanges seemed to have led In East-Central Europe, such the fear of immigration and to some degree of consensus. debates, with one exception, its associated xenophobia. Not surprisingly, they have that of Poland, only really It is also clear that the new gone furthest in Germany, began in 1989–91 with the legitimacy that authoritarian first in the Federal Republic collapse of communism in regimes enjoy — from Putin’s and subsequently in the united the region. In the Polish case, Russia to Xi’s China—has Germany established in 1989. a debate on the question of undermined the attractiveness Starting with the controversy the responsibility of the local of the liberal democratic aroused by publication of population for the fate of the model in much of the Fritz Fischer’s Griff nach der Jews in the Nazi genocide developing world. Weltmacht in 1961, German did begin immediately after The rise of populism has been historians have undertaken a the war, but was stifled by accompanied by an attack thorough and complex re- the imposition of a rigidly on history as a scholarly examination of their country’s Stalinist regime in 1947, discipline. Until recently, it past, which culminated and resumed in the 1980s. seemed that real progress was in the Historikerstreit of Elsewhere, both in the states

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 5 which during war were allied The debate among and often competing groups with the Nazis and in those historians offers the in which understandings areas where no state-level best chance to move of the past may differ, and collaborationist regimes were in which a reckoning with established by the Nazis, such the historical facts the negative aspects of the as Lithuania, Belarus, and forward, beyond the national history is necessary Ukraine, discussion of this interpretations of politics. for building a pluralistic, complex topic only began outward looking, and tolerant in earnest after the end of offers the best chance to move polity. It sees the nation as communism. Since then there the historical facts forward, something which emerged in has been considerable dispute beyond the interpretations particular circumstances and about the role of General Ion of politics. In northeastern whose identity can change Antonescu in Romania and Europe, after the collapse of over time. The other view is Father Tiso in Slovakia, as the community system, the centered on the nation and well as the conduct of the Nazi first stage of approaching such the community of which it is satellite regimes in Hungary issues has genearally been composed, which is seen as and Croatia. There has also from a moral point of view— primordial and transcending been a good deal of debate in a settlement of long-overdue the individuals of which Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania accounts, often accompanied it is comprised. As Pierre (and rather less in Ukraine by apologies for past behavior. Nora has argued, this can be and Belarus) about the In this now second stage, framed as a conflict between participation of local militias focus is increasingly placed history and memory. And and nationalist partisans in the on careful and detailed as Brian Porter-Szűcs puts mass murder of Jews. research based on archives forward in the Polish case, this is why history is vitally These internal national and reliable first-hand important for the ruling Law debates have often been very testimony. Unfortunately, this and Justice Party (Prawo I vigorous, and extend beyond approach to history has been Sprawiedliwość, PiS), for national borders, especially challenged of late on political which it is “the biography of among Poles, Lithuanians, grounds. What is needed is the national community and Belarusians, and Ukrainians. to find some common ground the source of the traditions and They have highlighted the through ongoing public and values that hold everything common problems in these scholarly examination of together.”2 As it came under four countries, as they come the facts. The conflict is, to terms with the “dark past” however, more deep-rooted and reflects a clash between 2 Brian Porter-Szűcs, “Meritocracy and that hangs as a shadow of Community in Twenty-First-Century shame, guilt, and regret. The two views of society. One sees Poland.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 37, 1 debate among historians society as made up of different (Spring 2019), 87.

6 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 PiS control, the Institute for Many scholars in the What was lacking [in the National Memory defined countries of Eastern scholarly historiography] the goal of historical study in Europe have made was a clear, unambiguous 2016 as follows: account that was sanctified a contribution to a by public commemorations, Historical policy refers to nuanced, archival- evoked in lofty speeches, the interpretation of facts, immortalized in inspiring lives, and events and is based and dispassionate films and novels, and above assessed according to the account of the difficult all taught to everyone interests of the society and problems of the in school. PiS wants to the nation, as an element Holocaust. We need to establish a canon of stories that has a long-range that everyone knows, character and constitutes continue to pursue this that everyone evokes to the foundation of state approach and to find identify the good guys policies. Historical policy is ways of reaching a wider, and the bad guys, that a type of history that serves transnational audience. everyone treats with to shape the historical solemnity and reverence consciousness of society, those factors that must never as the unquestioned and including economic and be contested or debated. To unchanging core of their territorial consciousness, as quote Porter-Szűcs again: shared identity.4 well as to strengthen public discourse about the past in The supporters of PiS Official custodians of memory the direction of nurturing complain about historical in Lithuania and Ukraine, national bonds regardless of accounts that refuse to such as the Genocide and the momentary policies of clearly identify who is a Resistance Research Centre the state.3 hero and who a villain, of Lithuania and the Centre who a victim and who a for Research of Liberation The issue here is not historical perpetrator, who a martyr Movement in Ukraine, are truth as such; instead, history and who an oppressor. also committed to this concept is important because it is the When historians say (as we of history and enjoy some “long-range … foundation are inclined to do) that our support from their respective of state policies.” It is those scholarship should reveal governments. The same stories that a community tells the complexities, nuances, process can be observed in and retells in order to establish and multiple perspectives Belarus, although it is less a bond between generations of the past, we are directly pronounced and often takes a and to teach young people repudiating the role that PiS neo-Soviet form. In Germany, what “we” believe—one of believes we should play . . . 3 Quoted in ibid., 87. 4 Ibid., 87-88.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 7 the more liberal concept of of “conceptualization,” historical scholarship does which helps to explain the seem to be holding its own, complex, complicated, and but is also under fire. This contradictory nature of the is not the only challenge we Holocaust and how it can be face. More moderate critics studied as a transnational and of what one can describe as European process. In addition, “critical history” have claimed we need to take as a model it devotes excessive attention in our analysis the notion of to the “dark past” of the an “integrated history,” as Holocaust and the suffering of practiced by Saul Friedländer. the Jews, in particular. Our goal should be to To respond effectively to encourage scholarship based this new intellectual climate on a wide range of sources, in the context of the general from a variety of points rise of populism will not of view and in different be easy. One would like to locations, that will ultimately believe that there is a reverse make possible a degree of Gresham’s law in historical normalization in the attitudes scholarship: that good history of Poles, Lithuanians, will drive out the bad. There Belarusians, and Ukrainians are many scholars in the to the now disputed past, countries of Eastern Europe and to their relations with who have made a contribution their Jewish neighbors and to a nuanced, archive-based, citizens. n and dispassionate account of the difficult problems Antony Polonsky, PhD, is of the Holocaust. We need Chief Historian of POLIN to continue to pursue this Museum of the History of approach and to find ways of Polish Jews. reaching a wider, transnational audience. It will show how similar situations gave rise to similar reactions, and that the issue is not one of a unique “national guilt.” Also useful is the notion

8 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 The Legacy of Regina Lilientalowa: Ethnographer and Scholar Dorota Liliental

egina (Gitla) Lilientalowa (1875-1924)—an Rethnographer, publicist, history teacher in a school for Jewish girls, mother of two, and a female intellectual among male scholars—was my great-grandmother. Her many books included Jewish Superstitions, Jewish Betrothal and Wedding, Beliefs, Superstitions and Practices of the Jews, Jewish Legends on the Exodus from Egypt, The Jewish Child, and three volumes of Jewish Holidays, in the Past and Present. Thanks to the books she has written, the rituals, fables, legends, songs and proverbs of the world that seemed to have been Regina and Natan Liliental. expunged by Shoah can be Courtesy of Dorota Liliental. revived today. of my Jewish friends grew best to camouflage their Jewish Ninety-five years have passed up not knowing they were identity. Their aim was not to since my great-grandmother Jewish. After the wave of make us feel different from the died. There was a time in anti-Semitism in 1968, many rest of the society. All in vain. my life when I hardly knew Jews were forced to leave The silence around us made anything about her. Perhaps Poland. Jewish families who us ask questions, search, and because, even though I knew stayed tried not to “stigmatize” slowly fill in the void. my family was Jewish, there children. Adults were not eager I was lucky to have a great- were still many taboos in to tell us about the atrocities grandmother who was well- our conversations. Some of the war. They also did their

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 9 known and who authored Lilientalowa often Alter, her mother’s brother. books and publications. Many referred to her own Amulets of this kind, with the of her works survived in Hebrew letter “he” on it, and experience from archives, including private a fragment of a psalm on the letters and photographs that childhood. For example, other side, used to be given by had been sent overseas in the in The Jewish Child she mothers to their children. mid-1920s. I know what she recalled a Purim shpiel My great-grandmother looked like. performance that she saw translated a collection of Jewish While most of my other as a thirteen-year-old girl songs and tkhines (women’s relatives perished without a prayers) into Polish. She was trace, my great-grandmother in Sandomierz. one of the first translators of left an amazing heritage. It has stories written by Isaac Leib rituals play an important role, become of great importance Peretz, the “father of Yiddish I “ask” my great-grandmother to me, not only as a source literature” in Poland. Among questions. Her books have of precious knowledge, but Jewish writers, she treasured become an important point of foremost as a determinant of him the most. Since her early reference. I now feel included my own identity. Thanks to youth, she belonged to the in the bloodline of my Jewish her, I have become familiar close circle clustered around religion and culture. with the culture of my Jewish him and was often invited to ancestors, with their rituals Regina Lilientalowa was born his home for Shabbat. She and traditions, and with in 1875 in a little town called believed that Peretz had a the way their national self- Zawichost near Sandomierz. profound sensitivity to the fate awareness transformed over She was the eldest of nine of the Jewish people, to their the years—something that my siblings, and she was raised sorrows, joys, and longings. relatives, perhaps with the in a traditional home. Her She also believed that legends, exception of my aunt living in father, Moses, was the great- fables, superstitions, proverbs, Israel, were no longer able to grandson of an outstanding rites, and songs were the key pass on to me. Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Akiva to understanding the spirit of the Jewish nation. And Thanks to my great- Eger. In her works, Regina thus, she wanted to reach grandmother, the world that often referred to her childhood the hearts of Polish readers existed before the Shoah is experiences. For example, in The Jewish Child through his literature, believing no longer an empty space to , she recalled that it would help eliminate me. It has been brought back a Purim-spiel performance that antagonisms between the to life. When I want to invite she saw as a thirteen-year-old nations. friends for Rosh Hashana or girl in Sandomierz. On another occasion, she described an for a seder, when I act in films Witnessing the escalation of amulet worn by her uncle in which Jewish traditions and anti-Semitism, Regina thought

10 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 she could do something to Lilientalowa believed I also admire her courage, her prevent the exodus of Jews to that the legends, fables, progressive and independent Palestine. At the same time, superstitions, proverbs, views, her unsatiated and she wanted to prove that the inquisitive mind. It is worth repressed Yiddish language rites and songs were emphasizing that she avoided could be used for sophisticated the key to understanding following the pattern that literary creativity. She the spirit of the Jewish was typical of other Jewish considered Yiddish culture to girls who had received their nation. be equal to others. According education at Polish schools. to her, the true representatives assimilators questioned the Many of them felt lost after of that culture were the sense of Yiddish culture, returning to their shtetls, and common Jewish people, not the blaming it for condemning the they often ended up marrying assimilated Jews. In 1905 she Jewish people to cultural and Polish men. Such marriages wrote a courageous manifesto economic exclusion. According implied access to higher of her views, “It’s Time...”, to them, religion, and praying financial status, a more affluent which was published in the in Hebrew, should be the only life, and upward mobility, but 26th and 27th issues of Ogniwo factors distinguishing Jews eventually it meant cutting magazine. In it she criticized from Poles. ties with families through attempts to enforce foreign, assimilation. allegedly higher, standards Most of her life, Regina At the time that my great- on Jews, depriving them of struggled with poor health and grandmother was growing their own identity. Three financial difficulties. She was up, neither religious nor years before the Czernowitz the mother of two children and secular Jewish schools for Conference, she demanded worked as a history teacher girls existed. It was before respect and recognition for in a Jewish school for girls. Sara Shenirer founded Beis Yiddish as the language that Despite many duties (though Yaakov schools for girls. And truly expressed the Jewish soul as we know from some letters, so, nine-year-old Gitla Eger and intellect. At the same time, she hated cooking), she used was the only Jewish girl in her she assured Polish readers to spend long hours in the class at the progymnasium in that distinctiveness did not library on Tłomackie Street or Sandomierz. It was there that signify animosity. Instead, in her home office, studying she became known as Regina she claimed, getting to know and collecting material for to the non-Jewish world. another culture through its new works. folklore could be an enriching When I think about my great- She married my great- experience. grandmother, I am impressed grandfather, Natan (Nuchim) Liliental in an Orthodox Her article ignited a lot of with her diligence, her thirst synagogue in Szczebrzeszyn, controversies, even among for knowledge, her command and shortly thereafter, she Jews themselves. The of many foreign languages. But

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 11 moved to Warsaw, where I admire her courage, having respect for their past, she pursued her education, her progressive and to eternalize things that have auditing classes at the “Flying gone by. One must hurry to do independent views, University.” The lectures for so, since the field of Jewish women were held at private her unsatiated and folklore is almost intact, and homes, since the Czarist inquisitive mind. life erases the old traditions authorities in partitioned step by step,” she wrote in the Poland did not allow them to of an ill-fated surgery. She was preface to Jewish Holidays. study. At first, Regina became at the peak of her creativity, at The rich and fascinating fascinated with Polish folklore. work on the fourth volume of Ashkenazi culture she For a while it seemed that Jewish Holidays, and had just immortalized in her books is she had become immersed begun working in collaboration still an open space. Exploring in Polish culture for good. with the magazine Yidishe it, protecting and continuing However, there was one Filologye (Yiddish Philology). it means overcoming the professor who inspired her Her text, Ayin ha-ra (Heb. The evil done by the Shoah. That to do research on the culture Evil Eye) was published a few culture is like regained life of her own nation. His name months after her death. Jacob that we can pass on to the next was Ludwik Krzywicki and he Szacki (Yankev Shatzky), one generations. As Lilientalowa’s was a sociologist, but also a Lilientalowa considered great-granddaughter, I feel socialist, sensitive to issues of responsible for preserving it. n poverty and social inequality. the status of the Yiddish culture to be equal Dorota Liliental, an actress As a result of her studies, to others. living in Warsaw, is the great- Regina started to look at granddaughter of Regina the rites she knew from her of the founders of YIVO in Lilientalowa. She recently childhood from a more secular New York, called her the only played the role of Halina in and sociological perspective, woman talmid khochem Roberta Grossman’s feature and then dedicated her life to (in Hebrew, an honorific given documentary Who Will Write documenting Jewish folklore as to men who are religious Our History? a valuable cultural and historical scholars and well-versed in contribution. Influenced Jewish law) in a posthumous by leftist perspectives, she article published in New York remained nonetheless faithful on January 7, 1925, titled to her shtetl, and through “Der tod fun a yidene talmid her books she became an khochem” (The Death of a ambassador for it. Female Religious Scholar). Regina passed away on “It is an obligation for all the December 4, 1924, as a result Jews and every other nation,

12 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 COMMENTARY Antony Polonsky Michal/ Bilewicz’s Professorship

his essay offers professor in Poland) had as background to reports in its theme “The Psychological Tthe press in October of this Conditioning of Polish- year that President Andrzej Jewish Relations. Inter-Group Duda is holding up the award Contact, Collective Moral of a professorship to Michał Emotions and the Scapegoat Bilewicz, a leading Polish Mechanism.” His impressive social psychologist in the list of publications includes Department of Sociology at several co-edited books, the University of Warsaw. among them Uprzedzenia w Professor Bilewicz has Polsce (Prejudices in Poland, Professor Michał Bilewicz. Courtesy investigated conspiracy of Humanity in Action. 2015). He has been one of the theories, the roots of prejudice Wikimedia Commons. organizers of studies of the and xenophobia, and The only responsibility emergence of hate speech in intergroup conflict in Poland, of the President is to sign Poland, both in relation to gay Germany, Armenia, Israel, and lesbian rights and anti- the decision reached. and Bosnia. At the university Semitism. he is Director of the Center at the New School for Social On March 13, 2018, he gave a for the Study of Prejudice. He Research in New York, and in lecture as part of a conference is also Deputy Chair of the 2015 he was awarded the prize at POLIN Museum of the Psychology Committee of the of the Polish National Center History of Polish Jews on the Polish Academy of Sciences for Scholarship (Narodowe fiftieth anniversary of the anti- and a member of the board of Centrum Nauki) in the human Zionist campaign in Poland, the International Society for and social sciences and art. which led to the emigration of Political Psychology. His doctoral thesis was titled at least 13,000 Polish Jews. Bilewicz is Vice-President “Between the Need for a His theme was “The Epidemic of Forum for Dialogue, the Positive Identity and That of of Hate Speech. How Near largest and oldest Polish Collective Auto-Verification. to March ’68 Are We?” This nongovernmental organization Reactions to Threats to the made him the target of attacks engaged in Polish-Jewish Status of One’s Own Group,” from right-wing publicists, dialogue. From 2005 to 2006, and his habilitation thesis among them Krzysztof Bosak, he held a Fulbright scholarship (required for promotion to full one of the leaders of the

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 13 National Movement, and Artur the past few days is alarming. Excellence. Bilewicz has Warzocha i Rafał Ślusarz, both Professor Bilewicz’s speech passed this hurdle. senators of the ruling Law was evaluated by politicians The only responsibility of and Justice Party. In a public who criticized his research the President is to sign the statement they asked: “What because it did not serve Polish decision reached. Although he steps does the Minister of raison d’état. I regard this cannot veto such a decision, Culture and National Heritage as the complete negation it appears he can delay it intend to take to bring to an of everything which we indefinitely. In a letter to end this debate which harms understand by academic Bilewicz, the President’s Poland? Is the representative freedom, the freedom to chancellery wrote, “The of the Minister of Culture on conduct research.” regulations [for awarding the Council of the Museum To understand the situation, professorships] do not lay conscious of events like the one needs to remember down a time limit [for the lecture of Professor Michał that there are two types President’s signature].” Bilewicz where dubious of professorships in One can only hope this delay scholarly theories like Poland: institutional and is caused by the pressure of ‘secondary antisemitism’ presidential. Someone who business and is not politically are expounded?” Bilewicz has successfully submitted motivated. n had used the term secondary a habilitation thesis, as did antisemitism to describe the Bilewicz, is entitled to an negative reaction of some in institutional professorship. Poland to arguments that some The award of the title Poles had aided the Nazis in “professor” is also an honor murdering Jews. conferred by the President Bilewicz’s right to express and is the highest rank in his views was upheld by academia. The President is Professor Marcin Pałys, not responsible for granting Rector of the University of this award or evaluating the Warsaw, who gave an eloquent scholarly achievements of defense of academic freedom: an individual, which used “The role of scholarship is to be the responsibility of not to fulfill the expectations the Central Commission for of politicians but to seek the Academic Titles and Degrees, truth and to understand the and is now, after recent mechanisms which govern university reforms, handled our world. What happened in by the Council for Academic

14 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 NEWS REPORTS The Case against Jan Tomasz Gross Antony Polonsky is Dropped

n September 2015, Jan largest group of those who was being dropped. In taking Tomasz Gross, the had been decorated by Yad this action, the office had IPolish-born author of such Vashem in Israel as Righteous consulted the Commission important books about the among the Nations for their for the Prosecution of Crimes Holocaust and its aftermath as heroism in saving Jews during against the Polish Nation, Neighbors (Princeton, 2001), the war. However, during that the Historical Bureau of the Fear (Princeton, 2006), and war, they had also “killed Institute for National Memory, Golden Harvest (Princeton, more Jews than Germans.” the Department of History 2012), published an article, of the University of Silesia The statement was widely “The East Europeans Have in Katowice, and a number attacked in Poland, and the No Feeling of Shame,” in the of individuals. According to representative of the Polish online edition of the German her: “Their opinions show Foreign Ministry, Marian newspaper Die Welt. In it, that there are no unambiguous Wojciechowski, censured it as he argued that in the refugee and convincing figures on the “untrue, historically harmful crisis, which resulted from number of people of German and insulting to Poland.” After the civil war in Syria, the and Jewish nationality who the coming to power of the countries of the region had lost their lives as a result of government of the Law and shown themselves “intolerant, the actions of Poles during Justice Party in November illiberal and xenophobic,” and the Second World War. The 2015, the Public Prosecutor’s “incapable of remembering estimation of the number of Office in Katowice sought to the spirit of solidarity that victims remains a matter for prosecute Gross under Article carried them to freedom a investigation by historians and 133 of the Polish penal code, quarter-century ago.” This to the present arouses much which lays down that anyone failure to show compassion controversy and polemics of a “who publicly insults the for the refugees was a scholarly nature.” Polish Nation or the Polish consequence of the attitudes Republic may be subject A crucial factor in reaching this which prevailed in the area to a penalty of three years’ conclusion was the testimony “during the Second World War imprisonment.” provided by the historian Piotr and the subsequent years.” Gontarczyk, a leading right- Discussing the behavior of In late November of this wing publicist. He argued the Poles, he stated that they year, Marta Zawada-Dybak, that there do not exist reliable were “deservedly proud of spokesperson for this office, scholarly studies which could their society’s anti-Nazi announced that the prosecution confirm that during World War resistance,” and were the

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 15 II Poles killed more Jews than scholarly investigation. Given Germans. According to him, the scholarly character of his it is also not possible to state actions and also guarantees of unequivocally that such an a general character (gwarancji opinion is false. “The scholarly o charakterze powszechnym), world and public opinion he made use of the right to in Poland and abroad, as a freedom of speech to express matter of course [w oczywisty his opinion. sposób], regards this issue as Freedom of speech, Zawada- lying within the boundaries of Dybak continued, according scholarly debate.” to the Polish Constitutional Marta Zawada-Dybak went Tribunal and the European on to say that it was not the Court of Human Rights, is function of the Prosecutor’s not limited to the expression Office to resolve disputes of opinions which are of a historical character. In widely accepted or regarded his article, she noted, Gross with indifference, but had not intended to insult also includes those which the Polish nation nor the “insult, shock, disturb or Polish republic, which was arouse unease” (obrażają, a condition for prosecution szokują, przeszkadzają lub under Article 133. His wprowadzają niepokój). statement was part of a longer We welcome this decision and article which also highlighted the arguments used to justify the heroic behavior of Poles it, which underline the crucial during World War II. importance of open debate and Zawada-Dybak further noted tolerance for the functioning that from the investigation, of a pluralistic and democratic which also involved taking society. n statements from the author of the article, it was clear that he expressed his opinion on the responsibility of the Poles for the death of Jewish victims as a scholar, a historian, and sociologist with the aim of stimulating

16 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Chabad Regains Use of Kraków Synagogue Rabbi Avi Baumol

or the past three months the gmina’s president (and his it would take time and money, our world in Kraków has daughter, the vice-president) something the gmina had much Fbeen flipped upside down. that we viewed their actions of because of the revenue We woke up one day in July as egregious, that we would coming in from all the property to find out that the synagogue tell the world of the injustice they own and control. We, we had been praying in for against Jews in Kraków however, did not. years was locked, with armed, (ironically perpetrated by Three months have transpired, masked guards preventing Jews in Kraków!), and that we and it has not been easy. us from entering its doors. would not give up. When it We were maligned time and Orthodox Jews are obligated started to rain and the weather again, but we kept fighting. to pray three times a day in turned, we realized that We alerted the world, and the synagogue. It is a second although we were not giving specifically the Jewish world, home for the locals and a up, we were moving to a to the injustice taking place in lifeline for tourists who nearby catering hall, graciously Kraków, but we felt that while need a place to pray, learn, offered by its owner, Mr. there was much sympathy and and meet other Jews in the Berenholtz, a true tzaddik. pledges of encouragement, community. The leadership of At the same time that we were our efforts were seemingly the Jewish Gmina Żydowska pleading to the world to fight futile. We kept praying that (religious congregation in against the injustice—for as the Jewish year closed, and Kraków), which owns and which we received support our community felt much like controls all of the synagogues from presidents, chief rabbis, the Israelites wandering in the in the city (as well as all Jewish and non-Jewish leaders desert, we would somehow public Jewish property which all over the world—we also find a way back to our shul, to was restored to the Jews in pursued a legal course of the Izaak Synagogue, and pray Kraków), decided to lock us action in order to get the court there for Rosh Hashana. out of our synagogue along to acknowledge that what took with our prayer shawls, Wednesday morning, during place was not only unjust, it books, phylacteries, and Shacharit morning services was also illegal. Rabbi Gurary everything which was stored at the catering hall, Rabbi hired a lawyer from Warsaw, there for years. Gurary received a call from Mr. Giertych, who said our our lawyer, Mr. Giertych—a For the first few weeks we case was strong because it holiday miracle! The judge prayed in front of the bolted was true, and the truth should had ruled in our favor, the gates in silent protest to show prevail. He said, however, that

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 17 seizing of the synagogue by together, our Sefer Torah in gmina to include every Jew the gmina was unjust, and the hand, to pray the first prayer in the city, and return to be a court agreed with our claim in three months. We danced, shining city of Torah, Jewish that while there is a larger rejoiced, and thanked God for brotherhood, and peace. n ongoing court case about the the wonderful gift for For more on this story, synagogue, it was nevertheless our community. please visit: https://blogs. wrong to kick us out of our Let this sign join our Rosh timesofisrael.com/a-bright-day- house of prayer. Mr. Giertych Hashana symbols which for-jews-in-krakow/. was coming that day with the usher in the new year with court decision in hand sweetness, justice, godliness, Rabbi Avi Baumol is Emissary to present to the leadership and unity. And let us hope that of Shavei Israel in Kraków. of the gmina, instructing this remarkable event is just them to immediately give us the beginning of favorable back the keys and let us back decisions God grants us in our in our synagogue. On that quest to unite the entire Jewish day, the Jewish community community of Kraków, root of Poland had light, joy, out corruption, expand the happiness, and honor. We came

ANNOUNCEMENTS: IN BRIEF Leadership Change in the Union of Jewish Religious Communities

he board of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland (ZGWŻ) has announced a change in leadership. Klara Kołodziejska-Połtyn has replaced Monika Krawczyk as its Tnew chairwoman.

Kołodziejska-Połtyn was entrusted with this position in September 2019. She previously worked for the Jewish community in Wrocław, where she served as the community’s official chairperson since November 2018.

ZGWŻ organizes religious and cultural life for its members nationwide and helps Polish Jews in a variety of legal matters, both communal and personal, including representing them in the process of recovery and restitution of property. n

18 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Warsaw’s Great Synagogue Brought Back to Life with Miniature Model Juliette Bretan

rom the miniature Star of David on the tip of Fits roof, to the small crowd assembled around its feet, everything at the opening of Warsaw Miniature Park’s new model of the Great Synagogue felt pleasant and homey. But there was certainly more to the story than that. In the shadow of the miniature of the stocky, sprawling Saxon Palace, Thursday’s opening also meant Warsaw was united, once again, with its synagogue—and with the Jewish legacy in Poland. “We were living together once— Model of the Great Synagogue in the Warsaw Miniature Park. and maybe it’s possible once Courtesy of Park Miniatur. more,” says Konrad, a staff member at the park. “It’s an the 1:25 scale model could the synagogue’s once-famed extremely important building well become the jewel of the interior to peering guests, in Warsaw’s history.” Miniature Park’s collection where rows upon rows of too. As the balmy Warsaw unadorned wooden pews The forty-odd guests who dusk set in, above blossoming peered toward the podium. assembled in the park’s pilasters, the iridescent tiles But that gaping wall was courtyard to attend the official on the synagogue’s bulbous, also a clear reminder of the opening were met with the belvedere crown sparkled a destruction that the synagogue model of a building which captivating gold and bronze in had faced. Those truncated was not only once seen as an the setting sunlight. Around columns framing its core may architectural triumph, but also to the side, a yawning cut- have immediately brought to represented a golden age in out hole, trimmed with mind the still-standing carcass Polish-Jewish relations. And amputated columns, exposed of Warsaw’s Saxon Palace—

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 19 but they could also stand for It might have taken those 19th- Jews made up a third of the presence of Jewish people century builders three years to Warsaw’s population during in Poland and in Warsaw today. erect this bastion of Warsaw’s the inter-war era, and Jewish community, but even in the synagogue embraced In bygone times, the pews miniature, it was a painstaking assimilation between both beneath were once home to an year before construction was Poles and Jews in the city. extensive and talented Jewish completed. “The most difficult One day, it would host community. Today, they lie part of the process was to celebrations of state events, empty. It would also come as create a plan of the miniature, including the anniversary of no surprise that the outside because the building doesn’t regaining independence; the of the synagogue lacked exist anymore,” explains next, Christians alongside the spray of meticulously Konrad. But even their usual Jews would pile up the stairs, rendered miniature figures strategy to gather plans and framed by two oversized which feature in the park’s photographs of the original menorahs, and into the other models. Konrad, came across an immediate exquisite interior to hear what however, sees the building as snag. “The Germans was considered a legendary a symbol of the successes of destroyed the archive,” he choir. Along with the horrific Polish-Jewish activity. “It’s an says. “There are fragments, fate of Warsaw’s Jewish integral part of Polish history bits and pieces. You gather community, the synagogue was as well,” he says. In fact, them all together and it’s a bit bombed and destroyed on May when the synagogue opened like detective work.” 16, 1943. The park’s model on September 26, 1878, the brings something of the former Polish rabbi and preacher The result was detective history of this small segment Isaak Cylkow had implied work with a splash of of Warsaw—and of Warsaw’s similarly. The Progressive innovation: the model history—back to life. n community had funded the is the first in the park’s synagogue’s construction, collection to possess working Editor’s Note: This article which began in 1875. Its electricity. The miniscule, is excerpted from a longer design by prominent Polish Promethean globules of version which appeared in The architect Leandro Jan Marconi golden light mark a promising First News, Warsaw, reported was allegedly inspired by future for the park, ever- by journalist Juliette Bretan, the façade of Łazienki Park’s growing in popularity—but August 9, 2019. Reprinted Palace on the Isle. When more importantly, [they] here with permission. finished in 1878, it could showcase the significance seat 2,200. The Torah ark was of the synagogue within its built from cedar imported collection of key buildings from Lebanon. across Warsaw’s history.

20 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Archive without Borders: Korczak Digital Archive Jerry Nussbaum

anusz Korczak is one of Poland, and the Faculty of the true moral heroes of the Education at the University of J20th century. Born Henryk British Columbia, to establish Goldszmit, he was a Polish the Korczak Digital Archive. Jewish author, pediatrician, The archive will revolutionize and humanitarian; a trailblazer the availability and in the field of children’s rights; accessibility of Dr. Korczak’s and for decades, an orphanage writings in a free, digital director, whereby he put his online archive. The Korczak pedagogical philosophy into Digital Archive represents an practice. He died, as he lived, essential step in the mission alongside his children, at to broadly disseminate Dr. the hands of the Nazis in the Korczak’s legacy and to Treblinka concentration camp bring his writings to bear on in 1942. the challenges of today. Our Janusz Korczak with children. Courtesy of the Janusz Korczak Archive. recently published (2018) Dr. Korczak’s legacy is English translation of Dr. profound and remains Korczak’s most important influential. He was a scholars, practitioners, and the public. Although some writings writings is a great example pioneering advocate for of what should become children’s rights, and his are well known, countless others gather dust scattered widely available through the writings were integral to the Digital Archive. 1989 United Nations Charter in archives around the world for Children’s Rights. He also or remain untranslated and The Janusz Korczak lives on in Polish (and Polish therefore broadly unavailable. Association of Canada Jewish) culture. At Poland’s Until now. is uniquely positioned 2018 centennial independence In 2017, the Janusz Korczak to spearhead this critical celebrations, he was named Association of Canada undertaking. Founded one of the twenty-five most (JKAC) initiated a project and thirty years ago, it has influential Poles of the past assembled a consortium of become among the most century. Nevertheless, his organizations, including the active organizations that writings, which are so urgent Institute of History and the promote Dr. Korczak’s and relevant to pressing Digital Humanities Laboratory legacy, particularly to an issues of the current day, at the University of Warsaw, English-speaking audience, often remain inaccessible to The Korczak Foundation of translating and publishing

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 21 books, promoting academic We envision an active Korczak-related documents) research through scholarships, entity that will host in the world. It will not only hosting public lectures, provide a forum to access seminars, and symposia, and sponsor initiatives Korczak materials, but will and recently organizing such as scholarships, also enable a community the first university course conferences, lecture without borders. It will dedicated to Dr. Korczak’s initially operate in English and legacy at the University of series, and forums Polish and expand to other British Columbia. JKAC for discussion and languages over time. strives for the dissemination collaboration. of knowledge about Dr. Following the launch, the Korczak’s work and ideas also has a long track record consortium plans to build in order to better integrate of international collaboration the archive into more than them into contemporary in Canada and the United a passive repository for legal, social, and pedagogical States as well as in Poland and digital documents. Rather, theories, and to make them Israel, which are homes to the we envision an active the basis for cooperation majority of Korczak-related entity that will host and among educators, child archives and scholars. sponsor initiatives such as welfare workers, researchers, scholarships (including to We have already made physicians, lawyers, and review and update the archive), significant progress in children’s rights activists. conferences, lecture series, making the Korczak Digital With this in mind, we forge and forums for discussion Archive a reality, including close ties with organizations and collaboration. In sum, the development of its digital and individuals actively our vision is for the archive structure and securing the involved in child welfare, to serve as a vital resource to cooperation of several of the centered on key areas of Dr. bring new life to the works and leading archives that house Korczak’s pedagogy. The legacy of Dr. Janusz Korczak Dr. Korczak’s works. Once association, in cooperation for the benefit of all humanity. launched, the Korczak Digital with other institutions, Archive will immediately For more information about annually honors three become an indispensable the archives and Dr. Korczak’s outstanding activists in the resource for scholars and publications, lectures, and field of children’s rights, practitioners in the vanguard symposia based on his social work, or pediatrics. of children’s rights, as work, please contact www. A key feature at each award n well as the general public. januszkorczak.ca. ceremony is an introduction The archive, which will be to Dr. Korczak’s legacy and Jerry Nussbaum lives in universally accessible and free its relevance to contemporary Vancouver where he is the to use, will represent by far issues. These activities are president of the Janusz the largest digital collection made possible by the support Korczak Association of of Dr. Korczak’s writings (and of generous donors. JKAC Canada.

22 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 YIVO Receives the Archive of Nachman Blumental

he YIVO Institute for to be processed and preserved Nuremberg war crimes trials Jewish Research recently and shared with the world,” in 1945–46. Treceived the archive of said Jonathan Brent, CEO Blumental’s archive also noted historian, scholar, of YIVO. contains a number of unique and Holocaust survivor Blumental, who survived the and original Nazi documents, Nachman Blumental. Holocaust in the non-German such as materials he gathered The archive, which has not occupied part of the Soviet while investigating the been seen for more than Union, lost his first wife, murders of his wife and son by seventy years, “is a very Maria, and his three-year- the Blue Police (Polish officers significant addition to the old son, Ariel, and six of his who collaborated with the YIVO Holocaust collection,” seven siblings. After the war, Nazis), and songs and poetry said Dr. Stefanie Halpern, he traveled across Poland to from the ghettos, including Acting Director of the YIVO collect survivor testimony and many original documents from Archives, adding that the original German documents the Łódź ghetto. archive “is the largest North concerning ghettos, camps, The collection contains American repository of and sites of mass murder. He handwritten dictionary original documents on the served as an expert witness cards, in languages including Holocaust and is one of the in the trial of Rudolf Höss German, Yiddish, and most important of its kind in and Artur Liebehenschel, Polish, that formed part of the world.” both of whom served as Słowa niewinne (Innocent commandant of Auschwitz; Born in 1905 in Borszczów, Words), the dictionary Amon Göth, the SS officer Austria-Hungary, Nachman of German words that who commanded the Kraków- Blumental collected Blumental published after the Płaszów concentration camp; ethnographic and historical war. Blumental considered and other post-war trials documents for YIVO prior language the Nazi’s greatest against Nazi perpetrators. His to World War II and was a weapon, and his dictionary archive includes materials he member of the association documented how they used collected while in Poland and Friends of YIVO. “Given language as part of their documents about his work in Nachman’s early associations campaign to exterminate the the war trials. Some of the with YIVO, it is fitting that Jews. The dictionary is made materials he collected were his archive is now with YIVO up of words whose meaning used as evidence during the

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 23 shifted with Nazi usage, such For more information about as in the case of the Auschwitz this campaign, please contact concentration camp’s entry Elina Bloch, Director of and exit book, where “exit” Foundations and Grants, was used as a euphemism ebloch@yivo.cjh.org. for “murder.”

Blumental passed away in 1983. “The legacy of Nachman is in his understanding of the power and importance of memory and direct testimony in comprehending the horrors of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust,” said Brent. The collection was donated to YIVO by Blumental’s son, Miron Blumental. “I did not wish my father’s personal archive, a product of decades of intensive and emotional work, to be shut in a dark room,” he said. “I wanted it to be preserved and used by researchers everywhere.”

Reprinted with permission from YIVO Institute for Jewish Research press release, June 25, 2019.

YIVO will process and digitize this important collection to make it available to the world. To do this, it is embarking on a fundraising campaign to raise $300,000.

24 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Holocaust Sites in Lviv: Virtual Tour of the “City of (un)Memory”

he Center for Urban property and the execution about 2,000 were moved to the History in Lviv (former of several thousand persons Janowska slave labor camp. At TLwów, Lemberg) has created deemed unfit for work. least 3,000 committed suicide. a virtual tour of the city’s Holocaust sites. Posted on As in other conquered The virtual tour is part of the center’s website, “City European cities, the Nazis “Lviv Interactive,” a project of (un)Memory” guides the fenced the ghetto, leaving of the Center for Urban visitor through the ghetto only a few access points, History in Lviv, and based on that the Germans organized and directed the residents the street exhibition “Lviv, לעמבערג after their armies swept east to establish their own civil Lwów, , Lemberg’43: through European Russia in administration, the Jewish City of (un)Memory,” Judenrat 1941. It describes the process council ( ) and mounted at a dozen sites Jüdischer of ghettoization, daily life for social services ( throughout the city during Ordnungsdienst the imprisoned residents, and ). Periodically, 2018. That exhibition was לעמבערג liquidation in 1943. Texts the German authorities itself part of “Lwów, ‎, illustrated with historic and mounted “actions” in which Lviv, Lemberg’43: City that contemporary photographs and they corralled large groups Did (Not) Survive. reproductions of documents, of Jews and executed them Commemorative Events for along with excerpts from or sent them to Bełżec death the 75th Anniversary of the diaries and official documents, camp. The second stage of Liquidation of the Ghetto and vividly convey both the ghettoization began in August– Janowska Concentration n methodical approach of the September 1942 and brought Camp in Lviv.” the rest of Lviv’s Jews into the killers and the desperate A version of this article situation of the victims. ghetto. Jews now had access to the city only while working. originally appeared on The concentration of Lviv’s Jewish Heritage Europe: Jews in a ghetto occurred The end began in 1943, https://jewish-heritage-europe. in two stages, beginning in with a reorganization that eu/2019/05/05/ukraine-cityof- November–December 1941, changed the ghetto to a unmemory/. Reprinted here Judenlager when about 60,000 residents Jewish camp ( ) with permission. were forced to resettle. Nazi administered directly by the security police and Ukrainian SS. Liquidation came in June, Auxiliary Police enforced when 5,000 to 6,000 persons the resettlement, which was were deported to Sobibor accompanied by theft of Jewish death camp, 10,000 to 12,000 were executed locally, and

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 25 More Than Holocaust: Bringing Jewish History to the Polish Classroom Edward Serrota How Centropa and the Galicia Jewish Museum Are Building Sustainability and Measuring Impact

ringing Holocaust education to schools in BPoland and an interest in a town’s local Jewish history to high school students is undeniably important. The questions we at Centropa pose are: How do we develop a sustainable model that teachers can use for years? And how do we measure that impact?

Centropa was founded in 2000 so that we could preserve Jewish memory in the lands where it had been wiped out, Teachers at a Centropa seminar in Białystok, November 2015. then disseminate our findings Courtesy of Centropa. to the widest possible audience. and digitized 25,121 family We interviewed elderly Jews photographs and documents. photographs and documents. still living in Central Europe, The Taube Foundation donated the entire Centropa Polish combined their stories with In Poland, Centropa’s interview archive to POLIN old family photographs, then interviews were supported by Museum in Warsaw. uploaded the documents and the Austrian Culture Ministry, images to the internet. We the Taube Foundation for As soon as our website went never used video, and our Jewish Life & Culture, the live, Polish teachers wrote interviews did not focus solely Koret Foundation, and the to tell us how much they on the Holocaust. And one Claims Conference. With a wanted to use our content, criterion: all our interviewees team of seven interviewers mostly because our interviews had to still be living in Europe. headed by journalist Anka offered something fresh, No one had ever tried anything Grupińska, between 2003 something quite different: like this before. By 2009, and 2007, we interviewed personal narratives that began Centropa teams had worked sixty-eight Jews living in six with stories and pictures of in fifteen European countries, Polish cities and digitized grandparents and stretched met with 1,216 elderly Jews, 1,206 of their privately held across the decades to

26 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Edward Serrota grandchildren today. In 2010, we teamed up with the Galicia Jewish Museum and began a series of focus groups to ask teachers what they needed to bring Jewish stories to life for their students. How could we create programs that teachers could access and want to use year after year?

Between 2011 and 2013, the US State Department, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, and the Koret and Taube foundations Students making civil society presentations at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, October 2018. provided grants that let us Courtesy of Centropa. turn our Polish archive into an to ask how they use our enormous traveling exhibition (Katarzyna Bekier, Pabianice) content and what they think of based on the Centropa it. Typical teacher responses Based on the responses of interviews, produce two summarize our work best: students and teachers alike, we multimedia films, and launch are making an impact on how a website in Polish. With The Centropa website in thousands of young Polish those tools in hand, we began Polish is a godsend because students see their towns’ holding weekend seminars it includes your films, other Jewish history as something throughout the country, and teachers’ lesson plans and that belongs to them, as well since 2011 we have held nine content we can download and as to us. n seminars for a total of 247 use. I recommend it to every classroom teachers. In addition teacher in our school. (Anna For more information on the to the foundations named Niemirska, Wrocław) work of Centropa, please visit above, the Kronhill-Pletka and www.centropa.org. David Berg foundations have The best thing about the made these programs possible. Centropa seminar was I Edward Serrota, director got to meet teachers who, of Centropa, is a writer, Our seminars have taken place like me, are full of passion photographer, and filmmaker in Białystok, Wrocław, Lublin about teaching Polish Jewish who, since 1985, has (twice), Warsaw (twice), and history. That means I now specialized in the Jewish Kraków (three times). We have a network and you have heritage of Central Europe. continue to query our teachers given us great content to use.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 27 ANNOUNCEMENTS Books and Publications Borderland: On Reviving Culture By Dorota Sieroń-Galusek and Łukasz Galusek LIT Verlag, Vienna-Zürich, 2019

orderland: On Reviving a community of BCulture is the story of the people as large as Borderland organization, which possible.” consists of two intersecting The authors bring entities—an international NGO, together expertise the Borderland Foundation, in interdisciplinary and the more locally and research, in nationally focused Borderland keeping with the Centre of Arts, Culture and Borderland Nations—situated in the far philosophy. Łukasz northeastern corner of Poland, Galusek is a near the Russian, Lithuanian, and scholar of the Belarusian borders. The book’s culture and art of authors trace the practices of Central Europe, in this inter-ethnic borderless space particular the links from its post-war displacements between space, to its present-day example of memory, and what Ian Watson (Director of the identity. He works Theatre Program and the Urban at the International Civic Initiative, Department Cultural Centre in of Arts, Culture and Media, Kraków. Dorota Sieroń- Rutgers University) describes Galusek’s field of academic as an “example that offers an interest is cultural education, in alternative to a world in which particular biography as a source the ‘Other’ is a provocation to a of knowledge on the formative hate that undermines everyone’s role of culture. She works at humanity.” Furthermore, as the University of Silesia. They scholar Irena Grudzińska Gross have been following the work explains, the book “is an act of Borderland, both at close of bringing the reader into a quarters and from further afield, cultural and ethical community. n The territory this community for many years. occupies has no borders and does not require passports. May it host

28 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Polanim: From Poland to Israel By Karolina Przewrocka-Aderet Czarne, Warsaw, 2019

arolina Przewrocka-Aderet is a journalist and correspondent Kof Tygodnik Powszechny from Israel. Co-author of the anthology I Won’t Leave Them, about Jewish guardians during the war, she also wrote—together with Father Adam Boniecki—In the Holy Land, a personal, richly illustrated guide through Israel.

In Israel they call themselves Polanim (“Poles”). Although they have lived in Israel for years, they are still collectively connected to their place of origin. They share their attitude toward Poland, depending on the year and circumstances of the departure. They share a sentiment toward culture and language, and the longing for what is best known to declare the independence of the them: smells, flavors, landscape, country; about the Gomułkowo way of thinking or behavior district of Tel Aviv, inhabited by incompatible with the Middle emigrants from the 1950s, and the East reality. Polish architects participating in the The author tells their stories. construction of the city. About They are tragic, sentimental, and those who returned to Poland, sometimes funny. We read about a and about those who created a n group of Jews who left Warsaw for substitute for Poland in Israel. Palestine on bicycles in 1934; about Announcement credit: https://ajcf. Włocławek, which in the spring of pl/en/polanim-z-polski-do-izraela/. 1948 prepared a ceremony to

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 29 Studying Hasidism: Sources, Methods, Perspectives Edited by Marcin Wodziński Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., 2019

asidism, a Jewish religious movement that Horiginated in Poland in the 18th century, today counts over 700,000 adherents, primarily in Israel, the UK, and the US. Popular and scholarly interest in Hasidic Judaism and Hasidic Jews is growing, but there is no textbook dedicated to research methods in the field, nor sources for the history of Hasidism that have been properly recognized. Studying Hasidism: Sources, Methods, Perspectives, edited by Marcin Wodziński, an internationally recognized historian of Hasidism, aims to remedy this gap. The work’s thirteen chapters draw upon a set of different sources, many of them previously untapped, including folklore, music, macrodata, and material culture, to demonstrate what is still to be achieved in the study of Hasidism. Ultimately, this textbook presents research methods that can decentralize the role that community leaders play in the current literature, and reclaim the everyday lives of Hasidic Jews.

30 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Eternity Now: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and Temporality. By Wojciech Tworek SUNY Press, Albany, N.Y., 2019

ojciech Tworek’s new book, Eternity Now, draws on both Wmystical sermons and the legal writings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745–1812). The book provides the first account of the historiosophical dimensions of early Chabad doctrine, spawnng a movement formed in 18th-century Belarus that developed into one of the most influential streams of Hasidic Judaism. Challenging the commonly held view that Shneur Zalman was primarily concerned with supra- temporal transcendence, Tworek reveals the importance of time and history in his teachings. Tworek argues that the worldly dimensions of Zalman’s thought were largely responsible for the rapid growth of Chabad at the turn of the 19th century and fostered its transformation from missionary messianism that was to an elitist circle into a mass movement. become a hallmark of Chabad in the Tworek’s readings of Hebrew and 20th century. Yiddish sources demonstrate the Wojciech Tworek is a Ray D. Wolfe implications of these ideas not Postdoctoral Fellow at the Anne only for male scholars but also for Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies non-scholars, Jewish women, and at the University of Toronto. even non-Jews. Philosophical and kabbalistic thought joined together to Announcement credit, SUNY Press: form a model of religious experience https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6774- attractive to a broad audience, laying eternity-now.aspx. an ideological foundation for the

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 31 Volume 32 of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. “Jews and Music- Antony Polonsky Making in the Polish Lands”

olume 32 of Polin: Musicians of Jewish activities and creativity of Studies in Polish Jewry, origin produced an musicians of the “Mosaic Vedited by François Guesnet, faith” in the many fields astonishing variety Benjamin Matis, and Antony in which they worked Polonsky, has as its theme of music of all genres in the Polish-Lithuanian “Jews and Music-Making in and styles in Poland. Commonwealth and its the Polish Lands.” It will be successor states from 1750 published in January 2020 large body of scholarship to the present. by The Littman Library of that has resulted, Philip The volume is divided into Jewish Civilization. Bohlman of the University of Chicago has claimed that sections. The first examines As elsewhere in Europe, in “the contemporary dilemma the character of traditional Poland musicians of Jewish confronting the modern cantorial and religious origin produced an astonishing study of Jewish music [is] music and the way this was variety of music of all genres that it has become a field transformed by the changes and styles. However, this trapped in a discursive space in Jewish religious practice important phenomenon has between Jewish Studies, starting in the middle of the been largely eclipsed by the cultural studies, and the 18th century. In traditional attention paid to the role anthropology of music.” Jewish religious practice, the of Jews in musical life in This is certainly an accurate role of the cantor (khazan in German-speaking Europe. In description of the problems Hebrew and khazn in Yiddish) this area, valuable research involved in the research on was to recite the often very has been undertaken on this topic. However, we see lengthy Shabbat liturgy and the notorious Wagnerian the dilemma he identifies as holiday services. From the late polemic, Das Judenthum an opportunity to examine the 18th century, cantorial music und der Musik, and its many different aspects of Jewish changed dramatically under the echoes on the part of music musical life in the Polish lands impact of new developments. in the Jewish national revival, from a multidisciplinary and Hasidism, which spread on music as an aspect of transnational perspective. throughout Poland-Lithuania Jewish popular culture, What the editors have and its successor states, and on specific studies of attempted to do is not to regarded singing and dancing composers who self-identified define what may well be as crucial tools for reaching as Jews or had Jewish undefinable—Jewish music— the appropriate state of mind antecedents. Reviewing the but rather to explore the during prayer.

32 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 The second section deals European musical culture wrote the remarkable opera with the role of Jews in (also referred to as “art The Passenger, recently popular musical culture in music” or “classical music”), performed at the Israel Opera Poland. Performances by as composers, virtuosi, in Tel Aviv. Jewish musicians for non- conductors, impressarios, The next section considers the Jewish audiences go back patrons, publishers, critics, way Jewish musical creativity a long way here. Jewish teachers, musicologists, was affected by World War II. klezmer musicians seem editors of musical journals, It examines songs in Yiddish to have performed at non- and even piano manufacturers, and Polish remembered by Jewish weddings and other was largely a phenomenon of young survivors of the Łódź social occasions. Yiddish the 19th century, including ghetto; the way wartime popular songs developed in Poland. The subject of the experience was reflected in strongly in the second half third section focuses on this the songs of Polish Jews who of the 19th century. Many development, including the fled to the Soviet Union and of these were produced by Wieniawski brothers: Henryk how music produced in Vilna the popular itinerant bards Wieniawski, violinist and before the war provided a described as the “Broder composer and his brother bridge to the post-war Jewish singers,” among them Mikhl Józef, who was a pianist generation in Poland. The final Gordon, Velvl Zbarzher and composer. Another section deals with the afterlife (pseudonym of Benjamin notable figure was Adam of klezmer in Poland since Wolf Ehrenkranz), Elyokum Minchejmer (Munchheimer), the end of communism in Zunser, and Abraham conductor of the Warsaw 1989. The klezmer revival is Goldfaden. In the inter- Opera. By the 20th century, certainly one the most visible war years, in independent the number of composers of and controversial aspects of Poland, composers, poets, Jewish origin had increased the popular surge of interest in song lyricists, and performers considerably. Among the the Jewish past, traditions, and of Jewish origin came to most important were the heritage which has developed play a prominent role in twelve-tone composers Jerzy in recent years in Poland and the Polish popular music Koffler, Jerzy Fitelberg, and elsewhere in East-Central industry, as was also the case Władysław Szpilman, who Europe. It is the hope of the in the United States and the remained in Poland, and editors that the publication Soviet Union. Jews were Bronisław Kaper, Henryk will make this rich musical also prominent in the Polish- Vars, Roman Ryterbrand, heritage better known and language literary cabaret of and Alexander Tansman, will also lead to the wider the inter-war years, especially who went abroad. Of note performance of the many in Warsaw. Other than in was Mieczysław Weinberg, beautiful works described in Italy in the 17th century, the who remained in Russia, the volume. n Jewish engagement with high during the World War II and

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 33 ANNOUNCEMENTS Exhibitions Francesco a tsigele: one little goat. El Lissitzky’s Spagnolo Chad Gadyo at 100: (1919-2019) Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

ne hundred years since its first publication, Chad OGadyo, an illustrated version of the famed Passover song by the Russian Jewish artist El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, 1890–1941), was displayed by The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley. A rare copy of this work was gifted by Ira Fink and Penni Hudis of Berkeley in honor of the founder of The Magnes Collection, Seymour Fromer (1922-2009), on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his passing.

El Lissitzky’s illustrations follow and augment the “Story of the Goat”—a song that concludes the Passover Iz gekumen di kats un fartsukt dos tsigele. Veoso shunro (Yiddish and Aramaic: seder—with evocative images, Then Came the Cat and Devoured the Kid. And Came the Cat) by El Lissitzky. accompanied by Yiddish and Courtesy of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Aramaic texts. The Passover song was first printed in pronunciation of the original water quenching the fire, Prague in 1590 and is widely Aramaic), or “a little goat” an ox drinking the water, a known (and sung) across (tsigele, in Yiddish), for two slaughterer butchering the ox, the global Jewish diaspora. coins. It continues with a cat and, in a theological ending, It tells of a father buying eating the goat, a dog biting the Angel of Death killing “one kid” (chad gadyo, the cat, a stick hitting the the slaughterer, and God according to the Ashkenazi dog, fire burning the stick, slaying the Angel. Each of the

34 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 song’s ten verses is captioned, illustrated, and numbered on a dedicated plate.

El Lissitzky published Chad Gadyo in Kiev in 1919, in an edition of seventy-five copies (only about twelve of which can still be traced in public collections worldwide). Since then, the connections between the artistic Russian avant-garde and early 20th- century Jewish ethnography have become more evident. The careful documentation of Jewish folklore that had begun in Czarist Russia Gekoyft der tate far tsvey gildeyn a tsigele. Dezabin abo (Yiddish and Aramaic: and continued in the Soviet The Father Bought a Little Goat for Two Coins. The Father Bought) by El Lissitzky. Courtesy of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Union inspired many artists to create innovative works that combined traditional Eastern Europe, this stunning of renewed interest in Jewish motifs with new expressive work projects the power of visual culture at the University forms. Folktales, proverbs, preserving cultural memory of California, Berkeley. through art and activism into and songs, as well as visual Note: The exhibition was our day. In the early 1980s, motifs from synagogue murals on view at The Magnes from and gravestones, were not El Lissitzky’s lithographs had August 28 to December 13, only collected and preserved already inspired the American 2019. n in Soviet archives, but also artist, Frank Stella (b. 1936), to create mixed-media works, transformed into literature, For more information entitled Illustrations after music, theater, film, and visual please visit: www.magnes. art by a new generation of El Lissitzky’s Chad Gadyo. berkeley.edu. socially concerned artists Following the recent gifts of and intellectuals. the Taube Family Arthur Szyk Francesco Spagnolo is Collection and the Roman Curator of The Magnes Created at a time of great Vishniac Archive to The Collection of Jewish Art cultural renaissance and Magnes, the acquisition of El and Life at the University of increasing physical danger for Lissitzky’s Chad Gadyo marks California, Berkeley. the Jewish communities of the beginning of a new season

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 35 Gdynia-Tel Aviv at POLIN Museum

dynia and Tel Aviv are Gdynia and Tel Aviv also 3,000 kilometers apart, share dominant colors: blue Gbut you will be surprised to referring to the sea, and learn how much they have in curcuma yellow—the color of common. Both were founded the sun and the sand. These at more or less the same colors can be easily spotted in time as seaports, gates to the exhibition, among others the world, and both soon on the inter-war propaganda turned into elegant summer and commercial posters, as resorts and modern harbors. well as in promotional leaflets. The two cities share characteristic Modernist Gdynia and Tel Aviv quickly architecture and Polish grew to be recognized as Jewish history. You have an vital seaports and fashionable opportunity to get acquainted summer resorts. Everyday life with the similarities and in the two newly established cities is visible in the differences between them at Poster from the exhibition Gdynia – Tel Aviv. archival photographs, films, the Gdynia–Tel Aviv exhibition Courtesy of POLIN Museum. at POLIN Museum until documentaries, drawings, February 3, 2020. in 1919, was envisioned as and paintings displayed the “Polish gate to the world.” in the exhibition, as well The exhibition takes you on a Being a modern seaport, it as in the elements of the trip to two seaside cities built was to serve as an exit gate for Modernist tenement buildings’ from scratch at the beginning people and goods. Tel Aviv, on interior designs. You will see of the 20th century. Gdynia and the other hand, was to serve as annual celebrations of urban Tel Aviv played similar roles in an entrance gate for the tens holidays—the Sea Fest in the history of their countries— of thousands of immigrants Gdynia and Purim parades in they represented the dreams flocking in with the aim of Tel Aviv. You will also have a and aspirations of the newly building the future Jewish chance to admire architectural independent Polish state and state. These representative models of iconic buildings of a Jewish nation determined functions combined with the produced especially for the to establish a new home in beginning of the new century exposition. Palestine. Tel Aviv, founded in provided an opportunity to New cities and their 1909, was to become the “first realize ambitious urban founding myths attracted and Hebrew city.” Gdynia, founded design plans. inspired many artists from

36 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Photograph from the exhibition Gdynia–Tel Aviv. On the beach in Tel Aviv. Courtesy of POLIN Museum. Courtesy of POLIN Museum.

both countries. The exhibit New cities and their institution whose program includes original artworks— founding myths attracted shaped the modern urban some from Polish collections, landscape of many cities in some shipped from Israel just and inspired many artists Europe and Israel. for the occasion, such as A from both countries. Harbor in Jaffa by Reuven The exhibition was produced Rubin from 1923. Intriguing Krzyżanowska and Kazimiera in cooperation with the Gdynia drawings by Nahum Gutman, Pajzderska. City Museum, under the in which the artist presented honorary auspices of Wojciech Works by contemporary Polish his own autobiography Szczurek, the Mayor of Gdynia, artists such as Maria Kiesner inscribed in Tel Aviv’s and Ron Huldai, the Mayor of and Maurycy Gomulicki serve founding myth, also arrived Tel Aviv, as well as the Israeli as a bridge between the past n from Israel. Years later embassy in Warsaw. and the present. Photographer the drawings were used as n Curator: Dr. Artur Wojciech Wilczyk has illustrations in his book Small Tanikowski produced a pictorial essay on Town and Few People in It: n  the Modernist architecture Production curator: Stories from the First Years of Gdynia and Tel Aviv, Ewa Witkowska of Tel Aviv. The exhibition presenting today’s appearance n Exhibition Design: also boasts Gutman’s oil and context of the selected ONTO STUDIO | paintings with genre scenes iconic buildings. Modernist Kaja Nosal, Anna Wręga presenting the oriental charm architecture is also a leading n  of Jaffa, as well as Tel Aviv’s Key visual for the theme of cityscapes by painter coat of arms, which the exhibition: Marcin Maria Kiesner. artist designed. Paintings Władyka | Headmade by Ludwig Blum present The Gdynia—Tel Aviv Studio the panorama of “white Tel exhibition coincides with n Art projects: Maurycy Aviv.” The Baltic coastline the celebration of the 110th Gomulicki, Maria and Gdynia loom in the anniversary of the founding of Kiesner, Wojciech “seascapes” by Władysław Tel Aviv, as well as a centenary Wilczyk Strzemiński, drawings by of Gdynia’s founding and the Janusz M. Brzeski, or artistic opening of the Bauhaus School Reprinted with permission of compositions by Michalina of Design, a German academic POLIN Museum.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 37 From Home to Home at Galicia Jewish Museum Tomasz Strug

he exhibition From Home to Home. The Story of the TWar Wandering and Survival of the Pisek Family opened on November 7, 2019, at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakόw. It tells the story of the Pisek family through diaries and pastel drawings that bear witness through the eyes of Irena Pisek. If today we decided to travel a route over 12,000 kilometers long, we would have to fly by plane for fifteen hours or sit behind the wheel of a car for Lviv by Irena Pisek. 153 hours. For a pedestrian it Used with permission of Galicia Jewish Museum. would require 2,300 hours of pictures and words—only a n Herzl-Thon Center of continuous hiking or nearly few decades after the end of Israel Studies and Polish- 100 days of uninterrupted the war. Her pastel drawings, Israeli Relations walking. The Pisek family along with handwritten n made such a trip, over three  Israel Institute memories in Polish, inspired years, from the end of August this exhibition. 1939 to December 1942. They For more information, were supposed to leave home The exhibition was made please visit: www. . only for a moment and not go possible in cooperation with: galiciajewishmuseum.org too far, but the turmoil of war n Institute of Jewish Tomasz Strug is Deputy drove them into the unknown, Studies, Jagiellonian Director and Chief Curator through the tracts of Europe, University at the Galicia Jewish Museum Asia, and the Middle East. in Krakόw. n Centre for the Study on It was not an easy way, nor the History and Culture easy to talk about. Irena Pisek of Kraków’s Jews succeeded—with the help of

38 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Siberia by Irena Pisek. Used with permission of Galicia Jewish Museum.

Teheran by Irena Pisek. Used with permission of Galicia Jewish Museum.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 39 ANNOUNCEMENTS CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS There’s No Yiddish Culture Katarzyna Markusz Without Women Froyen Vinkl Seminar, Center for Yiddish Studies

iddish culture could “The world is divided Mołodowska. Mołodowska not be born and survive into many worlds.” was born in Bereza Kartuska Ywithout women. They (we) in 1893. She was a teacher, – Kadia Mołodowska support it, care for it, and and in 1935, she left for the develop it. On August 29, United States. To be able to with the recommendations participants of the research support herself, she finished a regarding niddah, or monthly session at the Center for course for milliners, although waste. There were also special Yiddish Culture in Warsaw later she did not work in this charms to protect the girls. talked about women’s place in profession. She wanted to Jewish culture. Women had really difficult be independent. She wrote lives, as shown in the both poetry and prose. She “The whole world is filled presentation of Anna was interested in the world with evil spirits,” said Ciałowicz of the Pilecki of the rich and the poor. Piotr Grącikowski from the Institute, “Slaves, Maids, “The world is divided into Ossolińscy National Institute. Houseworkers: On the many worlds,” she noted. “There is no equivalent for Liberation of the Most She was surprised to discover the word ‘demon’ in Yiddish, Oppressed.” The lives of Jewish families who did not the term ‘bad’ was used maids were not easy. They speak Yiddish, and among instead. Everyone, regardless functioned in difficult whose children she taught. of intentions, can cast a bad conditions, they could not It was from them that she spell on another person. For always count on a salary, learned Polish and began to children, mainly boys and men because it was considered that read Mickiewicz studying the Torah, demons having a place to sleep and and Słowacki. are especially focused on some food should be enough them, trying to interrupt their A research session on women for them. lives.” Women had fewer in Jewish culture cannot do responsibilities than men. Some women had different without the mother of the According to the lecturer, problems. “A shy and Jewish Theater. Mirosława they were to take care of cautious woman who did Bułat is working on a lighting the Shabbat candles, not write about the most biography of Ester Rachel remember to separate the piece drastic matters”—that’s what Kamińska, who is “enshrined of cake and throw it into the Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota in the history of theater with fire when baking, and comply said about the writer Kadia a number of unforgettable

40 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 creations.” At the age of Wrocław, the author not only twelve, she left her hometown, speaks and writes in Polish, Porozów, to go to Warsaw, she is also deeply immersed where she lived with her sisters in Polish culture. and started working. “It was Note: The research session like a shtetl,” remembered on women in Jewish culture Kamińska, who on Pawia Street took place as part of the Isaac was surrounded by relatives Bashevis Singer Festival in and had to pay close attention Warsaw, organized by the to what she was doing, because Shalom Foundation. n everyone around her was gossiping eagerly. To become Katarzyna Markusz is an an artist, she had to get rid of independent journalist and an innate sense of shame. Her researcher in cooperation with personal and professional life, the Center for Yiddish Culture combining raising children with in Warsaw. theater performances, brought about life dilemmas, and results in a fascinating story.

Another interesting woman is Sara Shenirer, who left an intimate journal in which she did not report historical events but rather her internal struggles, her maturation and personal problems, filled with a sense of humor. Unfortunately, there are editorial problems with punctuation, different spellings of some words, or abbreviations that are difficult to decipher. This diary is the only Shenirer document written in Polish. As presented by Joanna Lisek from the University of

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 41 GEOP Conference: Jews against Nazi Germany during World War II, Krzystof Persak at POLIN Museum

he conference organized soldiers fought in the ranks moving talk, Turski referred to by the POLIN Museum of of Allied armies, including experiences and memories of Tthe History of Polish Jews on the Polish Army, Red Army, his own conspiratorial activity the occasion of the eightieth and US Army. Jews formed in the ghetto. anniversary of the outbreak of underground organizations World War II explored Jewish and participated in partisan The conference, as part of participation in the fight formations in many countries POLIN Museum’s Global against the Third Reich and as well as against the Nazis Education Outreach Program its allies, and resistance to the in both Jewish ghettos and (GEOP), was sponsored Nazi policy of extermination. even in death camps. Other by Taube Philanthropies, The academic partners of important issues discussed the William K. Bowes the conference were the were Jewish acts of individual Jr. Foundation, and the Jewish Historical Institute in heroism, efforts to document Association of the Jewish Warsaw, the Polish Center the Holocaust, and the role of Historical Institute of Poland. for Holocaust Research of Jews in helping Jews hiding Recordings of the conference the the Polish Academy of “on the Aryan side.” The and the keynote lecture will be Sciences, and the Institute conference contributed to a made available at http://www. for Contemporary History better understanding of Jewish polin.pl/en. n in Munich – Center for efforts to save lives and Holocaust Studies. defend human dignity in the Krzysztof Persak, PhD, face of the Nazi genocide. is Senior Historian at The conference brought POLIN Museum. together scholars from The distinguished speaker of Poland, Israel, the United the conference was Marian States, the United Kingdom, Turski—a Łódź ghetto and Belarus, and Germany, who Auschwitz survivor and the delivered twelve presentations Chairman of the Council of divided into three thematic POLIN Museum. His keynote panels: Armed Resistance, lecture, “Bearing Witness to Jews in Allied Armed History: Accounts of Civilian Forces, and Civil Courage. Resistance,” was delivered The participants discussed on the evening preceding armed struggle as well as the academic panel, and organized and individual civil was met with wide audience resistance. A million Jewish interest and attendance. In his

42 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Conference on The Great Power Krzystof Persak and Poland, 1919–2019, Antony Polonsky at University of Warsaw

o commemorate the Jana Karskiego bestowing 100th anniversary of Professor Peter F. Krogh, Tdiplomatic relations between Dean Emeritus of the Welsh Poland and the United States, School of Foreign Service at the Jan Karski Educational Georgetown University, with Foundation together with its the Spirit of Jan Karski Award. sister organization, Fundacja Edukacyjna Jana Karskiego, A special reissue (in Polish) The hosted an international of Jan Karski’s book, Great Powers and Poland: conference of Polish and From Versailles to Yalta US experts on diplomacy , and public administration accompanied the conference on August 20, 2019, at the and award, which took place University of Warsaw. The on October 4, at the University n Great Power and Poland: of Warsaw. 1919-2019 also celebrated the centennial of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, the thirtieth anniversary of the start of Polish democratic transformation, and the twentieth anniversary of Poland’s membership in NATO. Conference panels focused on two key themes: values and interests in Euro- Atlantic relations and the consequences of the return of power politics. The program featured a ceremony by the Jan Karski Educational Foundation and Fundacja Edukacyjna

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 43 Symposium on Silesian Synagogues: A Thousand- Year History that Disappeared in One Night

he symposium Silesian Silesia, and Lower Silesia), Synagogues: A Thousand- archaeological studies of the TYear History That Disappeared New Synagogue (Synagoga in One Night took place na Wygonie), and the digital in Wrocław on November reconstruction of the New 6-7. It was organized by Synagogue. Participants also Wrocław University of discussed proposals for the Science and Technology in development of important cooperation with the Bente historical sites in European Kahan Foundation. The event public spaces, illustrated with focused on questions related the example of the square to the destruction of Jewish left after the burning down heritage in Silesia during of the New Synagogue in the Holocaust. One panel 1938. The proposals consisted focused on historical issues of concepts put forward by and the other was dedicated to architects and a discussion Silesian synagogues. of ways to commemorate important historical sites Program themes addressed in general. n the role of Silesia’s Jewish heritage in today’s public For more information, please sphere, research into the visit www.pwr.edu.pl. region’s Jewish heritage, and the methodology for documenting what is lost and inaccessible. The panel on the synagogues of Silesia examined the state of preservation, attempts to document and restore the buildings, historical buildings in use (in the Czech Republic, Upper

44 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Annual Conference of Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in San Francisco, November 23–26

he 51st annual convention For full conference program of the Association of information please visit: TSlavic, East European and www.aseees.org. Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) was held in San Francisco, California, November 23–26, at the Marriott Marquis. A selected roster of speakers on subjects related to Polish Jewish Studies included:

Karen Underhill, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA Shana Penn and Lech Wałęsa, “From Imagined Homeland Solidarity leader and former President of Poland, at the ASEEES to Spectral Demand: Taking Conference. Mickiewicz into Diaspora in Postwar Yiddish Literature.” Agnieszka Wierzcholska, Freie Universität Berlin, Karolina Szymaniak, Germany University of Wrocław, Poland “Jewish Agency in Survival “Unmasking False Legends. and Relationships with the Ethnography and Intercultural non-Jewish Local Population, Capital in the Polish-Jewish the Case of Tarnów.” Contact Zone.” Tomasz Błaszczak, University Natalia Aleksiun, Touro of Vytautas Magnus, Kaunas, College, New York, USA Lithuania

“Microhistory of Emotions: “Migration of Orthodox The Afterlife of War-Time Clergy during the Polish- n Relationships in Lwów.” Lithuanian Conflict.”

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 45 Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), San Diego, December 15-17

he annual conference Beata Szymków, Stanford of the Association for University, USA TJewish studies is the largest “Anti-Jewish Violence and the annual international gathering Emergence of the Polish State: of Jewish Studies scholars Lwów 1918.” in the world. With more than 1,100 attendees, over 190 sessions, a major book Joanna Zofia Spyra, exhibit of leading publishers, University of Bergen, Norway cultural programming, and “Unruly Bodies and Imaginary gala banquet, the conference Enemies: Mental Health of provides a unique opportunity Jewish Immigrant Women to share ideas and explore in Argentina in the Interwar the world of Jewish studies Period.” scholarship. The conference was held this year, December Wojciech Tworek, University 15-17, at the Hilton San Diego of Wrocław, Poland Bayfront Hotel in California. Of interest to Polish Jewish “Staging Hasidism: The Studies, this year’s speakers ‘Yossele Schumacher Affair’ included: in a Hasidic Yiddish Play ‘Vi iz Yossele.’” Karolina Koprowska, Jagiellonian University, Karen Auerbach, University Kraków, Poland of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA “The Memory of the Birthplace in Post-War “Reckoning with the Jewish Yiddish Literature.” Past on Stage and on the Page in Immediate Postwar Germany and Poland.” n

46 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 GEOP News

Marian Turski – “Bearing Jews against Nazi GEOP Research Fellows Witness to History: Germany during for 2020 announced Accounts of Civilian World War II POLIN Museum of the History Resistance” lecture online The conference, organized of Polish Jews and the Emanuel Jewish civilian resistance jointly by POLIN Museum, the Ringelblum Jewish Historical during the Holocaust—was Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Institute announce the recipients it at all possible? Is the most Historical Institute, the Polish of the three-month doctoral vulnerable group within a Center for Holocaust Research fellowships and five-month community, paralyzed by terror of the Polish Academy of postdoctoral fellowships. and fear, capable of putting up Sciences, and the Institute a resistance at all? Resistance for Contemporary History in The fellows for the year in the sense of rescuing Munich – Center for Holocaust 2020 are: at least some people from Studies, explored both armed n Agata Jankowska, extermination. Resistance in struggle and organized and Department of History and the sense of clinging to hope, individual civil resistance. International Relations, of a will to survive and to fight, Jewish soldiers fought in Faculty of Arts, University of dignity. the ranks of Allied armies, of Szczecin. including the Polish Army, In his lecture, Marian Turski Red Army, and US Army. n Dr . Meghann Pytka, modern discussed his own resistance Jews formed armed East-Central European activity in the ghetto. underground organizations history with concentrations Marian Turski, a historian and participated in partisan in gender studies and Jewish and journalist, has directed formations in many countries. studies, Northwestern University. the historical section of The conference, attended Tygodnik Polityka since 1958. by representatives of the n Dr . Yuri Radchenko, Vasyl’ He is a Vice President of Polish Ministry of Culture Karazin Kharkiv National the International Auschwitz and National Heritage, and University. Committee and author or co- the embassies of Israel and author of numerous books. He Germany, marked the occasion We congratulate them and wish is the Vice Chairman of the of the eightieth anniversary of them much success! board of the Association of the the outbreak of the war. Jewish Historical Institute of More about the program and Poland and the Chairman of the Recordings from the conference the GEOP Fellows is available Council of the Museum of the are available at https://www. at: https://www.polin.pl/en/ History of Polish Jews. polin.pl/en/event/jews-against- news/2017/11/02/call-for- nazi-germany-during-world- applications-geop-research- n For a recording of the lecture in war-ii. n fellowships-for-doctoral-and. Polish please visit https://www. polin.pl/pl/wydarzenie/opor- cywilny-w-oczach-swiadka- historii. n

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 47 ANNOUNCEMENTS AWARDS AND APPLICATIONS Reported by Gazeta Olga Tokarczuk Receives 2018 Editorial Team Nobel Prize in Literature

n Thursday, October made the division of Poles 10, Polish writer Olga their primary task.” OTokarczuk was named the Her career is studded with winner of the 2018 Nobel many prestigious literary Prize in Literature. The awards, including Poland’s Swedish Academy, which Nike Award, which she has won administers the prize, wrote twice, as well as the 2018 Man that Tokarczuk won the award Booker International Prize, “for a narrative imagination which she won for her novel that with encyclopedic passion Flights, translated into English represents the crossing of by Jennifer Croft. Her widely boundaries as a form of life.” praised novel Księgi Jakubowe The prize was not awarded in (The Books of Jacob), about the 2018, in the wake of a scandal Olga Tokarczuk at the Frankfurt 18th-century religious leader involving sexual assault and Book Fair, 2019. Jakub Frank, will appear in financial misconduct within Photograph by Harald Krichel. Wikimedia Commons. English in 2021. the Swedish Academy, and so was given this year instead, Her experimentation with Tokarczuk’s win has had a along with the 2019 prize, genre and form shined mixed reception in Poland, which went to Austrian writer a light on Poland’s largely due to her political Peter Handke. activism. multiethnic heritage. Tokarczuk has long been The city of Wrocław offered of Gdańsk mayor Paweł one of Poland’s most free public transit to anyone Adamowicz earlier this year, eminent novelists. Her carrying one of Tokarczuk’s Tokarczuk said, “In a healthy, experimentation with genre books, and banners normal society, people can and form shined a light on congratulating her were hung disagree with one another, Poland’s multiethnic heritage. in several cities. Donald Tusk, even have diametrically She is also an outspoken the President of the European opposing views, and this does political voice, often critical Council and former Prime not at all mean that they must of the current government. Minister of Poland, wrote hate one another. The Polish Writing in The New York on Twitter, “What a pride authorities, however, have Times after the murder and joy! I will boast about it

48 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 in Brussels as a Pole and a ROBERTA GROSSMAN AND faithful reader.” SAMUEL KASSOW HONORED That enthusiasm, however, AT YIVO AWARDS GALA doesn’t speak for everyone. Right-wing journalist n November 20, 2019, the YIVO Rafał Ziemkiewicz offered OInstitute for Jewish Research in New Tokarczuk his congratulations York City honored Roberta Grossman and but also included her among Dr. Samuel Kassow at their Gala Award Polish artists who he believes Dinner, hosted by writer and producer “owe their awards to the Nancy Spielberg. fact that Western left-wing Roberta Grossman is an award-winning salons want to support Polish documentary filmmaker who has written, agents in the fight against the directed, and produced more than forty- ‘nationalist regime.’” five hours of film and television. Her films tell stories of ordinary people doing Roberta Grossman “I’ve tried reading some, extraordinary things in the name of justice. but I’ve never finished any,” Grossman wrote, produced, and directed Piotr Gliński, Poland’s Who Will Write Our History? In 2014, Minister of Culture, said she directed Above and Beyond, a film about Tokarczuk’s books about the American Jewish pilots who a few days before she was volunteered to fight for Israel in the 1948 awarded the prize. After the War, produced by Nancy Spielberg. announcement, he wrote on Twitter, “It is proof that Dr. Samuel D. Kassow is the Charles H. Polish culture is appreciated Northam Professor of History at Trinity n College, and is recognized as one of the all over the world.” Dr. Samuel Kassow world’s leading scholars on the Holocaust and the Jews of Poland. He is widely known for his 2007 book, Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Indiana University Press). An award-wining lecturer, Professor Kassow is also a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. n

Film producer Nancy Spielberg with honorees Roberta Grossman and Dr. Samuel Kassow at YIVO’s 2019 Gala Award Dinner. Photograph by Todd France Photography. Used with permission of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 49 Joanna Lisek Awarded Gierowski and Shmeruk Prize

n November 4, 2019, Joanna Lisek, Alicja OMaślak-Maciejewska, and Maria Cieśla received awards as part of the Józef A. Gierowski and Chone Shmeruk Prize for the best scholarly publication in the field of the history and culture of the Jews in Poland. The award was conferred in the Collegium Novum of Jagiellonian University. The prize was established by the Institute of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University and the Department of Jewish Culture and History at Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, in cooperation with the Marcel and Maria Roth Foundation. It is dedicated to the memory of two outstanding scholars,

Professor Józef A. Gierowski, Joanna Lisek with her prize-winning book, Kol Ishe. Rector of Jagiellonian Photograph by Karolina Koprowska. Used with permission. University from 1981 to 1987, and Professor Chone to many scholarly initiatives in First prize was awarded Shmeruk, Head of the Center the study of the Jewish past in to Joanna Lisek of the for Research on the History Poland, including the creation Department of Jewish Studies and Culture of Polish Jews of what later became the at the University of Wrocław at the Hebrew University of Department of Jewish Studies for her book Kol Isze. Głos Jerusalem from 1983 to 1991. at Jagiellonian University. kobiet w poezji jidysz (od XVI Cooperation between them led w. do 1939 r.) (Kol Ishe: The

50 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Voice of Women in Yiddish the Institute of Jewish Studies (Merchants, Lease-Holders Poetry from the 16th Century at Jagiellonian University for and Artisans. The Varied to 1939). In this path-breaking her book Modlili się w Templu. Occupations of Jews in the volume, the author analyzes Krakowscy Żydzi postępowi Grand Duchy of Lithuania), how Yiddish poetry by women w XIX wieku. Studium a remarkable and detailed became a separate field as społeczno-religijne (They account of the occupational women developed strategies Prayed in the Tempel. The diversity of the Jews in to express themselves. At the Progressive Jews of Krakόw Lithuania. award ceremony, Professors in the Nineteenth Century: The large number of entries Eugenia Prokop-Janiec and A Socio-Religious Study), a to the competition and their Magdalena Ruta praised the detailed investigation of the high quality is a tribute to volume as “a major effort of Jews linked with the Tempel, the progress which has been recovery, whose goal is both to the Progressive Jewish made in recent years in make possible the appreciation synagogue in Kraków. Third the development of Jewish of the creativity of women prize went to Maria Cieśla of studies. It bodes very well in Yiddish and to recall the the Historical Institute of the for the future. n work of authors whose work Polish Academy of Sciences in has been little known and Warsaw for her book Kupcy, appreciated.” arendarze i rzemieślnicy. Różnorodność zawodowa Second prize was granted to Żydów w Wielkim Księstwie Alicja Maślak-Maciejewska of Litewskim w XVII i XVIII w.

Yiddish Book Center Fellowships

he Yiddish Book Center, based at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, is accepting applications from recent college graduates for its fellowship program devoted to Yiddish Tand modern Jewish literature and culture. Fellows work for a year as full-time staff at the center, gaining professional experience in Yiddish language and Jewish culture and contributing to major projects. Each fellow works in one or two main project areas, such as bibliography, communications and publication, digital collections, educational programs, translation, or Yiddish education. n The application deadline for the 2020–21 Fellowship Program is January 5, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. EST. For more information visit: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/educational- programs/graduate-students/apply-fellowship-program.

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 51 YIVO Opens Fellowship Applications

he YIVO Institute for the Maria Salit-Gitelson American Jewish Studies: Jewish Research in Tell Memorial Fellowship The Rose and Isidore Drench TNew York City has opened for doctoral or postdoctoral Memorial Fellowship and applications for fellowships research on modern Polish- the Dora and Mayer Tendler in a variety of fields. Jewish history, including Endowed Fellowship in the Holocaust and Jewish Jewish Studies for doctoral East European Jewish Studies: contributions to Polish or postdoctoral research in The Professor Bernard literature and culture. American Jewish history, with Choseed Memorial Fellowship special consideration given and the Natalie and Mendel East European Jewish to scholars working on the Racolin Memorial Fellowship Literature: The Vladimir Jewish labor movement. for doctoral or postdoctoral and Pearl Heifetz Memorial research in East European Fellowship and the Vivian Eastern European Jewish Jewish studies. Lefsky Hort Memorial Studies: These fellowships Fellowship for an may be combined with Baltic Jewish Studies: The undergraduate, graduate, or the above fellowships or Abram and Fannie Gottlieb postgraduate researcher in awarded separately: The Immerman and Abraham Eastern European Jewish Dina Abramowicz Emerging Nathan and Bertha Daskal literature. The award may Scholar Fellowship for Weinstein Memorial be applied to the literature postdoctoral research Fellowship in Eastern European of Eastern European Jewish on a topic in Eastern Jewish Studies, the Abraham diasporas on any continent. European Jewish Studies. and Rachela Melezin Memorial The Workmen’s Circle/ Fellowship, and the Maria East European Arts, Music, Dr. Emanuel Patt Visiting Salit-Gitelson Tell Memorial and Theater: The Joseph Professorship in Eastern Fellowship for doctoral or Kremen Memorial Fellowship European Jewish Studies. n postdoctoral research in for an undergraduate, Lithuanian Jewish history. graduate, or postgraduate The application deadline researcher in Eastern Polish-Jewish Studies: The is January 15, 2020. For European Jewish arts, music, Aleksander and Alicja Hertz more information, please and theater. The award may Memorial Fellowship, the visit: https://www.yivo.org/ be applied to work on Eastern Samuel and Flora Weiss Fellowships. European Jewish diasporas on Research Fellowship, and any continent.

52 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 ANNOUNCEMENTS ANNIVERSARIES 75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

n January 27, 2020, an “The event will probably the former Birkenau camp in O international gathering be the last of those big order to commemorate the will commemorate the 75th anniversaries with the seventieth anniversary of the anniversary of the Soviet liberation. Commemorative Red Army’s liberation of participation of such a events were organized under a Auschwitz-Birkenau at the large group of survivors, giant tent constructed over the Auschwitz State Memorial former Auschwitz gate. Last year, more than 250 and Museum. “The event will prisoners. I hope they television stations broadcast probably be the last of those the event internationally, big anniversaries with the will come here from all and over five hundred participation of such a large over the world as was the million people watched the group of survivors, former case in 2015.” commemoration live. Auschwitz prisoners,” said – Dr. Piotr Cywiński This coming year, the Dr. Piotr Cywiński, the survivors will meet again, and director of the Auschwitz Alliance), and the fifteenth the event will once more be State Memorial and Museum. anniversary of the adoption broadcast for the entire world “I hope they will come here of January 27 as International to see and remember. n from all over the world as was Holocaust Remembrance Day the case in 2015.” by the United Nations General Assembly. Both events took The year 2020 will also be place on January 27, the special due to two related anniversary of the liberation historical anniversaries of Auschwitz. Consequently, and commemorations: the the major international twentieth anniversary of the commemoration event will adoption of the Stockholm be organized at the Declaration, under which the Auschwitz-Birkenau Task Force for International Memorial and Museum. Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, Five years ago, about 300 and Research was established survivors, witnesses of the (today the International history of Auschwitz, met in Holocaust Remembrance front of the Gate of Death at

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 53 Remembering Marek Edelman Gazeta in 2019 Editorial Team

efore we say goodbye war generations to rebuild to the year 2019, democracy and Jewish life BGazeta wishes to remember in Poland. the centennial of Marek By the 1970s, few Poles knew Edelman’s birth and the tenth anything about the Warsaw anniversary of his passing. Ghetto or its uprising. The At the start of this outgoing communist government had year, he was officially named made a point of systematically a patron of 2019 in Łódź, erasing Poland’s past, leaving where he lived and worked as the postwar generation with a cardiologist, and in Warsaw, białe plamy—history’s blank where he fought as a partisan spots. Then in 1976, the commander in the 1943 Ghetto anti-communist underground Uprising, and then in the 1944 published a book-length Warsaw Uprising. He died in interview with Edelman Warsaw on October 2, 2009, conducted by author Hanna at the age of 90. Krall. Forty thousand copies The last surviving commander Marek Edelman in his apartment by sold with remarkable speed of the Warsaw Ghetto Zelwerowicza 34a in Łódź ca. 2010. and the białe plamy began Photograph by Katarzyna Łukasik. Courtesy Uprising, and one of the few of The Marek Edelman Dialogue Center. to fill in. Edelman became survivors from the Warsaw Poland’s only famous Ghetto, Edelman was a Warsaw uprising against Nazi living Jew, and the post-war cardiologist by profession occupation. He was among generation began to learn and a well-known social and the 20,000 to 30,000 Jews about its Jewish history. political activist—from the who stayed in Poland after the “Marek awakened my Bund to anti-Nazi resistance to Communist Party’s 1968 anti- generation,” stated Holocaust the Solidarity movement. Semitic campaign. Despite the fact that his wife and children researcher Anka Grupińska in Said to be a fighter of left Poland in the late 1960s, a 1990 interview with Shana unusual skill and courage, he remained. “Someone has to Penn, Executive Director of this 24-year-old commander stay here with all those who Taube Philanthropies. This survived the 1943 uprising to died,” said the brave activist reclamation of Polish Jewish participate in the 1944 general who emboldened three post- heritage became a meaningful

54 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 expression of anti-communist honest testimony with his resistance, and it imbued the life. Even after his death, 1980s Solidarity movement his influence continues to with respect for Poland’s reverberate among citizens Jewish heritage, fragile and who champion democracy and inconsistent though it was. Jewish cultural revitalization in Poland. He could be a tough pragmatist, even to the point of seeming On every April 19 after the heartless. Edelman would tell a war ended, Edelman would story in which he characterized receive a bouquet of yellow himself as having been daffodils from an anonymous “merciless” during the war. person. He would lay them at As a young messenger for the Monument to the Ghetto the ghetto hospital, he carried Fighters in memory of those Marek Edelman at the Jewish documents that allowed him Cemetery on Okopowa Street, in who fought and died. to rescue a few Jews from front of a monument commemorating Inspired by Edelman, POLIN trains transporting them to the members of the Bund and Cukunft who fought during the Warsaw Ghetto Museum has commemorated gas chambers. He consciously Uprising, ca. 1948–1950. the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising saved those he thought most Used with permission of the Jewish Historical Institute. every year on April 19, capable of aiding the coming with hundreds of volunteers ghetto revolt. Only those even when staying together distributing yellow paper who experienced the horrors of meant the strong accompanied daffodils to fellow citizens the Warsaw ghetto, he the weak to a certain end. across Poland to raise said, could understand the What others condemned as awareness of the uprising, decisions he and others were shameful meekness Edelman and its enduring significance. forced to make. saw as courage that was as In Łódź, the Marek Edelman great, he said, as that of those Edelman was known to state Center for Dialogue, an who fought the Nazis with his strong opinions bluntly award-winning cultural homemade weapons. and did not mince words— and educational program, when confronting injustice “These people went quietly teaches the multicultural and and hypocrisy. and with dignity,” he said. multiethnic history of Łódź “It is an awesome thing, and its influence on today’s Making such tough life- when one is going so quietly social reality, with emphasis and-death decisions did to one’s death. It is definitely on Jewish culture, history, not preclude, and perhaps more difficult than to go out and Polish-Jewish relations. heightened, Edelman’s shooting.” A future-looking institution, capacity for empathy. He often its programs cater to local, spoke of the courage exhibited He fought hard for his Jewish national, and international by those Jews who chose and Polish identity. He was audiences. n to stay with their families, a witness who gave tough,

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 55 OBITUARY Dr. Przemysl/aw “Yosl” Piekarski (1952– Agi Legutko 2019): The Yiddish Guru of Kraków

eptember 24, 2019, marks English-Polish Dictionary the end of an era. One (with Andrzej B. Lewkowicz), Sof the most prominent and Not Only Bollywood (co- passionate representatives edited with Grażyna of the post-war generation Stachówna), and Theater of Polish Yiddishists, Dr. of The Orient: Conference Przemysław “Yosl” Piekarski, Proceedings. His Polish passed away in Krakόw, translations offer a glimpse after a long battle with into interests ranging from cancer. Philologist, linguist, Yiddish literature (Abraham orientalist, researcher, Joshua Heschel’s The translator, and educator, Dr. Ineffable Name of God, and Piekarski was a senior lecturer Moshe Shklar’s My Words, My at the Institute of Oriental Przemysław Piekarski. Songs, and a collection, Sing Photograph by Andrzej Czapliński. Used with Studies and an adjunct permission. Me a Song in Yiddish) through faculty member at the Center Louis Frédéric’s Dictionary for Comparative Studies of preserves a language preserves of Indian Civilization (from Civilizations at Jagiellonian the memory of a people.” French), to English literature, such as Aidan MacFairlan’s University. An active member His profound interests in The Diary of a Teenage of the Jewish community, he Indian civilization, the Hindi Health Freak and Lucy was an enthusiastic propagator language and literature, Maud Montgomery’s Anne of of the Yiddish language and Hindu, Christian, and Jewish Green Gables. Recent blogs culture, teaching Yiddish mysticism, translation on Judaism were featured since the late 1990s, first at studies, and Judaism left on the Małopolska’s Virtual the Lauder Foundation in an everlasting impact on Museums. Krakόw, then at the newly generations of students. In reorganized Jewish Studies addition to his articles on Przemek, or Yosl, as friends Department of Jagiellonian Hinduism, his publications and students called him, was University, the Jewish Culture included, among others, a true Renaissance man: a Festival, the Krakόw JCC, and Manual of Yiddish (Hebrew) versatile scholar, a polyglot, many other venues. His motto Script (with Julia Makosz), A and an erudite who transfixed was, “Whoever saves a life Universal Polish-English and his audiences. A man of many saves the world, and whoever

56 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 talents and passions, he Overflowing with his love for Yiddish songs and loved to share his seemingly inexhaustible energy, Chava Alberstein. He was a true inspiration. Indeed, many endless knowledge with he was an unforgettable others. Full of curiosity about of his students, like myself, the world’s cultures and their teacher who taught with followed in his footsteps. languages, he often said that his entire being: through Przemek was a student of “eyn shprakh iz keyn mol music, stories, food, trips, Professor Chone Shmeruk, nisht genug” (one language is and even dance! a giant scholar of Yiddish never enough), in line literature who was with a proverb, “Those who He was also a true mensch. instrumental in establishing know many languages live as All who knew him remember the field of Yiddish studies in many lives as the languages his warmth, kindness, and mid-1980s Poland. Przemek they know.” Indeed, Przemek genuine care for other human passed Shmeruk’s legacy lived many lives in Polish, beings, his constant smile and to us, the next generation English, Hindi, Persian, optimism, and his friendship of Yiddishists. When I was French, Russian, Hebrew, and support for students with pondering the thesis topic for and Yiddish. whom he often stayed in touch my MA in English literature Born on September 15, years after their graduation. and translation studies, 1952, in Wałbrzych, he lived He was an engaging speaker, Yosl suggested I consider most of his life in Krakόw, and his lectures on Indology writing about Isaac Bashevis graduating from the Polish remained in students’ memory Singer’s short story, “The Last Philology Department at decades later. Overflowing Demon” (Mayse Tishevits). Jagiellonian University in with energy, he taught with He had promised Professor 1976. In 1986, he received his entire being, through Shmeruk to write about this his PhD in Indology from the music, stories, food, trips, unique story but never got Institute of Oriental Studies and even dance. Students around to it, and it gnawed at Jagiellonian University for recall him playing a recorder, at him that he hadn’t fulfilled his doctoral dissertation, “The bringing samosas to class, Shmeruk’s wish. Zones of Lexics in Hindi: and personally demonstrating I happily followed Przemek’s A Statistical Approach.” the figure of the dancing advice, wrote my thesis on For decades, he shared his Shiva. His passion for the translation as a crosscultural passion for Hindu civilization subjects close to his heart event, comparing Yiddish, and culture, teaching at his was contagious. Those who Polish, and English versions alma mater and organizing accompanied him to India of this story, and by proxy memorable trips to India for still talk about the experience fulfilled the promise Przemek nearly thirty years. years later; those who learned Yiddish with him remember made to his Yiddish teacher,

GAZETA FALL/WINTER 2019 n 57 becoming in a sense a “grand-student” of Shmeruk. I enjoyed researching and writing my thesis so much that I decided to pursue an academic career. Thank you for all you taught me, Przemek!

Przemek was a charismatic Yiddish guru, whose insatiable appetite for life and love for knowledge deeply affected all those around him. He lived his life to the fullest but left us much too soon. He is survived by his wife, four children, six grandchildren, colleagues, and thousands of students, many of whom remember him as the best teacher they ever had. May his memory be a blessing. “Zolst hobn a likhtikn gan- eydn, Yosl!” You should have a bright paradise, Yosl! Those who wish to leave a tribute to his memory, may do so on his Facebook page. n

Agi Legutko, PhD, is Yiddish Lecturer and Director of the Yiddish Language Program at Columbia University.

58 n GAZETA VOLUME 26, NO. 3 Chad Gadyo. Drawn and lithographed by Eliezer Lissitzky, Kiev, 1918–19. Courtesy of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life.

If you would like to suggest an article or author for the next issue of Gazeta, or submit one yourself, please email: [email protected]. The submission deadline for the next issue is February 28, 2020. We accept queries and submissions for feature articles of no more than 1500 words, and up to 500 words or less for all other announcements or reports.

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