Volume 25, No. 2 Gazeta Summer 2018

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, Maayan Stanton, Agnieszka Ilwicka, LaserCom Design. Cover Images: Kislev and Sivan from the series Calendar of Memory (2007) by Mira Żelechower- Aleksiun. The entire series is on display at Taube Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław (see pp.19-20).

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

FEATURES Szymon Datner’s “Little-Known Category of Hitlerite Crime” – 50 Years On Tomasz Frydel ...... 4 The Amendment of Poland’s Controversial Holocaust Legislation Antony Polonsky ...... 9 A Quite Non-Obvious Woman. Sendlerowa. W ukryciu (Sendlerowa: In Hiding) By Anna Bikont Irena Grudzińska-Gross ...... 14

REPORTS Letter From Warsaw On The Ghetto Uprising Anniversary Samuel Norich ...... 17 Opening of Taube Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław Reported by Taube Philanthropies ...... 19

ANNOUNCEMENTS/REVIEWS FILMS Who Will Write Our History? Premieres at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Adam Schorin ...... 21

BOOKS From Kraków to Berkeley: Coming Out of Hiding By Anna Rabkin Mal Warwick ...... 23 Kaddish for Dąbrowa Białostocka Mark Podwal ...... 25 A New Life in Israel: 1950-1954 By Shimon Redlich Antony Polonsky ...... 27 Olga Tokarczuk Wins Man Booker International Prize ...... 29 Warsaw is My Country: The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945 By Beth Holgrem Tressa Berman ...... 31 The Children of Willesden Lane: A Diary of Music, Love, and Survival (Dzieci z Willesden Lane. Pamiętnik muzyki, miłości i przetrwania) By Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen. Polish translation by Bożena Keff ...... 33 New Works by Marcin Wodzinski: Historical Atlas of Hasidism (Cartography by Waldemar Spailek), and Hasidism: Key Questions ...... 34 EXHIBITIONS What We’ve Been Unable to Shout Out to the World. The New Permanent Exhibition at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute Jacub Berski ...... 35 “I can neither be silent nor live.” An Exhibition on Shmuel Zygielbojm Jewish Historical Institute; Ilana Slomowitz and Aveda Ayalon ...... 40 Chuck Fishman Photography Exhibit Opens at Jewish Historical Institute ...... 43

CONFERENCES Janusz Korczak Conference in Seattle ...... 44 Urban Jewish Heritage Conference to Take Place in Krakow ...... 44 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy ...... 44 European Association of Jewish Studies Annual Conference in Krakow ...... 45 Workshop on Jewish-Slavic Relations Held at POLIN Museum ...... 46

AWARDS Jagiellonian University Awards Tad Taube with Highest Honor ...... 49 Tenth Annual Irena Sendler Awards Kansas High School Teacher Recognized at the Royal Castle First Musician Awarded During the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival ...... 51 Seventh Annual March of Remembrance Held in Warsaw ...... 53 Jewish Culture Festival Director Receives “Friend of Israel” Recognition ...... 54 Dariusz Stola is Gazeta Wyborcza’s Person of the Year in Culture Category ...... 55 Officer of the French National Order Presented to Konstanty Gebert Fay and Julian Bussgang ...... 56

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS Polish-Israeli Leadership Initiative ...... 57 POLIN GEOP Conferences and Opportunities ...... 57

PERSONAL ESSAY Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław Katarzyna Andersz ...... 60

OBITUARIES Richard Pipes Antony Polonsky ...... 63 In Memory of Abram Hynrik Prajs Michael Schudrich ...... 67 Claude Lanzmann Antony Polonsky ...... 69

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 1 President of the American Association Message from for Polish-Jewish Studies

Irene Pipes Founder of Gazeta

Dear Members and Friends,

Two important events took place in Poland this summer. The XI Conference of the European Association for Jewish Studies was for the first time held in Krakow. It was organized by the Jagellonian University with the help of twelve other institutions interested in promoting Jewish Studies. It was attended by nearly 1,000 scholars. The largest group of about 200 people came from Israel. Antony Polonsky gave the keynote lecture, the theme of which was “Polish Statehood and the Jews: Reflections on the Century of Polish Independence.” At the same time, there was a meeting of Irene Pipes the selection committee of the Gierowski-Shmeruk Prize for the best book published on the history and culture of Polish Jews by authors linked with Polish scholarly institutions.

The second event, the 38th annual International Meeting of the Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies, took place in Warsaw in conjunction with the POLIN Museum and the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, and was attended by more than 800 people. This was the first time that the annual meeting was ever held in a former communist country.

On a sad note, I shall mention that Harvard University is planning a memorial service in Memorial Hall on September 21 for my late husband Richard.

Irene Pipes President

2 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Message from Chairman and Executive Director Tad Taube and of the Taube Foundation for Shana Penn Jewish Life & Culture

Trying to establish the truth about something is challenging when the facts are disputed or strong emotions are involved in the outcome. This issue of Gazeta offers a number of essays and items that discuss the most recent scholarship and debates about the Polish Jewish relationship and its many outcomes, effects, and residues since the German invasion of Poland. Among our three lead articles, one employs a detailed historical analysis to explain how escapees from ghettos and camps in occupied Poland were able to survive, or not, in environments that were unfriendly to Jews. Another essay offers a reassessment of the life of Irena Sendler, who became an

Tad Taube iconic Righteous Among the Nations once her covert efforts during the Nazi occupation were revealed and publicized decades after the war. The most topical of the three essays is an overview of the Polish government’s recent decision, owing to domestic and international outcry, to revise its proposed law curbing public debate of Poland’s role in the Holocaust. Our issue also includes shorter items involving personages known for their insistence on uncovering truths. One is a review of Flights, a novel by Olga Tokarczuk, the first Polish author to win the prestigious Man Booker International Prize. Another is the obituary of the provocative French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, of Shoah fame. Yet another obituary, this one for Richard Pipes, reviews the life of an influential and highly regarded scholar who never stopped exploring the world, and inside himself. Shana Penn As the overall mission of Gazeta is to engage with the scholarship of Polish Jewish history to the present day, we hope that this Summer edition will shed new insights into the topics at hand and encourage further research and debate.

Tad Taube and Shana Penn Chairman and Executive Director

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 3 FEATURES

Szymon Datner’s “Little-Known Tomasz Frydel Category of Hitlerite Crime” – 50 Years On

n 1970, writing in the Iaftermath of the so-called anti-Zionist campaign of 1968 in Communist Poland, Szymon Datner – a Holocaust survivor and preeminent scholar of the Holocaust in Poland – raised the delicate issue of Jews who had escaped the ghettos and camps of German-occupied Poland: “I estimate the number of Jewish survivors – mainly with the help of the Polish population – at approximately 100,000 people. We also estimate that at least the same number of victims [100,000] was captured by the organs of The deportation of Jews from Mielec, 1942. the occupation and fell victim Photograph from the Yad Vashem Archives. Used with permission. to criminal acts” (Datner 1970: tone in Solidarity-era Poland, 247). “On the other hand,” 29). Datner ended his article Datner stated in an interview added Datner, “the Polish- with a plea: “It is imperative that the Holocaust “cannot that research into this little- Jewish problem in those days, be charged against the Poles. known category of Hitlerite if I can put it that way, lies It was German work and [Nazi] crime is continued, in the approximately 250 to was carried out by German as well as determining the 250,000 Jews who tried to hands. [I] must state with all institutional and personal save themselves.” Datner’s decisiveness that more than responsibility of its perpetrators 90 percent of the terrifying, formulation of the “Polish- in every individual case” murderous work was carried Jewish problem” of the (Datner 1970: 29). out by the Germans, with Holocaust has served as the Some two decades later, no Polish participation moral and historical yardstick speaking in a less guarded whatsoever” (Datner 1986: of Polish responsibility.

4 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Night Without End We, Polish Jews growing of Radom District). Other To date, the most systematic wild in forests, feeding major Polish regions still effort to investigate this await a similar treatment. our terrified children issue was undertaken by The findings largely confirm scholars affiliated with the on roots and grass; we the intuitions of Datner and Polish Center for Holocaust crawling, crouching, other historians about rates Research in Warsaw. The of escape, survival, and result of this five-year bedraggled and unkempt, mortality. Taken together, collaborative research project, armed with an antique the selected counties held a led by Barbara Engelking population of 140,000 Jews and Jan Grabowski, is a shotgun obtained by (5-10% of the population). Of two-volume study entitled some miraculous feat of this number, approximately Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów 2,500 survived (less than w wybranych powiatach begging and bribing. 2%). The median escape rate okupowanej Polski [It Is Still – “We, Polish Jews,” from ghettos in all counties Night: The Fate of Jews in Julian Tuwim, 1944, was 10%. In all nine counties, Selected Counties of Occupied translated by approximately 30% of Jews Poland]. The title Antony Polonsky in hiding survived, while “It Is Still Night” is taken more than 60% did not live from a poem by Czesław 1945 has subsequently come to see liberation. The book Miłosz, The Journey to be known as the “third also highlights the fact that (Podróż), published in phase” of the Holocaust or the complicity of segments 1942. An abridged English- as some German policemen of Polish society in the language version of the two referred to it – the “hunt for Holocaust was primarily a volumes, Night Without End, Jews” (Judenjagd). rural phenomenon. is forthcoming. The massive publication Poland’s Holocaust Law The inspiration for the contains micro-histories The book appeared this year study was Jan Grabowski’s focused on this period in in the midst of controversy previous book, Hunt for the nine counties of occupied following the Polish Jews: Betrayal and Murder Poland: eight in the General Parliament’s adoption of in German-Occupied Poland Government (GG) and one in an amendment to the Act (2013), set in the county Białystok District. on the Institute of National of Dąbrowa Tarnowska. Remembrance, specifically The period following the The study examined four Article 55a. Among others, the “liquidation actions” of districts in the core territory amendment made it a crime ghettos from mid-1942 to of the GG (with the exception to “ascribe Nazi crimes to the

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 5 Polish Nation or to the Polish the strength of the current km. south in Radomyśl Wielki State” and would penalize study is to foreground how that rate was closer to 10%. “slandering or libeling the segments of Polish society Likewise, the highest rate of Polish nation” by accusing it impeded Jewish survival Jewish survival occurred in of being complicit with the in this specific stage of the Złoczów county (47%), which Holocaust, with imprisonment Holocaust. However, it would likely reflects Eastern Galicia for up to three years. be an oversimplification to more broadly. The reason for suggest that in all cases there this disparity is threefold: 1) Ironically, the timing of the was a direct line between the relatively late liquidation ruling party’s heavy-handed Polish complicity and Jewish of its ghetto (spring 1943); attempt to shape historical death. Rather, the question of 2) the shorter duration of the truth – which caused an the fate of Jewish fugitives Judenjagd as a consequence international social media during the so-called Judenjagd (approximately one year); and storm and a diplomatic crisis presents historians with a 3) the greater level of Polish- between Poland and Israel multivariate problem. The Jewish solidarity in the region – only helped to launch the survival strategies applied by (likely due to the shared threat publication by giving it the Jews were often as complex as of Ukrainian nationalists). best media exposure that a the local circumstances they Such local variations could book can expect. Dalej jest came into contact with, as be multiplied. noc was sold out within days were the causes of their death. of the book’s premiere at The Case of Dębica County the POLIN Museum of the While it is important to As the author of the Dębica History of Polish Jews in formulate the findings within county study, I was struck by Warsaw on April 22, 2018. macro-level statistics, the real the significance of situational strength of the studies lies in The Devil in the Details factors, localized patterns of their attention to local realities. violence, and social dynamics The controversy signaled Here, the enormous regional in tipping the scales of the the worrying ascendance of differences are striking. For fate of Jews in hiding. In one the Holocaust into Poland’s example, while in Miechów instance, after a so-called culture wars, with all its county more than 12% of pacification action of a village crudities, while revealing Jews in hiding were killed for the shelter of Jews, in a surprising level of by members of the Polish the subsequent few weeks misunderstanding on all sides. underground, by contrast, less locals preemptively captured than 1% were killed in Dębica The greatest confusion may more than thirty Jews in the county – both within District lie in what readers may take to surrounding region out of Krakow. While the escape rate mean by death “as a result of fear for a similar German from one town, such as Mielec, the actions” of Poles. Indeed, reaction. Under the lens of a could be as low as 1%, just 20

6 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 micro-history, genocide often presents itself as series of homicides in accelerated form.

There is no doubt that peasants denounced and directly participated in the capture of Jewish fugitives, leading to their murder. But the major power structure that acted as a conveyor belt of captives to the German or Polish “Blue” Police – certainly in the context of Dębica county – was a Jews building barracks in the Dębica Ghetto, 1941. kind of village surveillance Photograph from the Archive of the Regional Museum in Dębica. Used with permission. system consisting of village Further, under the “identity Polish society and Jewish heads, village guards, rotating politics” of a racist mortality lies in the fact that “hostages,” foresters, and occupation, people tended Jewish survival was often the like instituted by German to fall back on their ethnic intertwined with broader authorities. The overwhelming identities, and the studies dilemmas that compromised majority of peasants accused of confirm that Jewish life was village societies, such as collaboration after the war had often assigned a lower value ongoing hunts for Soviet ties to this system. The forces from that of ethnic Poles. POWs, roundups for forced of anti-Semitism and greed One consequence of this was labor to Germany, and the played an important role, that the fugitive Jews in the general social breakdown but this system of pressures countryside – “growing wild caused by the occupation. The formed the institutional in forests,” “bedraggled and struggle for Jewish survival baseline that determined the unkempt,” to evoke Julian at times clashed with the range of behavior. Tuwim’s poem – were largely survival strategies adopted by The oppressive picture that left outside the institutional village collectives, even if the emerges from the study is of support of the Underground latter were not the target of an entire society retooled by State, though here, too, the same genocidal assault. the occupation authorities marked regional differences Paying attention to the from the village level up for can be observed. above factors can yield the purpose of producing The overall difficulty of more explanatory power Jewish death. drawing a clear line between than reducing the matter to

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 7 a monolithic understanding of anti-Semitism (as widespread as it was) or the conventional framework of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. In fact, the notion of “bystanders” quickly dissolves under the complex reality of a micro- history. In studying the anatomy of the “third phase” of the Holocaust on Polish territories, Datner’s call to determine the “institutional and personal responsibility of its perpetrators in every individual case” requires the The jacket images for both volumes of Dalej jest noc (Night Without End). most precise analytic tools.

It is not often that a two- edited by Małgorzata Stowarzyszenie Centrum volume academic study – Niezabitowska and Tomasz Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, counting almost 1700 pages Tomaszewski, 231-260. 2018. New York: Friendly Press, in length and characterized by Tomasz Frydel is a PhD 1986. Talmudic footnotes – is sold Candidate in the Department out within days of the book’s Datner, Szymon. “Zbrodnie of History and the Anne premiere. It would appear that hitlerowskie na Żydach Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish a large section of the public zbiegłych z get” [Hitlerite Studies at the University of is interested in the unadorned Crimes against Jews Toronto. His dissertation truth of the Holocaust in Fleeing Ghettos]. In examines village society Poland, even if – as when Biuletyn Żydowskiego and the Holocaust in Datner first raised the “Polish- Instytutu Historycznego 75, German-occupied Poland. Jewish problem” – its ruling no. 3 (1970): 7-29. He is currently a Claims political party is not. Conference Saul Kagan Engelking, Barbara, and Jan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Sources Grabowski. Dalej jest noc. Studies. n Datner, Szymon. “No Fear Losy Żydów w wybranych in Me.” In Remnants: powiatach okupowanej The Last Jews of Poland, Polski. Warsaw:

8 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 The Amendment of Poland’s Antony Polonsky Controversial Holocaust Legislation

n a surprise move at the end of June, Mateusz IMorawiecki, the Polish Prime Minister introduced legislation in the Polish parliament which was rapidly passed, and which significantly modified the amendments to the law on the prosecution of crimes against the Polish Nation passed in late January. The most controversial of these amendments held that: The site of the 1941 massacre in Jedwabne, in which the town’s non-Jewish residents murdered approximately 1,600 of their Jewish neighbors. 1. Whoever claims, publicly Image courtesy of Jason Francisco. and contrary to the facts, that the Polish Nation or constitute crimes against 3. No offence is committed if the Republic of Poland peace, crimes against the criminal act specified is responsible or co- humanity or war crimes, in clauses 1 and 2 is responsible for Nazi crimes or whoever otherwise committed in the course committed by the Third grossly diminishes the of the one’s artistic or Reich, as specified in responsibility of the true academic activity. Article 6 of the Charter of perpetrators of said crimes the International Military – shall be liable to a fine These sentences were now Tribunal enclosed to the or imprisonment for up to removed from the legislation. International agreement three years. The sentence The following clause was for the prosecution and shall be made public. however retained: punishment of the major Protecting the reputation of war criminals of the 2. If the act specified in the Republic of Poland and European Axis, signed clause 1 is committed the Polish Nation shall be in London on 8 August unintentionally, the governed by the provisions 1945 (Polish Journal of perpetrator shall be liable of the Civil Code Act of 23 Laws of 1947, item 367), to a fine or a restriction April 1964 (Polish Journal or for other felonies that of liberty. of Laws of 2016, items

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 9 380, 585 and 1579) on condemned “every single [has] really changed. Criminal the protection of personal case of cruelty against charges were never the main rights. A court action aimed Jews perpetrated by Poles goal of the law; remaining at protecting the Republic during…World War II” but civil and legal measures will of Poland’s or the Polish also noted “heroic acts of have the same impact. Our Nation’s reputation may numerous Poles, especially goal was to change world be brought by a non- the Righteous Among the opinion, and that goal has governmental organisation Nations, who risked their lives already been achieved.” within the remit of its to save Jewish people.” In The changes were widely statutory activities. Any addition, it declared that “We welcomed by liberals, resulting compensation or have always agreed that the although some expressed damages shall be awarded term ‘Polish concentration/ regret that the law had not to the State Treasury. death camps’ is blatantly been entirely repealed. The erroneous and diminishes the Catholic Church has supported Article 53p. A court action responsibility of Germans the government decision to aimed at protecting the for establishing those camps” modify the law. According Republic of Poland’s or the and argued that the wartime to Bishop Rafał Markowski, Polish Nation’s reputation Polish Government-in-Exile chairman of the Church’s may also be brought by “attempted to stop this Nazi Commission for Dialogue the Institute of National activity by trying to raise with Judaism: Remembrance. In such awareness among the Western cases, the Institute of allies to the systematic murder We’re satisfied the clauses National Remembrance of the Polish Jews.” The which caused controversy shall have the capacity declaration condemned anti- and provoked serious to be a party to court Semitism and anti-Polonism unease have been removed. proceedings. and affirmed that “[w]e I experienced this unease believe that there is a common in talks with Jewish In addition, clauses relating community representatives, to the penalization of the responsibility to conduct free research, to promote with whom we very much denial of crimes “committed depend on good relations. by Ukrainian nationalists understanding and to preserve and members of Ukrainian the memory of the history of Nationalists were critical. units collaborating with the the Holocaust.” Robert Winnicki, Polish Third Reich” remained in the The response to the modification member of parliament and legislation. of the controversial legislation leader of the right-wing nationalist Ruch Narodowy The amendment of the and the declaration has been mixed. In Poland, political party tried physically legislation was accompanied to block the podium in by a joint statement by Prime Minister Morawiecki attempted to justify the parliament to prevent debate Prime Ministers Morawiecki over the amendments. Internet and Netanyahu. In it they change, arguing that “nothing

10 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 commentary claimed that Yehuda Bauer claimed the statement downplayed the “the Jews have again brought involvement of Poles in the the law still allowed the Poland down on its knees” or mass murder of the Jews and described the government as pursuit of civil suits exaggerated the importance “pro-Jewish.” of Polish rescue activities. In against self-critical addition, he claimed that the Jewish reactions have also Polish historians. law still allowed the pursuit of been mixed. Szewach Weiss, civil suits against self-critical a former Israeli ambassador to and with the United States. Polish historians. Poland observed: This position was shared by the This seems to have led Yad World Jewish Congress whose I am satisfied [with the Vashem to criticize the president, Ronald Lauder, said repeal]. I believe that “highly problematic wording” the organization was “pleased Poland and Israel will of the joint statement: return to the common that the Polish government has path on which they were recognized the untenable nature A thorough review by embarked. We must not of its new Holocaust law.” Yad Vashem historians forget the past but we shows that the historical Initially, the Yad Vashem need to go forward. I assertions, presented Holocaust Memorial Museum hope we will return to as unchallenged facts, welcomed the move, claiming the good relations which in the joint statement that the government’s reversal existed six months ago… contain grave errors and was “a positive development We need to develop our deceptions, and that the in the right direction” and educational programs and essence of the statute that “correct way to combat mutual cultural relations remains unchanged even historical misrepresentations between our young people, after the repeal of the is by reinforcing open, free to develop our scholarly aforementioned sections, research and educational institutions and encourage including the possibility of activities.” It seems to have historical and sociological real harm to researchers, changed its position as a research. unimpeded research and result of the intervention of the historical memory of Yehuda Bauer, the Nestor Lesław Piszewski, President the Holocaust. of the Jewish Community of of Holocaust scholarship in Warsaw said that the Jewish Israel. In a radio interview, In addition, it was claimed community in Poland was the 92-year-old said the that the legislation still made “very pleased” with the backtracking on the law possible the pursuit of civil government’s decision to repeal and the signing of a joint suits against those who, it was the criminal provisions in the statement with Poland was claimed, had falsified history law that he hoped would help “a small achievement and a and “reverses the explicit restore Poland’s relations with very big mistake, bordering exception that was made for the Jewish diaspora, with Israel on betrayal.” He claimed that academic research and artistic

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 11 endeavor in the wording of Repealing the Vashem concerning the law. the amendment.” Concluding, it affirmed: amendment… has to Critical views were also [W]e remain encouraged be seen as a major expressed by Naftali Bennett, by and stand in solidarity the Israeli Education Minister concession on the part with those Polish scholars and the Yesh Atid Party leader whose research informs a Yair Lapid. of the Morawiecki fuller understanding of the Holocaust and with those The United States Holocaust government. Polish educators who are Memorial Museum cautiously teaching future generations welcomed the changes, but of being complicit in Nazi the vitally important history felt they did not fully address crimes committed by the of the horrific events that the problem raised by the Third German Reich.” The took place on Polish soil legislation. In its statement the arbitration of historical during the Nazi German USHMM acknowledged facts does not belong with occupation. courts or legislative bodies. the recent amendment Yaakov Nagel, one of the It belongs with rigorous to Poland’s problematic two Netanyahu confidants scholars and educators Act on the Institute of who secretly negotiated the committed to documenting National Remembrance agreement with the Polish historical truth and (IPN) as a first step government, defended it as advancing accurate, towards addressing part follows: of the problem with the thoughtful, open discourse. legislation. However, this Here is a country that The statement expressed its revision does not secure prides itself with having appreciation for the dialogue a future for Holocaust passed a law that they say it had undertaken with the education, scholarship, will restore national honor, Polish government and hoped and remembrance. and half a year later they that this would continue. cancel it…This is a great The statement continues: But it remained focused achievement for the State of [A]lthough the Government on its “primary concern, Israel… We had a law that of Poland has removed which is the potential for everyone said was terrible, the possibility of criminal intimidation, self-censorship, and we got rid of it without prosecution under the and politicization, rather giving them anything in terms of the IPN law, it than a shared belief in return. There is nothing is still possible for the the need for an ongoing, wrong with the statement. state to engage in civil honest engagement with the proceedings against persons past.” It also supported the He also claimed Yad Vashem’s who accuse “the Polish statements of Yehuda Bauer chief historian, Dina Porat, nation or the Polish state and the historians of Yad had confirmed that the joint

12 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 statement was historically The issuing of the ensuring that these matters accurate. Certainly, when he are discussed by historians joint [Poland-Israel] presented the agreement and and not subject to legal the statement in Tel Aviv, statement is a necessary adjudication. n Netanyahu thanked Porat for Antony Polonsky, PhD, is assisting in the work that led step in ensuring these Chief Historian at POLIN to the agreement. matters are discussed Museum of the History of Perhaps the most judicious by historians and Polish Jews. assessment of the situation was that made by the not subject to legal chairman of the Yad Vashem adjudication. Council, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who, in an interview countries—and the former with Ynet, claimed he focuses on the present understood where Netanyahu and future, with a more was coming from and that he forgiving attitude toward believed the Prime Minister’s the Poles as individuals. intentions were good. Referring to the hostility of Repealing the amendment, some Holocaust survivors, criminalizing some forms he pointed to their criticism of Holocaust discourse, of Israel’s establishment of which has led to so many diplomatic ties with Germany. bitter exchanges in the last In his view: six months, has to be seen There are two perspectives as a major concession on here that can’t always the part of the Morawiecki be reconciled…One is government. The issuing of diplomatic-political, which the joint statement, which focuses on Israel-Poland does deal both with the relations today, in 2018, good and bad aspects of and the other is emotional Polish behavior, however and scientific, taken by superficially, seems to me a scholars of Jewish history necessary step in the return in World War II. The latter to a more civil discussion of looks at the past—without the complex, difficult and taking into consideration contested aspects of Polish- the significance of the Jewish relations during the relations between the two Second World War, and to

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 13 A Quite Non-Obvious Woman. Sendlerowa. W ukryciu (Sendlerowa: Irena Grudzińska Gross In Hiding) By Anna Bikont

here is no one interested Michalak, the then Rights of in East European history Children spokesman, said about Twho has not heard the name her: “The example set by the of Irena Sendler. Besides Jan heroic actions of Irena Sendler Karski, she is the best known teaches us that people cannot Polish Righteous Among the remain passive and silent when Nations. On Amazon.com, they are aware that someone her eight English language nearby is suffering harm. She romanticized biographies are acted in a real, sincere manner, for sale, and there is at least being completely indifferent to one fictionalized American- any accolades or honors. She Polish television movie of always considered the most her life, as well as several important honor was the Order documentaries, and some of the Smile granted to her by theatre plays. In Poland, children.” The parliamentarians there are awards in her name, approved her candidature, Jacket image for Sendlerowa. streets and schools named W ukryciu (Sendlerowa: In Hiding) asking, in a show of modesty: after her. This current year has by Anna Bikont. Would we be as courageous?1 been declared by the Polish as the TV movie, turn her into Similar to the American story Parliament as “The Year of a stereotype. There are untrue of Rosa Parks, who sat down in Irena Sendler.” facts and characterizations a “for whites only” section of It is obvious that with such repeated from book to book, the bus because “she was tired,” mass production, a sketch easy images copied without Irena Sendler, a leftist social version of her life, character corrections. She is presented worker and skillful organizer, is and motivations is most as a modest Catholic woman, turned into a person acting on often idealized, or at least moved by her good heart to her womanly instinct. simplified. She was a heroic save Jewish children, whom There is now a book that makes woman, acting bravely in she selflessly walked out of clear that this sentimental very difficult times – her life the Warsaw Ghetto. In his image of Irena Sendler can story does not require any request to the Speaker of the embellishments. And yet, most Sejm, asking to make her a of the books about her, as well person of the year, Marek 1 https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/ news/2018-be-year-irena-sendler

14 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 be discarded. I am referring Bikont did not want saying that her daughter never lied. “So how did she survive to Anna Bikont’s biography to write another false Sendlerowa; In Hiding, the war? Margarita wondered” published last year in Poland biography of a paper (p. 16). In fact, the problem that Bikont had to deal with, and by Czarne. Bikont presents saint. Sendler was a real the documented history of the hence the title “In Darkness” activities of her protagonist, as heroine whose life was – which can also mean “In well as of several children that Hiding” -- is that her protagonist full of dramatic events survived the war, sometimes did not report truthfully about in part thanks to the help of and upheavals. her past. Her wartime deeds Irena Sendler. She calls her are hidden, not only because of protagonist “a quite non- children who left the ghetto in temporal distance separating us obvious woman.” The book apartments, always insufficient from it, but because so many starts with the stories of the in number, or finding places people died during that time - children, as recalled by their for them in convents where and with them their memories adult selves and checked they were relatively safer. She and stories. Documents against whatever documentation did not walk them out of the were burned, archives were is available. Before we even ghetto - they were smuggled destroyed. But there is also the meet Sendler, we learn about by her collaborators. She was a defective memory of those who their conditions of survival and logistics person, often without survived, with their traumatic what activities, ruses, and risks direct contact with her charges. silences and intentional were involved in saving them. It is unclear how many children obfuscation. The five years she helped to safety, but it was of war destroyed cities and After approximately fifty definitely less than the number lives, and marked forever those pages we turn to Irena Sendler. of 2,500 that is ascribed to her who survived. People had to We are then ready to grasp as a badge of honor. Let me hide their identity with false how unrealistic the stories we repeat: she was an extremely documents, moving into new previously heard about her courageous woman who does places, with new people. After are. The saving of Jews, both not need to be propped up by the war they were like exiles children and adults, in Warsaw artificially pumped up numbers. from foreign lands: they did during World War II was a There were several hundred not, could not, dwell on past very difficult and complicated children that she helped to humiliations and losses. Their business, requiring enormous hide. When we read the stories memory was often faulty and courage, planning, money, of those who survived, we see changeable. organizational support, and the enormity of her work. networks of people willing to This was a real problem for host the escapees or transport In the first chapter of the book, Bikont, who did not want to them to other places. In Żegota, Anna Bikont sets the tone by write another false biography the underground organization citing a survivor, Margarita of a paper saint. Sendler was that helped Jews, Irena Sendler Turkow, who remembers a a real heroine whose life was was responsible for placing mother of another survivor full of dramatic events and

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 15 upheavals. Here I mention just journalist, Teresa Torańska, met but do not use it to relativize a couple of examples (and as the inconsistencies in Sendler’s crimes and suffering. They do an inducement to read the book, life, she abandoned her not call on human nature and as yet available only in Polish). biographical project altogether. the fog of war to whitewash Catholic by birth, Irena Sendler But now the need to learn the massacres and killings. Their was a pre-war leftist, a social history of the Second World writings follow the networks worker helping poor women War is more urgent than ever. of individual biographies, not with contraception. During the We are losing the generational the requirements of national war, she had a Jewish lover who survivors, but also the craft interest. And they let in the lived in the ghetto, and whom of history is itself divided. feeling of empathy. she married when the war ended One side is the official, state- Anna Bikont’s biography of and she was able to divorce her sanctioned history, sometimes Irena Sendler is an example former husband. After the war, called “identity history.” It is of that second type of writing she joined first the Socialist supported by major investments and it shows how useful such Party then the Communist Party, into the Institute of National an approach to history can remaining a member until the Remembrance, new museums, be. The book is much more Communist Party was dissolved monuments, school manuals, than a biography. It is a partial after 1989. At various moments and other official narratives. but profound description of of her life, she did not feel like In this history, Irena Sendler the reality of war. Its writing exposing the above facts. When is portrayed strictly as the required enormous stamina, she was recognized finally for selfless Polish Catholic who wisdom, and modesty. The her rescue activities, she seemed stands for the masses of Poles book is dense, factual, quick, to gradually succumb under who helped the Jews. and emotionally exhausting. the pressure of the ever-more There is another kind of Its text is supported by copious active public effort at making history, one that could be called footnotes – everything is her a Good Woman. Bikont dissident history, which does documented. The stories was in a real bind: she did not not start with essential identities the reader encounters in the want to undermine Sendler’s (a Pole, a Jew, a communist, book are almost unbearable. noble reputation, and she also a patriot), but rather, begins What makes the reading of had to paint her life in all of its with the in-depth description Sendlerowa: In Hiding possible complexity. of what happened, who did is the empathy that drove the Before writing, Bikont met what, and what were the author in her research and several survivors, went consequences of such acts. The writing. If she was able to through archives, books and dissident historians, most of excavate that truth for us, to live manuscripts. Although it is them women, write about the with this material, we also have difficult, many things can extermination of Jews without to face it. It’s high time. n still be fact-checked. Irena following the rules of patriotic Irena Grudzińska Gross is Sendler’s story often looked discretion – they look at the Professor at the Institute of different from what she told evidence, not at honor. They do Slavic Studies, Polish Academy herself. When the reputable analyze the context of events of Sciences.

16 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 REPORTS Letter From Warsaw On The Samuel Norich Ghetto Uprising Anniversary

n a warm and cloudless yellow paper daffodils being front of the iconic statue of spring day, on April handed out by young women the ghetto fighters by Nathan O19, 2018, Warsaw residents and girls at metro stations and Rapoport erected in 1948. The and Jews from abroad bus stops, daffodils marked president of Poland, Andrzej remembered the ghetto with the words “Warsaw Duda, spoke, as did the Israeli uprising that began on this ghetto uprising” and the date ambassador, Anna Azari, and day in 1943. One in three or it began. A siren sounded all Ronald Lauder, the president four people you passed on over the city at noon, and of the World Jewish Congress. the streets in the center of the when it ended an impressive An unofficial ceremony two city seemed to be wearing the official ceremony began in hours later at Mila 18, the site

A ceremony commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Image courtesy of Hanna Olszewska-Cohen.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 17 of the bunker in which some President Duda sought to over the refusal of the Polish of the leaders of the uprising underground, the Home Army, emphasize that the ghetto had been cornered and killed to provide arms to the ghetto by Nazi troops, a ceremony fighters were Polish uprising. What few weapons organized by Jewish visitors they did receive from citizens, that they had from the U.S. and Canada Polish sources largely came provided a sharp counterpoint “flown both the Jewish from another underground to the claims heard in force, the People’s Army, a blue-and-white flag President Duda’s speech. communist unit. That was and the Polish red-and- never mentioned by Duda. Duda had sought to emphasize that the ghetto fighters were white flag.” The official commemoration Polish citizens, that they had was followed in the evening, “flown both the Jewish blue- in the same venue, by a public people and organizations that and-white flag, as well as the concert with a symphony aided the ghetto uprising, Polish red-and-white flag,” orchestra and full chorus, another ceremony began at that they received “rifles and and a sound and light show Mila 18. Organized by Fay machine guns” from the Polish projected on a skyscraper that Rosenfeld, the daughter underground, that the Polish stands on the site of the former of Warsaw survivors who government-in-exile in London Great Synagogue, destroyed found refuge in Montreal, brought news of the uprising by the Nazis during the early and Ann Toback, executive to the BBC. He made much of days of their occupation of director of the Workmen’s the fact that the SS commander the city. The orchestra and Circle, who led a delegation in Warsaw, General Juergen chorus performed a segment touring Poland, this ceremony Stroop, wrote in his reports to of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, featured readings in Yiddish Berlin that “Polish bandits had with words to “All men are and English from poetry joined the Jews in firing on SS brothers” sung in Hebrew. n written by Jewish socialists troops.” In an indirect reference and socialist zionists during Samuel Norich is the to Poland’s recent Holocaust the ghetto, as well as a president of the Forward law, Duda said that “those reading from Vladka Meed’s and has served as executive who talk about Polish co- memoir, “On the other side director of the Forward responsibility for the genocide of the Wall,” written by the Association since 2000. of the Jews hurt both of us.” ghetto fighter and courier He was the publisher of the Not long after the official in 1947. It was read by her English and Yiddish Forward ceremony ended with a son, Dr. Steven Meed, and for 19 years until 2016. military honor guard and it was a passage in which the reading of the names of Vladka complained bitterly

18 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Opening of the Taube Department Reported by of Jewish Studies at the University Taube Philanthropies of Wrocl/aw

n June 18, 2018, the recently named Taube ODepartment of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław University opened its new home in a historic 18th century building on the Isle of Sand on the banks of the Oder River in Wrocław. Support from Taube Philanthropies, the Koret Foundation, the Kronhill Pletka Foundation, Adam Exterior of the building at University of Wrocław that houses the Taube Department Heimath, and others enabled of Jewish Studies. the department’s move into the Photograph by M. Marcula. Used with permission. new, renovated space. treated everyone to a lively Anita Friedman, and I Professor Adam Jezierski, history of the building itself. visited the Jewish Studies President of the University, office two years ago, we With this much-needed and Marcin Wodziński - were virtually heartbroken expansion, the Jewish a historian of Hasidism to witness piles of boxes, Studies program can now in Poland, former Chief piled high one on top of house its extensive Jewish Historian of POLIN Museum another in a rather small library collection, to which of the History of Polish Jews, room. We realized we could Taube Philanthropies first and now Chair of Jewish help make a difference.” donated books fifteen years Studies library, greeted guests The new library is a fully ago. As Shana Penn, Taube and sponsors. Professor functional, state-of-the-art Philanthropies Executive Marcin Cieński, Dean of facility worthy of the highly Director, stated in her remarks the Faculty of Philology, respected academics at the at the inauguration and presented future plans for Taube Department of Jewish ribbon cutting ceremony: reconstruction of the refectory Studies, including its Chair “When Taube Philanthropies that once abutted the building, Professor Marcin Wodzinski. Chairman Tad Taube, Koret and Monika Jaremków, Head The original capital grant of Foundation President Dr. of the Jewish Studies library, $100,000 awarded by Taube

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 19 Hallway in the Taube Department of Jewish Studies at University Taube Philanthropies’ Shana Penn performs the ribbon-cutting of Wrocław lined with paintings by Mira Żelechower-Aleksiun. at the opening ceremony. Photograph by M. Marcula. Used with permission. Photograph by Anna Włoch. Image courtesy of Irene Pletka.

Philanthropies encouraged Letters. “This new home is Proud to be a part of this other donors and Wrocław a great contribution toward exciting new chapter in University itself to reach the the development of Jewish the life of Jewish Studies goal of finding and renovating Studies in Wrocław, but it at Wrocław University, the new space. Located in is also important for the Penn announced at the one of the most picturesque field of Jewish Studies more ribbon-cutting ceremony sites in Wrocław, with its generally in Poland and in an additional $25,000 grant freshly renovated interior and Eastern Europe,” declared to support faculty research, beautifully restored furniture, Professor Wodzinski, adding with $1200 earmarked for the one would be hard-pressed to that “without the support of publication of a new collected imagine a more prestigious Taube Philanthropies, the volume, translated into Polish, and fitting quarters for Jewish refurbishment of and move of Yiddish women poets, titled Studies, its faculty and ever- into our new space would My Wild Goat: An Anthology growing student body. be simply impossible.” In of Yiddish Female Poets, in 2017, Taube Philanthropies honor of the unveiling. n Established twenty years ago, awarded an additional grant the Department of Jewish of $100,000 over four years Studies has grown into an to support the department’s independent department general operations. as part of the Faculty of

20 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REVIEWS FILMS Who Will Write Our History? Premieres Adam Schorin at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

f none of us survives, at least let that remain,” “Iwrote historian Emanuel Ringelblum in 1944 in his final letter before his death. In the Warsaw Ghetto, Ringelblum led a clandestine group of journalists, scholars, rabbis, and community leaders in maintaining a daily record of life in the ghetto and the crimes of the Nazis. Of the several dozen people in the Oyneg Shabes group—a Director Roberta Grossman with actors Karolina Gruszka (Judyta Ringelblum) and codename meaning “the joy Piotr Głowacki (Emanuel Ringelblum) on set in Poland. of Shabbat”—only three Photograph by Anna Włoch. Used with permission. members survived and were interviews with contemporary important film on the subject able to recover the majority historians, archival footage, since Claude Lanzmann’s of the archive—35,000 dramatizations, and the text Shoah. Nothing short of pages—after the war. of the archive itself. Written, a masterpiece.” Jonathan The story of the Oyneg Shabes directed, and produced by Brent, Executive Director archives was not widely Roberta Grossman, and of Yivo said, “The film is known until the publication executive produced by Nancy overwhelming, monumental, of Samuel D. Kassow’s 2009 Spielberg, the film had its and the story remains book Who Will Write Our world premiere on July 21st at both terrifying and oddly History?: Rediscovering a the 38th San Francisco Jewish exhilarating.” Film Festival. Hidden Archive from the In an interview with the Warsaw Ghetto. A new The film has received Jewish Film Institute, film, also titled Who Will stellar reviews. Robert Grossman said, “I honestly Write Our History, tells the Albanese, program director believe this is the most story of Ringelblum and the at the Vancouver Jewish Film important unknown story of Oyneg Shabes group through Festival, called it, “the most the Holocaust. I hope my film

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 21 Andrew Bering portrays Israel Lichtenstein as he prepares the first cache of the archive. Photograph by Anna Włoch. Used with permission. will change that in a way only a film can do, [by] making the story accessible to hundreds of thousands of people around the world.” n

More information about Who Will Write Our History, including a trailer and clips, can be found at: http:// whowillwriteourhistory.com. Scholar Sam Kassow with his Adam Schorin is Assistant daughter (and actor in the film) Editor of Gazeta. Serena Kassow. Photograph by Anna Włoch. Used with permission.

22 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REVIEWS BOOKS From Kraków to Berkeley: Coming Out of Hiding Mal Warwick By Anna Rabkin

he was born Haneczka Rose in 1935 in Kraków, Sthe youngest of three children of a well-to-do Polish-Jewish family. She became Anna Rozak at the age of six when her parents sent her into hiding with a Catholic family to evade capture by the Gestapo. In England at the end of the Second World War, she took on the name Anna Rose. At the age of 18, she was adopted by an Austrian-American family Author Anna Rabkin speaking at an event for her book From Krakow to Berkeley: Coming out of Hiding. in New York and became Courtesy of the author. Anna Wellman. Finally, upon her marriage to New York Anna writes in her preface, “but Anna describes that journey businessman Marty Rabkin, my life story spans continents. with consummate skill, when she was 24, Anna took While it is common to describe bringing up from her on the name that appears on life as a journey, mine has been prodigious memory for sensory the cover of her magnificent a literal one: from my family’s detail the remarkable story of new memoir, From Kraków frantic flight across Poland; my her evolution from a shy young to Berkeley: Coming Out of escape from the ghetto and then Polish girl who didn’t start Hiding. This is the odyssey of from Lwów; to being shipped school until the age of ten to a Holocaust survivor whose off to England; to my quota- the supremely accomplished experience parallels in some defying immigration to New woman who holds master’s ways what so many refugees York and subsequent migration degrees in city and regional today are facing. to California. I have traveled planning and history, served across oceans and through for fifteen years as Berkeley’s The odyssey of a waves of cultural and political elected City Auditor, and Holocaust survivor change. Each place on my spearheaded the Berkeley “I have lived in Berkeley, journey and each period left its Public Library’s first, $4 California, for many decades,” mark on me.” million fundraising campaign.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 23 A troubled search for is by no means typical of the compressed into about forty identity city, its diversity certainly is. pages. Having tried myself on several occasions to write Unsurprisingly, the most Following her election as a memoir, I understand. I moving stories in the book Berkeley City Auditor in 1979, found it damnably difficult to concern Anna’s childhood in Anna reflected, “Survival is write with complete candor Kraków, Lwów (now Lviv sweet revenge. I had not only about people who are alive in Ukraine), and England. survived the war, created with whom I may have had Her desperate longing for a family and developed complicated relationships. her parents, who had simply relationships with people of disappeared, and her troubled all backgrounds, but during In the interest of full search for identity (after the campaign, I had overcome disclosure, I’m proud to state her Polish guardian had her the fears and feelings of that Anna and I have been baptized in a Catholic church), worthlessness that a hateful friends for many years. In are especially poignant. As ideology had instilled in me. addition to our connections she reflected on much later, I had proved to myself that through Berkeley politics “Jewish, Catholic, Polish, neither my gender, religious or since the 1970s, we have met British, American — who immigrant background were almost monthly for more than was I?” Anna’s experience as insurmountable obstacles. I thirty years in a dinner group a refugee shuttled from one could participate in public life she mentions in her book, and country to another is similar to and even be elected to office. her late husband, Marty, was that of the unwilling migrants My community’s acceptance a member of my company’s who are flooding across would transform my life.” It’s board of directors for 25 years. national borders in the 21st difficult to imagine a more However, I must make it clear century. inspiring and life-affirming that, our friendship aside, this Life in an ideally diverse statement than that. review of Anna’s memoir is not one whit more positive than it community A foreshortened timescale fully deserves. n Anna was 27 when she and From Kraków to Berkeley Marty arrived in Berkeley. is structured around a Reprinted with permission At this remove, it seems foreshortened timescale. by Mal Warwick. Mal she might not have found a The twenty-seven period Warwick is an author, blogger, more welcoming community encompassed in parts one, entrepreneur, and impact anywhere. “My block,” she two, and three (covering investor who is one of three writes about the street where Poland, England, and New partners in One World Play she has been living since York in succession) occupies Project, and founder and 1964, “was unusually active two-thirds of the book. Part chairman of Mal Warwick and diverse. It was home to four deals with Anna’s time Donordigital. several immigrant families, in California since 1962. five of whom were Holocaust The final forty years are survivors.” While that block

24 n GAZETA VOLUMEVOLUME 25, 25, NO. NO. 2 2 Kaddish for Dąbrowa Białostocka Mark Podwal

iddish proverbs offer wonderful wit and Ytimeless wisdom. Among my favorites is: “If you want to give God a good laugh tell Him your plans.” Although for many years I had wanted to visit Dąbrowa Białostocka, the shtetl where my mother was born, I never planned on creating a series of artworks on that town. Eventually, an incentive to visit Dąbrowa came from its mayor to participate in a conference on the history of the town’s Jews. The visit resulted in a series of One of Mark Podwal’s illustrations from his book Kaddish for Dąbrowa Białostocka. 18 paintings and drawings, that In essence, this series of 18 the nearby Bialowieza Forest together offer original views (Chai or “Life” in Hebrew) is and many Polish companies of a Polish shtetl, which by both a visual diary of my trip use bisons in their logos, 1899 had a Jewish population to Dąbrowa and a portrait of a drawing of a Hanukkah that was 75% of the town’s a world that has disappeared. Lamp has bisons instead of total population. Currently, no The drawings reflect what the traditional lions. As white Jews live there. Prints of the I saw in Poland and what I storks nest in Poland more artworks have been exhibited heard from elderly Dąbrowa than in any other country, at the Museum at Eldridge residents interviewed in a film, storks appear on a Simhat Street, Bialystok’s Zamenhof screened at the conference, Torah flag and a stork makes Centre, and the Yiddish Book discussing reminiscences of its nest on a Polish havdalah Center, which has published their former Jewish neighbors. spice box tower. Another the series as the book, Kaddish The art includes humorous havdalah spice box is in for Dąbrowa Białostocka with unexpected juxtapositions. the shape of a corn poppy, English and Polish texts. Since numerous bisons roam Poland’s national flower.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 25 As a New York artist oak leaves, another reference whose works are in to the meaning of Dąbrowa, indicates that Jewish life in collections worldwide, Dąbrowa Białostocka has these eighteen pictures, been shattered. As a New York artist whose works are representing imaginings in collections of institutions of my Polish roots, worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum of are among my most Art, the Victoria and Albert cherished works. Museum, Yad Vashem, the Israel Museum, the Vatican, In Dąbrowa On My Mind, and the Jewish Museums the leather strap of a tefillin in Berlin, Prague, and New for the head encircles how York, these eighteen pictures, the town looked in a 1938 representing imaginings of my photo. A herring, a common Polish roots, are among my shtetl food, is sandwiched in most cherished works. n a bialy, the bread invented Mark Podwal is an award- 70 km away in Białystok, the winning author and illustrator city which adds its name to whose work has appeared Dąbrowa to differentiate the in the the New York Times, town from others in Poland and in numerous collections, with the same name. An acorn including the United States among seven dreidels suggests Holocaust Memorial Museum, the meaning of Dąbrowa, Yad Vashem and many others. which is “oak forest.” A round His illustrated monograph, matzoh in the sky represents Reimagined: 34 Years of how Passover is always Jewish Art by Mark Podwal celebrated under a full moon. was published by Glitterati, Inc. Although the Germans burned Dąbrowa Białostocka to the ground in 1941, this series is not about the events of the Holocaust. Nevertheless, a broken menorah covered with

26 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 A New Life in Israel: 1950-54 Antony Polonsky By Shimon Redlich

n May 23, 2018 at this world was destroyed University College during the Second World War.. OLondon, the Institute for Professor Redlich has made a Polish Jewish Studies remarkable effort to transcend organized a presentation narrow ethnic perspectives in by Shimon Redlich, the telling this sad and shocking noted historian of Russian story. He has interviewed and Soviet Jewish history an extensive group of of his latest publication, A Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian New Life in Israel, 1950-54 survivors and his knowledge (Academic Studies Press, of the general history of the 2018). Professor Redlich town and area enables him to has already reflected on his confront their testimony (often survival during the Holocaust subjective and sometimes in Together and Apart in inaccurate) with the historical Jacket image for A New Life In Israel: Brzezany (Indiana University 1950–1954 by Shimon Redlich. record. This is a moving and Press, 2002) and about the impressive book, a major immediate postwar period Hebrew and Yiddish and a contribution to the complex which he spent in in Łódź: personal memoir of the author ethnic and social relationships Life in Transit, 1945-1950 who was born in the town in of East Galicia (West Ukraine) (Academic Studies Press, 1935. It combines serious and which has a significance 2010). archival-based study with oral that extends far beyond the testimony, which is becoming context of local or regional Together and Apart in increasingly difficult to history. It has already been Brzezany: Poles, Jews and collect as the few remaining translated into both Polish Ukrainians, 1919-1945 survivors die and thus gives and Ukrainian. (Indiana University Press, us a clear and nuanced picture 2002) is both a history of the of the circumstances of life Łódź: Life in Transit, 1945- town of Berezhany (Polish – in a typical Jewish shtetl, an 1950 uses the technique Brzeżany) based on extensive environment in which a major employed in Together interviews with survivors part of East European Jewry and Apart in Brzezany of from the town and secondary were still living in 1939 and combining historical research literature in Polish, Ukrainian, gives a tragic account of how with interviews of survivors

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 27 This is a major account of his arrival in Israel contribution to the and his adaptation to and integration into Israeli society. complex ethnic and The story revolves around social relationships of three locations and contexts: East Galicia, which Kibbutz Merhavia, the town of Afula, and the Israeli army. has a significance that As in the earlier volumes, extends beyond local Redlich combines personal recollections with interviews and regional history. and historical records. The from the period to investigate book presentation began with the situation of Jews in a short video about revisiting Łódź in the immediate post- Kibbutz Merhavia, which was war period. At this time, followed by a presentation by Łódź was the largest Jewish the author and a question and n community in Poland and the answer session. center of Jewish life in the country. The history of this community illustrates many of the problems which Jews faced in the re-establishing themselves here after the Holocaust. Most eventually left and the reasons for this provide a tragic commentary on Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War. Professor Redlich’s book illustrates these matters in a new and innovative manner and constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the subject.

His new book, A New Life in Israel, 1950-54, is an

28 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Olga Tokarczuk Wins Man Booker International Prize

lights, written by the “I was naive. Polish author Olga F I thought Poland Tokarczuk and translated by Jennifer Croft, won the Man would be able to Booker International Prize discuss the dark 2018. The £50,000 prize (around $67,000) “celebrates areas of the finest works of translated our history.” fiction from around the world,” as written on the – Olga Tokarczuk prize’s website, and has been spoke of “horrendous divided equally between the acts” committed by author and the translator. Polish “colonizers,” and immediately fell Though the first Polish writer under attack from the to win the prize, Tokarczuk Polish far-right. She has long been at the forefront received death threats of the Polish literary world. and her publisher, Man Booker International Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk The year after Flights was in 2017. Wydawnictwo Photograph by Martin J. Kraft. Wikimedia Commons. first published (under the title Literackie, hired her Bieguni) in 2007, Tokarczuk bodyguards for a week. is a recipient of a Fulbright won the Nike Award, one of “I was naive,” Tokarczuk grant and has received funding the country’s highest honors said. “I thought Poland would from PEN and the National in literature. In 2015, she be able to discuss the dark Endowment for the Arts; won the award again, for areas of our history.” in addition to Polish, she her novel Księgi Jakubowe translates from Ukrainian and (The Books of Jacob), a Croft, who is also translating Spanish. “The hardest part 900-page epic about Jacob Księgi Jakubowe into [of translating Flights] was Frank, an eighteenth-century English, is an American who also the best part,” Croft said, Polish-Jewish merchant who received her MFA in Literary “and that’s that Olga is such claimed to be the messiah. Translation from the University an open and curious person. In an interview connected to of Iowa, and has lived in She never shies away from Księgi Jakubowe, Tokarczuk Poland and Argentina. She challenges herself.”

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 29 “I don’t believe in poison her terminally ill high- national literatures. school sweetheart. I believe that literature Lisa Appignanesi, chairwoman of the prize’s panel of judges, is a kind of alive being, said, “by a series of startling which can pop up in juxtapositions [Tokarczuk] flies us through a galaxy of one language and then departures and arrivals, stories in another language. and digressions, all while exploring matters close to So this is another the contemporary and human miracle—literature.” predicament—where only plastic escapes mortality.” – Olga Tokarczuk “I don’t believe in national literatures,” Tokarczuk said Flights is what Tokarczuk in her acceptance speech in calls a “constellation novel,” London. “I really do believe a work that, as Croft has said, that literature is a kind of “brings lots of different ideas alive being, a creature, which and stories and voices into can pop up in one language relationship with one another and then in another language. via the lines the reader draws So this is another miracle— between them.” There’s a literature.” seventeenth-century Dutch anatomist who discovers the Flights was published in the Achilles tendon by dissecting United States on August 14, his own amputated leg. 2018, by Riverhead Books, an Chopin’s sister shepards her imprint of Penguin Random famous brother’s heart back House. n to Warsaw. A Polish woman living in New Zealand must return to her native country to

30 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Warsaw is My Country: The Story of Krystyna Bierzyn´ska, 1928-1945 Tressa Berman By Beth Holmgren

eth Holmgren (Slavic sixteen-year-old orderly in and Eurasian Studies, the midst of the 1944 Warsaw BDuke University) met Uprising. Her narrative is Krystyna Bierzyńska – also a story of Warsaw - now Christine Stamper her “country” - in how it – in Christine’s adopted uncovers the overlapping hometown of Newport Beach, lives of Catholics and Jews California, where she was through the tortured routes serving as a docent for the of relocations, economy, war Modjeska Foundation. At and history. the time, Holmgren was After her family fled to working on a biography of southern Poland, she returned the Polish American actress to Warsaw an orphan – one Helena Modjeska, but was that had learned how to immediately engaged by Jacket image for Warsaw is My conspire and “pass” as a Christine Stamper’s own Country: The Story of Krystyna non-Jew. The book details her personal history as a Jewish Bierzyńska, 1928–1945. Image courtesy of the author. life in relation to two very Holocaust survivor raised different Warsaws: a modern by Christians in Warsaw. It Her story uncovers mix of art and culture, and would be years later before an occupied city infused with the two women would finally the overlapping lives the cause of overthrowing collaborate on this newly of Catholics and Jews Nazi rule. Hers is a Warsaw released and astonishing story, a biography that tale of creative survival, through the tortured demonstrates how, in urban cultural identity, and historic routes of relocations, interwar Poland, the lives of biography. economy, war, and liberal educated Catholics and This book tells the story acculturated Jews intersected of Christine Stamper (born history. in common causes. Krystyna Bierzyńska), an to the war’s end in 1945. Her In her interview with unconverted Polish Jew story tells not only of her life Academic Studies Press, adopted by Christians, from in the urban world of Warsaw, Holmgren relays that her her birth in Warsaw in 1928 but how she served as a

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 31 “most pressing concern” was to “tell Christine’s story well,” and also to take care not to overtax her subject. As Holmgren shares, “I worried about the toll that these interviews would take. But Christine was quick to share funny stories—about the time she showed off her knowledge of curse words to her big brother, mainly to grab his attention, or the moonshine still she was paid to guard in wartime Warsaw.” We learn the good news that Christine was reunited with her brother, Dolek, an officer in the Polish II Corps, after the war.

Krystyna Bierzyńska’s remarkable story gives insight to the life of an acculturated Jew who was not assimilated, and in larger part tells the story of the complicated relationship Author Beth Holmgren and Christine Stamper (formerly Krystyna Bierzyńska) at a reading in Newport Beach, California, on March 10, 2018. of Jews and Christians in the Image courtesy of the author. Polish capital. n

Tressa Berman, PhD, is Managing Editor of Gazeta.

32 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Dzieci z Willesden Lane. Pamiętnik muzyki, miłości i przetrwania (The Children of Willesden Lane: A Diary of Music, Love, and Survival) By Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen . Polish translation by Bozena Keff

et in Vienna in 1938, Foundation, in partnership with and in London during the Galicia Jewish Museum Sthe Blitz, The Children of and the Austrian Cultural Willesden Lane (published by Forum. She also performed a Austeria and Taube Center, musical theatrical performance 2018) tells the true story of of her internationally Lisa Jura, a young Austrian acclaimed one-woman show, Jewish pianist who dreams The Pianist of Willesden Lane, about her concert debut at in each city to enthusiastic Vienna’s storied Musikverein audiences. The education concert hall. With the issuing department of the Galicia of new ordinances under the Jewish Museum is preparing Nazi regime, everything for teacher training materials for Lisa changes, as she is torn middle school and high school Jacket image for the Polish edition of from her family and sent Dzieci z Willesden Lane (The Children students. The Polish edition on the Kindertransport to of Willesden Lane) by Mona Golabek was made possible with grants and Lee Cohen. London. Her music enables from Taube Philanthropies her to survive and thrive. The Her music enables her and the Libitzky Family American classical piano to survive and thrive. Fund. Additional support was virtuoso, Mona Golabek, is provided by the Taube Center’s the daughter of Lisa Jura and family’s native language. Sefarim Jewish Studies Book Polish-born French resistance Publishing Project. n Ms. Golabek visited Poland fighter Michel Golabek. Her for the first time this past June book for young adults has to participate in two book been reprinted in the tens of promotions in Krakow and thousands and distributed to Warsaw as the guest of her high school students across co-publishers Austeria and the the U.S. as well as translated Taube Center for the Renewal into German, Hebrew and of Jewish Life in Poland now Polish, her paternal

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 33 New Works by Marcin Wodzin´ski: Historical Atlas of Hasidism (Cartography by Waldemar Spailek), and Hasidism: Key Questions

istorical Atlas of Hasidism H(with Cartography by Waldemar Spailek) is being hailed as the first cartographic book on the Hasidic movement of the modern era. The book features seventy-four large- format maps, plus illustrations, charts, and tables, making it a unique visual finding guide on the development and expansion of Hasidism through its dynasties, courts, and synagogues Jacket image for Historical Atlas of from before the war to its post- Hasidism by Marcin Wodziński with Jacket image for Hasidism: Key cartography by Waldemar Spallek. Holocaust re-emergence. Questions by Marcin Wodziński. times. A must for understanding The book demonstrates how rise and decline over more this most vital aspect of geography and the socio- than two centuries. Critical Judaism.” religious factors interact, to his approach, Wodzinski’s giving rise to various forms of Hasidism: Key Questions engrossing analysis addresses not spiritual leadership. As Hasidic As one of the most important only the leadership of Hasidism, centers sprang up, so did the religious and social movements but is novel in its approach communities around them. to have developed in Eastern to investigate Hassidism’s Drawing on extensive GIS- Europe, Hasidism has communities of adherents. processed databases of historical influenced key aspects of By including a wide range of and contemporary records to the Jewish life in Eastern Europe methodologies – from archival present, this is the most complete since the eighteenth century. to visual materials – the book picture to date of this thriving and Hasidism: Key Questions covers “key questions” that link diverse religious movement. addresses the longitudinal it to related disciplinary frames, Moshe Idel, author of Hasidism: history of Hasidism to the which together provide multi- Between Ecstasy and Magic, has present day through the multi- perspectival answers about one lauded the book as “the richest disciplinary lenses of gender, of the most important religious and most updated illustrated demography, geography and movements emanating from n history...of Hasidism in modern religion, tracing the movement’s Eastern Europe.

34 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REVIEWS EXHIBITIONS What We’ve Been Unable to Shout Out to the World Jakub Berski The New Permanent Exhibition at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

he main event of a multi- The building as an exhibit served as the headquarters of Tyear project to preserve The tour of the exhibition starts the Jewish Social Self-Help and commemorate the secret in the main hall on the ground organization. In the fall of 1940, Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto floor. The original pre-war a social worker in the ghetto, was the opening of a new floor shows signs of the fire esteemed historian Emanuel permanent exhibition at the that broke out on 16 May 1943 Ringelblum, established an Jewish Historical Institute, built after the Germans blew up underground network of around the presentation of the the nearby Great Synagogue. activists who gathered at the original documents gathered The pre-war Central Jewish Self-Help building on Saturday by Emanuel Ringelblum’s Library, currently the home of afternoons to collect and underground group. the Jewish Historical Institute, compile Holocaust documents. The group was named Oyneg

At the entrance to What We’ve Been Unable to Shout Out to the World, the Jewish Historical Institute’s new permanent exhibition. Courtesy of the Jewish Historical Institute.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 35 Shabes, Yiddish for “joy of first floor and is composed of declares that Oyneg Shabes is Sabbath,” called so not only six main elements. The first, fulfilling a historical mission because the meetings were held next to the stairs, includes two by notifying the world of the on Saturdays. tables, which are in front of the Holocaust and that its work central part of the exhibition. “may have saved hundreds of What we’ve been unable to thousands of Jews.” We will shout out to the world The first table hear about the facts presented A plaque with the inscription On the first table lies two here once again near the end “What we’ve been unable to event calendars. The upper of the exhibition, next to the shout out to the world” hangs one presents the most original documents. above the stairs leading to the important events of World exhibition, quoting 19-year-old War II with particular The second table Dawid Graber, who participated consideration given to the The thirty-six founders in the concealment of the first successive stages of the of the Archive are sitting part of the Archive. He wrote, Holocaust (from the outbreak symbolically at the second “What we were unable to shout of the war, through the table, which is located across out to the world, we buried creation of ghettos and camps, from the first. We can read the in the ground.” As he hid the up to the Red Army’s landing retractable panels to learn who boxes and cans containing in Warsaw). The captions are they were, what they did in the the documents, he hoped that brief and outline the historical Archive, and how they died. future generations would recall context for the second axis There are over one hundred the suffering of Jews but also of events (and for the entire such panels (three per person) recognize the accomplishments exhibition). In other words, and reading them all takes of the archivists who “had the they set the stage for the quite a bit of time. courage to do it.” The wall history of the Archive of the The tabletop also presents around the plaque is covered Warsaw Ghetto. information on the diversity with pieces of brick like those The brief notes introduce of Oyneg Shabes , which displayed in the center of the the founders of the Archive comprised representatives exhibition on the first floor. as well as the activity and of various communities and According to the creators, one publications of Oyneg Shabes, political parties who wrote in side symbolizes the basements which included the first different languages, but – in used for the Archive; the other, information about the mass the words of Ringelblum – the ghetto wall. murder of Jews. They include had a common mission that Two tables a moving note by Ringelblum, they were ready to make the The exhibition is contained who, after hearing a BBC ultimate sacrifice in their in one room on the building’s report on the mass killings, service to the people. They

36 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 wanted to tell their story to as The Oyneg Shabes had This question is even more many Jews as possible a common mission and legitimate as all of the bios “in the simplest and most are available on every display. faithful way.” were ready to make They could be installed in the table, eliminating the need to The basement the ultimate sacrifice open over one hundred drawers As we enter the main part of in their service to the and saving considerable space. the room, we pass by the words people. They wanted to from Graber’s testament, Last words which display his concern tell the story of Jews The wooden installation is about whether they would be next to a display holding “in the simplest and able to bury “what we were four original fragments of unable to shout out to the most faithful way,” to the testaments of those who world” in the ground. arranged and concealed the quote Ringelblum. Archive. In the summer of There is a corridor imitating 1942, just before the document the basement which runs More about the authors boxes were closed, Dawid through the middle of the There is an installation made Graber, Nachum Grzywacz, room. It leads up to the of wooden columns to the Izrael Lichtensztajn, and his original milk cannister used left, which is also dedicated wife Gela Seksztajn, an artist, to conceal the second part of to the people associated placed their last wills and the Archive discovered after with Oyneg Shabes. Several testaments inside. “As I am seven years. This is the central columns display the bios of writing this, I am at work. The point of the exhibition. It is Ringelblum’s associates, the date is 30 July 1942, the time surrounded by a tall brick abbreviated versions of which is 6 PM. […] I do not know my wall, the raw nature of which are found at the second table. fate. I do not know if I will be is supposed to symbolize According to the creators, this able to tell you what happens not just the basement but segment is meant to refer to the next. Remember: my name is the ghetto in general, the destroyed ghetto, the landscape Nachum Grzywacz.” “I have space where the Archive following its liquidation, to die but I did what I had to was created. The corridor/ and introduce an element of do,” wrote Gela Seksztajn. “I basement dividing the inner anxiety and chaos. Visually, the hope that the memory of my room in two is aesthetically installation is flawless, but it paintings survives. Farewell impeccable. Its creators spared raises the question of whether my colleagues and friends, no effort to make it into an old two parts of the room, or about farewell Jewish nation.” Beside and dirty basement to exhibit half of the exhibition space, the text, there is a crayon the one true and important should be dedicated to the drawing entitled “Sleeping thing: the milk canister. bios of the Archive’s creators.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 37 Girl” by Gela Seksztajn. Ringelblum’s mission (as Her paintings are once again written on the second table): remembered after 75 years. to depict the tragedy of Polish Jews in the simplest form. This View from above kept the exhibition from being We take a metal footpath that overloaded with multimedia runs along the basement wall presentations, which, as to go the right part of the room. museums throughout the There are two quotes at its world are currently learning, start. The first is from Abraham quickly become outdated and Lewin, who expresses the unattractive. The premise and will of the Archive’s creators: performance of the exhibition “We want our suffering, the focuses on the documents labor pains of Moses, to be themselves. This is the right covered for future generations Rachela Auerbach and Hersz Wasser, way, because modern forms of surviving members of Oyneg Shabes, and the entire world.” The examining the first recovered cache of multimedia are very expensive second is a fragment of the the archives in 1946. and it would be a shame to Courtesy of the Jewish Historical Institute. moving narration of Gustawa clutter up the Jewish Historical Jarecka: “The final stage of the history of the discovery, Institute with poor animations displacement is death,” which excavation, and subsequent and cheap displays. was also released in print at protection of almost 30,000 Documents first the opening of the exhibition. documents that make up two of Here, the author writes about the three discovered parts of the That is why the final part of the suffering of a dying nation Archive. We follow the footpath the exhibition is composed of at the time of an extensive from the story of the Archive’s a few simple displays featuring liquidation campaign: “We have creators and discovery to the selected documents of the nooses on our necks. When right part of the room, where Archive. According to Paweł they loosen up for a moment, the most important part of the Śpiewak, the director of the our screams come out.” This is exhibition is on display: the Jewish Historical Institute mandatory reading. The scan of original documents presented and one of the curators of the the full document is available to the public, many for the very exhibition, “It strikes with its on the Institute’s website. first time. minimalism, the frugality of its measures, and its toned-down The post-war history of the In the simplest way possible colors: grey, black, and white.” Archive The curators of the exhibition Along the footpath, there are The displayed documents wanted to use the simplest four short videos covering include the letter sent to possible means to continue

38 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Oyneg Shabes from Rabbi From prayer to postcard As the depository of the Szulman about the killings of The exhibit includes materials Ringleblum’s Archive, the Jews in Chełmno on the Ner, which show the diversity of Jewish Historical Institute has dated 21 January 1942. It is the Archive. The fragment fulfilled another element of complemented by a fragment of Abraham Lewin’s journal Oyneg Shabes’s testament. of the report of Szlama Ber about deportations from the The group coordinated by Winer, who, after his escape Warsaw ghetto is accompanied Paweł Śpiewak did it well. from Chełmno, said: “During by the aforementioned report Onegszabat.org dinner, I received the sad of Gustawa Jarecka: “The The exhibit was opened news that my beloved parents final stage of displacement is along with the website at and brother are already in death,” as well as the statistics onegszabat.org, which can be their graves. By one, we of those murdered during the considered an online version were back at work. I tried to great ghetto liquidation, and of the permanent exhibit. It come closer to the deceased the “Special fasting prayer for includes scans of the Archive’s to see my relatives for the contemporary times,” which documents, the bios of its final time.” was created by the rabbis in the creators, and information on Warsaw ghetto in December of The first ones the discovery and subsequent 1942. There is also a postcard The next segment displays protection of the collections. that was thrown out of a train reports from the deportations Much like the exhibition, the to Auschwitz, addressed to a in Lublin, the first documents website is rather small, which family in the Warsaw ghetto: about the camp at Sobibór, makes it much easier to learn “We just left Płońsk, our entire a fragment of the first press the story of Ringelblum’s family and all the Jews. Be bulletin released by Oneg Archive. n alert, because we’re going to a Shabbat, and the transcript wedding. Goodbye, Dawid.” This article originally of the BBC radio report appeared in Polish on April accompanied by Ringelblum’s About the ghetto in the 23, 2018, in Chidusz: https:// moving message about his ghetto chidusz.com/czego-nie- mission, as shared at the The exhibition focuses on two moglismy-wykrzyczec-swiatu- first table. These documents elements. First, it presents the ringelblum-wystawa-zydowski- provide proof of the fact that creators of the Archive and instytut-historyczny-zih- it was Oyneg Shabes who carries out their last will to warszawa-recenzja-wystawy. received the first information have their names remembered; Reprinted with permission. of the Holocaust from second, it presents their eyewitnesses. work in numerous original documents, which will be rotated with others over time.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 39 “I can neither be silent nor live.” Jewish Historical Institute; Ilana Slomowitz and An Exhibition on Shmuel Zygielbojm Aveda Ayalon

rofessor Shmuel Zygielbojm (1895 – P1943) was a political activist associated with the Bund socialist party; since February 1942, he had been a member of the National Council of the Polish Government in Exile in London. As a member of the Council, he informed the world about the tragic fate of Polish Jews under German Banner for the exhibition on the Jewish Historical Institute’s website, with an image occupation. Facing the of Pola Dwurnik’s oil painting of Shmuel Zygielbojm. defeat of the Warsaw Ghetto Courtesy of the Jewish Historical Institute. Uprising, and above all—as a “Bund”—the first part of Most likely, they were burned sign of protest against world’s the exhibition—presented during the Warsaw Ghetto indifference towards the Zygielbojm’s prewar Uprising. The third part of the Holocaust of the Jews— biography on the background exihibition was dedicated to he committed suicide on of his union, political and World War II. A timeline told 12 May 1943. local government activity. about events from its beginning Zygielbojm addressed his through Shmul Zygielbojm’s The next part told the story of suicide letter to the Polish escape to the West, his inclusion Zygielbojm’s family relations; president and prime minister. into the National Council, and having escaped from Warsaw in In it he wrote, “My life his arrival in London. January 1940, he left his wife belongs to the Jewish people and children in the capital. He The central part of the of Poland, and therefore I realized he wouldn’t see them exhibition was dedicated to the hand it over to them now.” ever again. The only document Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and In May, the Jewish Historical remaining from a three-year Zygielbojm’s reaction to the Institute opened an exhibition period of separation are letters struggle of Jewish insurgents. in his honor: Shmuel exchanged between Zygielbojm – Adapted from the Jewish Zygielbojm: I can neither be and his family. Unfortunately, Historical Institute’s website. silent nor live. his answers didn’t survive.

40 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Editor’s Note: Attending the designed by the Tatemono opening of the exhibition were team, and by the Shmuel Zygielbojm’s nieces, professionalism and attention Ilana Slomowitz and Aveda to detail and to the extent of Ayalon. They write about their research that was given to the experiences below. exhibit. As a result of that I learned so much more about As I write this account of Shmuel’s life story than I had my experience of attending previously been aware of. This the opening of this exhibit was truly a great gift for me. in Warsaw, I am once again I am humbled and honored reminded of the many mixed Aveda and Ilana, Shmuel Zygielbojm’s nieces, at the seventy-fifth to have been present at this emotions that I experienced commemoration of Zygielbojm’s death event. In all honesty I had not on this, both my sister Aveda’s at the monument in his honor on Edelman Street. appreciated the magnitude and my first time visiting Photograph by Grzegorz Kwolek. Courtesy of of effort and the numbers of Poland. the Jewish Historical Institute. dignitaries and press that it Just being in Warsaw for the and importance was being attracted. His tragic life has first time, the city my father, placed on it. Standing at the now been recognized and Faivel, and his family lived memorial on Edelman street honored in a most befitting in, concretized the images and in Shmuel’s honor for the manner and I am so grateful stories I had heard from him seventy-fifth commemoration to each and every one of you as a child. But the impact of of his death and witnessing the that contributed to this superb the devastating persecution of number of wreaths that were exhibit and to the memory of the Jews and the cost to his laid and the many speeches his courageous and selfless family took on a very different made by so many dignitaries sacrifice. dimension and brought it all to made me realize that this There is a deep sadness in me life in a deeply profound way. was a far bigger deal than I however that my father Faivel had appreciated. Zuzanna was not alive to witness this, Walking through the streets Goldfinger accomplished a knowing how devoted he of Warsaw and seeing the great deal in pulling this event was to keeping his brother’s imposing poster of Pola together with such care and memory and sacrifice alive. Dwurnik’s portrait of Shmuel intricate attention to detail on at many bus stops, advertising every level. With much appreciation, the exhibition, hit home and Ilana Slomowitz nèe made me realize just how I was very impressed by Zygielbaum significant this exhibition the austere layout of the was and how much weight exhibition, wonderfully

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 41 “My life belongs to the Der koach tsu shtarben (in Some months ago, I received English, The Strength to Die). a letter from a woman called Jewish people of Poland, Zuzanna Benesz-Goldfinger and therefore I hand it Unfortunately, in all my years from the Jewish Historical growing up in South Africa, Institute, inviting me to the over to them now.” I never really appreciated opening of an exhibition Faivel’s dedication to our about my uncle Shmuel Artur I think the strength of the family history. I never Zygielbaum. exhibition that Zuzanna accompanied him on his curated was in its sparseness. numerous trips to Poland, I had never heard of Zuzanna, It was small, very focused, never saw where they lived or the JHI, but her mail set off giving a survey in in Warsaw, never was able to a chain of events culminating chronological order with the read his book until now, after a in my sister Ilana Slomowitz aid of photographs, letters, few years of studying Yiddish. and myself visiting Poland for articles, recordings, and maps And there I was, in Warsaw, the first time at the beginning of of Shmuel’s life, activities, standing at the opening of an May. For me it proved to be an and ultimate tragic suicide. exhibition about his brother, extraordinary experience. It also and very moved by the large Zuzanna had asked me if I allowed me a personal tikkun. crowd in attendance and by would make a speech. I said the honor bestowed upon him. On the way to the that I would gladly say a few commemoration ceremony at words, definitely not a speech, I am not religious, but I the Zygielbaum­ memorial on and that I would like to talk do wish that Faivel could Edelman street, we suddenly not about Shmuel himself, as have seen it for himself: saw a poster at a bus stop, I was born two years after his his daughters present at with a picture of Shmuel death, but about my father, an exhibition in honour of Zygielbaum, announcing the Faivel, one of Shmuel’s Shmuel Artur Zygielbaum, exhibition. I was astounded. younger brothers. and I know that he would have I had no idea what to expect been very grateful to Zuzanna This provided me with the at the ceremony. There were for making it all happen. opportunity for my tikkun. all these dignitaries making Aveda Ayalon speeches, and laying wreaths Faivel devoted his life to nèe Zygielbojm upon wreaths of flowers, and keeping Shmuel’s narrative Soviet-style soldiers saluting, and sacrifice alive in the and it was almost surreal. Jewish public’s eye. For For more information, decades he published visit http://www.jhi.pl/en. And now we get to the literally hundreds of articles, The exhibition opened on exhibition itself. participated in memorial May 11 and was on display evenings, and wrote a book, until July 22.

42 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Chuck Fishman Photography Exhibit Opens at Jewish Historical Institute

n August, the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish IHistorical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny) in Warsaw will show an exhibition of photographs by the outstanding American photographer Chuck Fishman (see Gazeta, Spring 2017). For more than forty years Fishman photographed the Polish Jewish community, creating an unusual picture of the everyday life of four generations of Poles: from people struggling for the survival of Jewish tradition and culture in communist Poland of the 1970s and 80s, to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren more and more aware of their identity in contemporary world. n

Poster for Chuck Fishman’s exhibit Re-Generation: Jewish Life in Poland at the Jewish Historical Institute.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 43 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REVIEWS CONFERENCES

Janusz Korczak Urban Jewish Heritage International Conference Conference in Seattle Conference to Take Place on Jewish Genealogy The first International Janusz in Krakow In Warsaw, August 5-10, 2018 Korczak Conference will be The Ironbridge International held on August 22–25, 2018, at Institute for Cultural Heritage by Fay and Julian Bussgang Seattle Pacific University. The at University of Birmingham Genealogy has become a conference’s title is Education and the Foundation for Jewish passionate pursuit for many for Excellence, Diversity, and Heritage are hosting the Urban people, and international Respect: Transformative 21st Jewish Heritage Conference Jewish genealogical Century Innovations. With on September 3–7, 2018, conferences have grown sessions like “Korczak in the in Kraków. The theme is enormously since the first Classroom” and “Participatory “Presence and Absence” and conference in 1981. In August Democracy and Korczak’s the conference is being held as 2018, the International Ideas Today,” the conference part of the 2018 European Year Association of Jewish will focus on engaging an of Cultural Heritage. Presenters Genealogical Societies international community and panelists will discuss, (IAJGS) held its annual of students, teachers, among other topics, the conference in Warsaw for researchers, social workers, cultural heritage and landscape the first time. Outside of child-rights advocates, of modern-day Poland, sites of Jerusalem, London, Paris, and policymakers with the memory, and the role of Jewish and Toronto, all previous theories and pedagogical heritage tourism today. The conferences have been in the practices of Janusz Korczak. conference will take place at United States. Therefore, it is a The conference is organized the Villa Decius in Kraków. by Seattle Pacific University major event for the conference For more information, visit: and the Janusz Korczak to be held in Poland, which https://urbanjewishheritage Association of the USA. once had the largest Jewish conference.wordpress.com. population in the world. View the conference program and/or register at: http:// The Jewish genealogical korczakconference2018.com/. conference in Warsaw has stimulated much interest, with expected attendance near 1,000. Many attendees will

44 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 combine the conference with Polish Statehood and the Jews: academics. From Talmudic visits to their ancestral home Reflections on the Centenary studies to contemporary towns. Two very important of Polish Independence. The Jewish arts and histories, institutions in Warsaw conference convened over the conference concluded connected to Jewish history five days with plenary talks with multiple panels on anti- - the POLIN Museum of the by luminaries in the field, Semitism and its re-emergence History of Polish Jews and including a keynote address in the world today. Overall, the the Jewish Historical Institute by Irene Zwiep (University conference program reads as a - will be partnering with the of Amsterdam, Netherlands): comprehensive compendium IAJGS. And Now for ‘Something’ to Jewish thought that guides In addition to approximately Completely Different: Leopold many of the issues facing the n eight concurrent sessions a Zunz and the Cultural Turn in Jewish world today. day, including workshops and Jewish Scholarship. panel discussions, meetings Roundtables, panels and of special interest groups workshops addressed timely (SIGs), films, and displays of themes, such as Teaching genealogy merchandise were Jewish History and Culture at part of the program events. Universities; Humanities in the For additional program Mirror:Writing Jewish History information, please visit: in a Digital Key; localized http://www.iajgs2018.org. Jewish studies in Krakow, and historical and archaeological European Association histories – from Rome to of Jewish Studies ancient Israel. Scholarly Conference exchanges and opportunities The 11th Congress of the for graduate students were European Association of provided by EAJS Emerge, a Jewish Studies (EAJS) opened forum for EAJS post-graduate on July 15, 2018 by Antony student members and emerging Polonsky (Chief Historian of scholars to discuss their POLIN Museum of the History research with one another and of Polish Jews), speaking on to engage with more senior

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 45 Workshop on Jewish-Slavic Relations Antony Polonsky held at the POLIN Museum

rom June 15-17, a This was chaired by Professor Jews and Russian Jews.” workshop on the Antony Polonsky, Chief After opening addresses Frepresentation of Jewish- Historian of the POLIN by Professor Dariusz Stola Slavic relations in museums Museum and was made up (Director of the POLIN and Internet databases was of Dr. Valery Dymshits, Museum) and Dr. Viktoria held at the POLIN Museum European University at Mochalova (Head of the of the History of Polish Saint. Petersburg, Justyna Sefer Center), the initial Jews. It was organized within Koszarska-Szulc and Joanna roundtable sought to set the framework provided Krol of the POLIN Museum the goals and tasks that the by the Global Education and Professor Gabriella Safran workshop should address. Outreach Program of the of Stanford University. It Museum, in cooperation was devoted, above all to The term “Slavic” was more with the Sefer Center for the unpacking the phrase “Jewish problematic. It only came University Teaching of Jewish Slavic relations.” There into general use in the late Civilization of the Institute for was general agreement that nineteenth century and was Slavic Studies of the Russian although the situation of Jews much more widely used by Academy of Sciences and in Central Europe and Georgia Russians than by Poles. In the Commission on Slavonic would also be considered, the earlier period, society and East European Studies of the workshop would in the Polish-Lithuanian the Committee of Historical concentrate on the Jewish Commonwealth was divided Sciences, Polish Academy community which developed into the noble stratum (the of Sciences. Funding was in the Polish-Lithuanian szlachta) and the mostly provided by the Taube Commonwealth and the states unfree peasantry, while towns, Foundation for Jewish Life which partitioned it at the whether under the control & Culture, the William K. end of the eighteenth century. of the monarch or owned by Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and Almost all the participants the nobility, were small and the Association of the Jewish dealt with the Jews of this area lacking in influence. The Historical Institute of Poland. and it was agreed that, in the Jews were in an ambiguous It was attended by nearly words of the Yiddish writer, position. On the one hand they thirty scholars from Poland, Peretz Markish, “[J]ust as a were, in some ways, an estate Russia, Germany, the Czech heart cannot be cut up and similar to the other estates republic, Latvia and the divided, so one cannot split up into which the society of the United States. the Jewish people into Polish

46 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Commonwealth was divided. [J]ust as a heart cannot Yiddish, Polish and Russian On the other hand, they were be cut up and divided, so and her presentation was a pariah group, proponents of followed by a stimulating a religion regarded as false one cannot split up the discussion. and harmful by the dominant Jewish people into Polish The first session of the second Roman Catholic faith. They day of the conference was enjoyed a degree of security Jews and Russian Jews. devoted to a roundtable because of their relations with discussion on how meta- the monarchy and the nobility, participants were Dr. Zhanna narratives on ethnic relations but this was fragile and tended Alfimova, Jewish Museum could be presented in Jewish to break down in times of and Center of Tolerance in and general museums. This disorder. These factors need Moscow, Dr. Maria Kaspina, was followed by two sessions to be taken into account in Museum of the Jewish History on how Internet portals, the attempts to create master in Russia, Alexander Ivanov, databases and other electronic narratives in Jewish and European University at St. resources could be used in general historical museums Petersburg, Ilya Lensky, preparing museum exhibitions in the region as well as in Director of the Museum “Jews and for disseminating more Central Europe. in Latvia,” Ilona Murauskaite, Vilna Gaon State Jewish widely the research of The participants of the Museum and Dr. Lenka Ulina, historians. It illustrated clearly conference were then given a Jewish Museum in Prague. how important it was for tour of the POLIN Museum professional historians and conducted by Justyna In the evening, the workshop programmers to work closely Koszarska-Szulc, who was was opened to the public for together and understand each also one of the curators of a stimulating and amusing other’s work. the museum’s temporary lecture by Professor Gabriella The final session dealt exhibition on 1968. The tour Safran, author of a highly with case studies of how enabled conference-goers to praised biography of the early th Jewish-Slavic relations see how these issues were 20 century Russian-Yiddish were represented in the core treated in the context of the writer, S.Y. Ansky, Wandering exhibitions of a number of museum. It was followed by Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, museums. Alexander Ivanov, a session devoted to accounts S. An-sky (Harvard, 2010). European University at Saint of how they were dealt with The topic of Safran’s lecture, Petersburg, gave an account in museums in Moscow, St. the core of a forthcoming of how Jews, Cossacks, Petersburg, Riga, Vilnius, monograph, was “How Jewish Koreans and others in the and Prague. This was chaired Jokes Migrated West.” She Jewish Autonomous Region of by Dr. Artur Markowski of regaled the large audience Birobidzhan were represented the POLIN Museum and its with a series of jokes in

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 47 in Soviet museum exhibitions better exploited. Ilya Lensky revelation. They highlighted of 1930s, Dr. Victoria described the problems of the importance of digital Mochalova of the Sefer Center representing the Jews in the media for the popularization discussed the iconography regional museums of Latvia, of the findings of historians of blood libel accusations in Dr. Lara Lempert, Martynas and their display in museums. Poland and their presentation Mazvydas National Library All in all, this was a most on museums and Akvile of Lithuania examined the valuable workshop and the Naudziuniene of Vilnius similarities and differences participants heartily thanked University examined how the between Jewish archives and the organizers and looked goals of multicultural history museums as educational tools, forward to future meetings on and tolerance education were and Dr. Renata Piąkowska, this and similar topics. n pursued in the Vilna Gaon POLIN Museum analyzed State Jewish Museum. Marina how artistic works were used Scherbakova, Heidelberg in the POLIN Museum core University then analysed exhibition to illustrate the continuity and change in relations between Jews and the Judaica curatorship in their neighbours. The final the Soviet and post-Soviet roundtable attempted to sum Jewish museums in Tbilisi up what the participants had in Georgia, and the session learned from the workshop. concluded with a presentation It was agreed that the by Dr. Deborah Yalen, exchange of information and Colorado State University on the establishment of closer the field notebooks of I.M. personal ties between those Pul’ner, a Soviet ethnographer involved in museums in the of the interwar period, whose regions was most valuable. research had a major influence The absence of those working on museum display then. in this field in Ukraine and The first session on the final Belarus was greatly regretted. day continued with case The participants also stressed studies. Dr. Valery Dymshits, the importance of contacts European University at Saint between Jewish and general Petersburg discussed the historical and ethographic work of David Goberman as museums. For the professional a researcher of Jewish and historians, the presentations Slavic folk art and how his of those involved in created artistic heritage could be electronic databases were a

48 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REVIEWS AWARDS Jagiellonian University Awards Tad Taube with Highest Honor

ad Taube, Krakow- born founder of Taube TPhilanthropies, has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Jagiellonian University in Kraków for his work supporting academic Jewish studies and Jewish life in Poland. Mr. Taube is the only philanthropist among very few non-academic honorees — including the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and President Woodrow Wilson — to receive this distinction Jagiellonian University Rector Wojciech Nowak awards an honorary doctorate to Kraków-born Bay Area philanthropist Tad Taube. in the course of the award’s Image courtesy of Jagiellonian University. 200-year history. founded in 1364, is the oldest 1928, a few short years before “I am delighted that the most in Central Europe and one of Mr. Taube’s birth in Kraków in important of titles conferred the most esteemed universities 1931. Less than a decade later, by the Jagiellonian University in Europe. Each honorary in 1939, he and his parents left will be bestowed upon a doctorate nominee goes Poland for the safety of the person who has made an through a rigorous selection United States just before the outstanding contribution to the process that includes vetting start of World War II. Family development of Jewish Studies by faculty committees and an members who remained in in Poland,” wrote university external peer review. Krakow were tragically caught rector Professor Wojciech up in the Holocaust. Nowak, MD, PhD, in a letter Mr. Taube’s journey to congratulating Mr. Taube. Kraków marks a return to a “There are almost no words place with major significance to describe what it means to The custom of awarding the for his family. His father stand in the very hall where honorary doctorate dates back earned a law degree from my father received his law to the 1810s. The university, Jagiellonian University in diploma ninety years ago,

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 49 Tad Taube delivering his remarks at the ceremony in the Aula, Jagiellonian University Rector Wojciech Nowak unveils the law the room in Collegium Maius in which Tad’s father received his diploma and related documents of Tad Taube’s father, who law degree in 1928. graduated from Jagiellonian in 1928. Image courtesy of Jagiellonian University. Image courtesy of Jagiellonian University. in a country he loved, at a “There are almost no To view photos from the university that gave him the award ceremony, visit: words to describe what chance to lead a successful www.uj.edu.pl/wiado- life in Poland and the United it means to stand in mosci/uroczystosci/-/ States,” said Mr. Taube. “This journal_content/56_IN- the very hall where my award is a gift, and I am STANCE_LkI0Dsxde- humbled and grateful to the father received his law gc5/10172/140101149 Jagiellonian University for diploma ninety years ago, honoring me.” in a country he loved, Mr. Taube’s mission in Poland through Taube Philanthropies at a university that gave began more than two decades him the chance to lead a ago. In 2003, the foundation established the Jewish successful life in Poland Heritage Initiative in Poland and the United States.” (JHIP) to strengthen the institutional life of Polish – Tad Taube Jews, further awareness and appreciation of Jewish heritage and contemporary Jewish life among Jews and others, and foster positive interest in Poland among American Jews. n

50 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Taube Philanthropies Announces Recipients of the Tenth Annual Irena Sendler Memorial Awards

Kansas High School Teacher Honored at the Royal Castle On June 11, 2018, San Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies founder Tad Taube and Polish Culture Minister Piotr Tadeusz Gliński presented the first of two annual Irena Sendler Memorial Awards to Norman Conard, a renowned American high school teacher Norman Conard (second from right) receives the educator from Kansas who, 2018 Irena Sendler Memorial Award from Tad Taube, Shana Penn, and Culture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland Piotr Gliński. together with his high school Image courtesy of Taube Philanthropies. students, brought the untold story of Irena Sendler to public Polish-Jewish relations and students from Uniontown, view, illuminating her historical preserving Polish Jewish Kansas (population 247) to importance and enabling the heritage and Holocaust memory. research Sendler’s work and world to celebrate her anti-Nazi Conard was chosen as a special present their project to the activism in her own lifetime and recipient to commemorate the National History Day program. in perpetuity. Conard is the first tenth anniversary of Sendler’s Their efforts took the form of a Life in a Jar American to receive the award. passing in May 2008, since it play, , which depicts was his assignment—combined Sendler’s heart-stopping rescue “Through his innovative with the pursuit of his students— mission to smuggle children out teaching, centered on unsung that brought her anti-Nazi of the ghetto and into the safety heroes throughout history, activism out of the shadows. of adoptive families, convents Mr. Conard has built a bridge and orphanages during the war. “The life of Irena Sendler is one of Holocaust memory between Since the play was developed, of great heroism and bravery. Poland and the United States,” it has been performed almost Getting to know this wonderful said Mr. Taube. 400 times throughout the person was life-changing for world, adapted into feature and The award in Irena Sendler’s me and my students,” said documentary films, and released name honors Polish citizens Mr. Conard. In the fall of 1999, as a bestselling book in the U.S. committed to strengthening Conard encouraged high school

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 51 First Musician Receives Sendler Award During the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival On June 28, 2018 at the 30th Jewish Culture Festival, Shana Penn of Taube Philanthropies presented the 2018 Irena Sendler Memorial Award to Ola Bilińska, an acclaimed musical artist and researcher of Yiddish language and culture. Bilińska is the first Ola Bilińska receives the 2018 Irena Senderowa Memorial Award from Shana Penn musician to receive the award. and Helise Lieberman at the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków. Photograph by Michał Ramus. Courtesy of the Taube Foundation. “From the 20th century to of the arts – music – perhaps About the Irena Sendler present time, the Jewish works the most profoundly, Memorial Award people have expressed a because it operates at the level recurring anxiety that the of emotions; it refers to the The Irena Sendler Memorial Yiddish language is dying. deepest, most unnamed layers Award was created in 2008 by However, just at the very of our humanity.” Taube Philanthropies in memory moment when this fear seems of Irena Sendler whom Yad close to being realized, a new Bilińska’s research and Vashem named a “Righteous generation arises to embrace performances bring traditional Among The Nations.” Each Yiddishkeyt. Ola Bilińska songs, both popular and year, in commemoration of represents the tremendous obscure, back to life by the May 12 anniversary of conviction and endeavor of providing them with a modern, Sendler’s passing, the award this new generation whose compelling form. In doing so, is presented to Polish citizens work ensures the survival she honors artists of the past who have been exemplary in of this unique and historic and illuminates the wealth preserving and revitalizing culture,” said Ms. Penn. of Yiddish culture on the their country’s Jewish heritage. contemporary stage. Leader Nominations for the annual Upon receiving the award, of the popular folk group award are reviewed by a Ms. Bilińska said, “In the Babadag, she also contributes panel of Taube Philanthropies face of misunderstandings, to Muzyka Końca Lata and advisory board members and conflicts, festering wounds collaborates with Raphael Jewish cultural leaders in and lack of dialogue, one Rogiński, SzaZaZe, Horny Poland. For more information of the routes to overcoming Trees, Andrzej Smolik, and about Sendler, the award, and these obstacles is art. And Daniel Pigonski, among others. previous recipients, visit: http:// the purest and most abstract nagrodairenysendlerowej.pl/

52 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Seventh Annual March of Remembrance Held in Warsaw

his year’s July 22 death. The March, organized from the site of the former Marsz Pamięci (March for the seventh year by the Umschlagplatz on Stawki Tof Remembrance) was Jewish Historical Institute in Street to the Jewish Historical held in honor of Shmuel Warsaw, commemorates the Institute. n Zygielbojm, the Bund activist beginning of deportations who petitioned the Allies from the Warsaw Ghetto to to intervene in the mass Treblinka (July 22, 1942) murder of Jews in Poland. and pays tribute to the largest This year is the seventy-fifth prewar Jewish community in anniversary of Zygielbojm’s Europe. The March proceeded

Marian Turski, Holocaust survivor and journalist, participates in the March of Remembrance. Photograph by Grzegorz Kwolek. Used with the permission of the Jewish Historical Institute.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 53 Jewish Culture Festival Director Receives “Friend of Israel” Recognition

uring the closing night concert of the Jewish DCulture Festival in Krakow, the outdoor audience of 15,000 people watched as Janusz Makuch – the Festival’s co-founder and long-time director – received the distinguished title “Friend of Israel” from Hon. Anna Azari, Israeli Ambassador to Poland, together with a personal letter from Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel. Israeli embassies throughout Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari presents the Friend of Israel Award to Janusz Makuch, founder and director of the Jewish Culture Festival. the world, on the occasion Photograph by Bogdan Krężel. Used with the permission of the Jewish Culture Festival. of Israel’s 70th anniversary, had chosen one person from them…[D]uring this festive “This year we recognize year, I want to thank you each country to receive this exceptional people honorable distinction. for your inspiring initiative and untiring activity and who have made a From the letter by President of to wish you personally, special contribution to Israel Reuven Rivlin: and all people involved in “This year the State of continuing this beautiful promoting Israel and its Kraków tradition, many Israel is celebrating its 70th culture.” more successes. I send anniversary and during this – President of Israel year we want to recognize you my thanks and deep Reuven Rivlin exceptional people who appreciation on behalf of n have made a special the State of Israel.” contribution to promoting www.taubephilanthropies.org/ Israel and its culture and friend-of-israel-recognition you are certainly one of

54 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Dariusz Stola is Gazeta Wyborcza’s Person of the Year in Culture Category

ariusz Stola, Director of POLIN Museum of the DHistory of Polish Jews, was chosen by readers of Gazeta Wyborcza as the newspaper’s Person of the Year 2017 in the category of Culture.

Gazeta Wyborcza nominated Professor Stola “for exhibitions and other activities of the museum that elucidate Jewish and Polish history in a non- obvious, complex, interesting, and courageous way—without avoiding difficult topics.”

At a gala at Gazeta Wyborcza’s Warsaw headquarters on Friday, May 25, Professor Dariusz Stola, Director of the POLIN Museum, was voted Gazeta Wyborcza’s Person of the Year. Stola thanked the Wyborcza Photograph by Magda Starowieyska. Courtesy of the POLIN Museum. editorial board for the nomination and the readers for their votes. He emphasized that he won the prize as a distinction for the museum and he thanked the entire team of POLIN Museum. n

For more information, visit: www.polin.pl/pl/ aktualnosci/2018/05/28/prof- dariusz-stola-czlowiekiem-roku- 2017-w-dziedzinie-kultura.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 55 Officer of the French National Order Fay and Presented to Konstanty Gebert Julian Bussgang

n June 7, 2018, Pierre Lévy, the French OAmbassador to Poland, presented Konstanty Gebert, a Polish-Jewish journalist, with the insignia of the Officer of the French National Order of Merit. The ambassador referred to Gebert, who writes for Gazeta Wyborcza, a major daily newspaper published in Warsaw, as a “great connoisseur of France.”

Born in 1953 in Warsaw into Konstanty Gebert speaking at the National Order of Merit award ceremony at the a secular family with Jewish French Embassy in Warsaw. roots, Gebert became a Jewish Image courtesy of the French Embassy in Warsaw. activist in the late 1970s and postwar Polish Jewry. In terms States. He serves on the was co-founder of the Jewish of his relationship to France, boards of the Dutch Jewish Flying University, which tried he authored the book Magia Humanitarian Fund and the to educate young Polish Jews słów: Polityka francuska Einstein Forum in Potsdam, about Judaism. In 1989, he co- wobec Polski po 13 grudnia Germany. n founded the Polish Council of 1981 roku (The Magic of Fay and Julian Bussgang Christians and Jews. In 1997, Words: French policy toward edited Gazeta for over twenty he founded Midrasz, a Polish- Poland after December 13, years. Today, they serve as Jewish monthly, and served as 1981). its first editor. senior contributing editors. Gebert has been involved Gebert is the author of in the European Council ten books, including 54 of Foreign Relations as an Commentaries to the Torah associate policy fellow and (2005) and Living in the Land taught university courses in of Ashes (2008), a book about Poland, Israel, and the United

56 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 General Announcements

Polish/Israeli Leadership GEOP CONFERENCES of reborn Poland. The main Initiative AND OPPORTUNITIES emphasis shall be laid on the presentation of varied attitudes The first meeting of the Polish/ Global Education and opinions voiced by the Israeli Leadership Initiative was Outreach Program News Jewish communities on the held on May 24-29. This new basis of new archival sources, program, the very first program The mission of the Global including the sources available of its kind, aims to create Educational Outreach only in the Jewish languages. a platform for cooperation Program (GEOP) is to further and ideas exchange for a international exchange in the Confirmed keynote lecture community of Polish and Israeli elds of Polish Jewish Studies will be delivered by Professor and Jewish Museum studies. public opinion leaders. It was David Engel from New York GEOP is supported by the designed to address the tensions University. This lecture will Taube Foundation for Jewish that had arisen between the two launch the new lecture series Life and Culture, the William countries after the controversy accompanying the temporary K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and related to the passing of an exhibition In King Matt’s the Association of the Jewish Poland 100th Anniversary of amended Remembrance Law . Historical Institute of Poland. Regaining Independence. in Poland. The program is addressed to two groups: Israeli International GEOP For more information please alumni of Forum for Dialogue academic conference see: www.polin.pl/en/event/ study visits and Polish Friends November hopes. Jews international-academic- of the Forum, who have similar and independence conference-november-hopes- professions, interests and of Poland in 1918, jews-and. levels of social or political November 29–30, Lectures by Professor engagement. Forum considers POLIN Museum Gabriella Safran, these individuals crucial for The conference will fill in Professor Shlomo the future of public debate and the void in the historical Avinieri and others— opinion making in both Israel awareness concerning the new lectures from the and Poland. history of Polish Jews and in GEOP Distinguished For an overview, please visit the study of their problematic Lecture Series are http://dialog.org.pl/en/polish- relations—with the available online! israeli-leadership-initiative-2/ administration as well as with We invite everyone to listen non-Jewish residents and watch podcasts and

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 57 videos from our latest www.polin.pl/en/event/ Jewish Historical Institute in lectures online: how-to-draw-the-attention- Warsaw (1947-1989) and the Podcasts: of-an-indifferent-world- Emergence of Shoah Memory n Professor Anna Landau- szmul (in Polish) during the Cold War; n Czajka, Zionism in Poland, n Professor Gabriella Dr. Grzegorz Rossoliński- Poland in Zionism: Safran, How Jewish Liebe, Freie Universität www.polin.pl/en/event/ Jokes Migrated: Berlin, Germany, Polish zionism-in-poland-poland- www.polin.pl/en/event/ City Mayors and the Jews in-zionism (in Polish) how-jewish-jokes- in the General Government: Collaboration, Occupation, n Professor Shlomo Avinieri, migrated-a-lecture and Administration; Theodor Herzl and his (in English) vision of a Jewish state: For more information on ideas and the reality: the GEOP lectures please n Jan Rybak, European www.polin.pl/en/event/ see: www.polin.pl/en/geop- University Institute, Italy, theodor-herzl-and-his- distinguished-lecture-series. Everyday Zionism in East- vision-of-a-jewish-state- Central Europe: Building ideas-and-the (in English) GEOP Research a Nation in War and Fellowships for Doctoral n Professor Itamar Revolution, 1914–1921; and Postdoctoral Rabinovich, Icchak Rabin. n Candidates for 2018/19 Pierce Mackenzie, Cornell The Ultimate Native Born University, USA, Life Israeli: www.polin.pl/ We are happy to inform that and Death for Music: A en/event/icchak-rabin- the third GEOP Research Generation’s Journey across the-ultimate-native-born- Fellowships for Doctoral and War and Reconstruction, israeli-leader (in English) Postdoctoral Candidates have 1926-1953. been awarded. Videos: For the details on the GEOP The fellows for the academic n Dr. Michał Trębacz, Research Fellowships for year 2018/2019 are: How to draw the attention Doctoral and Postdoctoral n of an indifferent world? Dr. Stephan Stach, Candidates, please go to: Szmul Zygielbojm’s Institute of Contemporary www.polin.pl/en/ History of the Academy of struggle to stop the news/2017/11/02/call-for- Sciences, Czech Republic, extermination of Jews: applications-geop-research- Ringelblum’s Trustees: The fellowships-for-doctoral-and.

58 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Third edition of the GEOP supported the GEOP Doctoral Seminar 11th EAJS Congress On June 13, fourteen Global Education Outreach participants of the third edition program proudly supported of the GEOP Doctoral Seminar the 11th EAJS Congress finished the meeting cycle of Searching for the Roots of nine seminars in 2017/18. The Jewish Traditions on July 15- participants met monthly to 19. Within GEOP the panel discuss progress and present Jewish Museology Section their PhD dissertations on the was organized, gathering over history and culture of Polish- thirty researchers to ponder Jewish studies. They had together on the contemporary an opportunity to meet with Jewish museums, its history, experts in their fields, attend the heritage, memory and identity, GEOP lectures and meet with among others. the GEOP Research Fellows. For the details of the Congress The next edition of the Doctoral please see: www.eajs2018. Seminar will start in October uj.edu.pl/en. 2018. For more information please see: www.polin.pl/en/ nauka-i-zbiory-dzialalnosc- naukowa-pobyty-badawcze- i-warsztaty/geop-doctoral- seminars.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 59 PERSONAL ESSAY Jewish Studies at the University Katarzyna Andersz of Wrocl/aw

hen I came for the interview to be Wadmitted to the then two-year- long Jewish Studies program at the University of Wrocław, the past year I had rejected an offer from University College London, given up supposedly great studies at the Warsaw University, and started a dissatisfying BA program in Wrocław. I don’t remember much from that first meeting, maybe except for the fact that it was taking place in a really small room (all too small to be the office of all faculty), Katarzyna Andersz and Dr. Jan Paweł Woronczak on a trip to the Jewish cemetery in Mikulov, Czech Republic. stocked with books, papers, Image courtesy of the author. funny drawings, postcards academic articles in English. thoughtlessly repeat their with quotations, and pictures Some people blinked at content during the class. It from students. To my surprise, hearing the assignment to was different in Wrocław, it is in the evening courses read, maybe about several where the texts constituted that were then taking place dozen of pages in English only the beginnings of only two days a week that I for the following week. I discussions, and where the discovered the quality and was quite content though, lecturers wanted to teach us atmosphere I was looking for. because having experienced the ability of critical reading. Almost exactly nine years one semester of studying One could also see that they ago my first class was Jewish history at a university really want to engage us in “Introduction to Jewish elsewhere, my conviction whatever topic they were Studies,” taught by Professor was that all professors just covering, that they were Marcin Wodziński. The assign to read books which really passionate, and—to reading list was several they authored, and then put it a little childishly—

60 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 smart. Every now and then It was different in exaggeration, that none of we would hear that one of these opportunities would Wrocław, where the our lecturers is speaking at a have happened if not for my conference at some prestigious texts constituted engagement in academic university, publishes a book and non-academic projects that changes the view with only beginnings of in professor Wodziński’s which certain topics are being discussions, and where department. perceived, is engaged in Two years of Jewish Studies creating the exhibition at the the lecturers wanted to at the University of Wrocław POLIN Museum in Warsaw, were filled with field trips, or does something else that teach us the ability of various non-academic events, really brings a new quality critical reading. projects, and meetings into various fields of Jewish with students from other studies. We had visiting exchanges in Potsdam, universities. Whereas it is scholars coming just for us Berlin, Southampton, and considered a norm in Poland (among them such names as elsewhere, many also studied that academic lecturers keep Moshe Rosman), which is not later in the Swedish Paideia their distance, the faculty a standard way of teaching at Institute for Jewish Studies, of the Centre for the Jewish most Polish universities. All at Heidelberg University—to Culture and Languages (as it of that was encouraging and recall just these places that I was then called) was doing inspiring, and not only for personally remember. I got everything to shorten that these who wanted to further admitted to the Polish-Israeli distance. They were equally pursue academic career. The Youth Exchange (PIYE) engaged in our Purim shpiels general feeling that I think our program at the POLIN and Hanukkah celebrations, lecturers wanted to convey Museum, which consisted of as they were in their academic was that there are always one semester studies at the research. They had time for places we can go to and study, Tel Aviv University, and then us, much beyond the standard academic projects we can I eventually stayed in Israel office hours. Dr. Jan Paweł take part in, expeditions we for a while, working in Yad Woronczak went with a can organize, and they will Vashem’s Righteous Among group of about ten of us to a always help us to achieve our the Nations Department—I picturesque Moravian town, big and smaller goals. Many am quite sure, without Mikulov, where we worked on of us took part in Erasmus

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 61 documenting the remaining that the Taube Department Languages, has founded) I am tombstones at the local Jewish of Jewish Studies was given happy to have the opportunity cemetery. Following in the in a historical building just to almost regularly write steps of his father, professor across the place where the two about the achievements of the Jerzy Woronczak, he taught us swamped rooms I remembered faculty members and their the art of deciphering the old were, it was nice to discover new books. My studies at the Hebrew letters and converting that we still keep on making Jewish Studies Department (or the dates. It was one of the new friends there. The yard the Super-Centre as someone best summers my friends and I where the celebrations took coined the name back then) have ever had and after several place was filled with people significantly helped me to years still uphold that view; that I met long time after my build a solid knowledge base, successive students of the own graduation, and I haven’t a network of professional Department still go to Mikulov, even been living full-time in contacts and gave an work on the cemetery, and Wrocław since then. What is inspiration and encouragement drink the fantastic local wine. also worth emphasizing, is for doing what I do now. I find I don’t want to sound like I am that even these who didn’t it very uplifting to see that in diminishing the qualities that have academic aspirations Chidusz we are able to work lecturers in other departments became in many ways with some of the Department’s have, but whereas meeting a influenced by the experience most fantastic students and devoted teacher at university is of Jewish Studies and now alumni, either as our interns generally considered luck, in pursue careers in related or coworkers. In this, and in the Jewish Studies Department fields. It is not my intention a hundred different ways, I it was a common occurrence. to list all the places that my will always be thankful to Professor Wodziński managed friends work in, but many professor Wodziński and his to build a team of smart, of them have satisfying truly exceptional staff for emphatic, engaged and and rewarding career paths, their work that doesn’t seem passionate people whom we thanks to the bug that has to slow down but, on the could consider teachers, guides bitten us during the studies. contrary, only accelerates. n for our research and careers, As an author for Chidusz Katarzyna Andersz is a and friends indeed. Jewish Magazine (which my journalist and editor at friend, Michał Bojanowski, When we celebrated the Chidusz Magazine, published also the alum of the Centre opening of the new space in Wrocław. for the Jewish Culture and

62 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 OBITUARIES Richard Pipes Antony Polonsky July 11 1923—May 17 2018

ichard Edgar Pipes, “colonial goods” for the Polish who died in Boston, Army. Richard (or Ryszard as RMassachusetts on May 17th, he was known in Polish) by was both an eminent historian then attended the Kreczmar of the Tsarist Empire and the Gymnasium, a private secular Soviet Union and a public high school founded in 1907 intellectual who made a major and the first secondary school contribution to the formulation in the Russian partition to use of U.S foreign policy in the the Polish language. It was last decades of the Cold War. attended by many children of He was born in Cieszyn, in acculturated Jewish families, former Austrian Silesia, the including the writers Antoni only son of Mark Pipes, a Słonimski and Leopold member of a prominent Lwów Richard Pipes in Warsaw in 2004. Tyrmand and the Sovietologist family, and Zofia (usually Photograph by Mariusz Kubik. Wikimedia and editor of Survey, Commons. known as Zosia) Haskelberg, Leopold Łabędz. The general who, like her husband, Piłsudski to fight for Polish atmosphere of the school was came from an acculturated independence alongside tolerant, although some of the Jewish family from Warsaw. the Central Powers. After students were ardent anti- Both of Richard’s parents Polish independence, he Semites. Among the teachers were bilingual in Polish and opened a chocolate factory was the esteemed Polish German, a language which in Cieszyń, which was the medievalist, Marian Małowist Richard described as “the first in Poland to produce - who could not obtain a post English of those times.” milk chocolate—one of its at a Polish university because Richard owed his bilingual specialities was the “Prince of anti-Jewish prejudice - and facility in languages (he spoke Polo” chocolate bar, still Jan Żabiński, who taught near perfect Russian and wrote popular in Poland today. The geography and was also the impeccable English) to his factory ran into difficulties co-founder and director of upbringing. during the depression and the Warsaw Zoo. After the Mark then moved to Warsaw, war, he and his wife Antonina Mark was a devoted Polish where, through his contacts (née Erdman) were awarded patriot and served in the in the Piłsudski Legions, he the decoration of “Righteous Legions established by Józef was given a contract to import among the Nations” for hiding

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 63 Jews in the by then closed His lifelong conservatism and literature, which remained zoo. Ryszard remembered was clearly in part a lifelong passions and he spent both fondly, although his the months waiting for a initial encounter with Żabiński product of his awareness United States visa in Florence was marred by his falling of how thin is the crust studying art history. Late in asleep in his class. life he returned to this field, of civilization and writing a book-length article, When the war broke out “Russia’s Itinerant Painters.” Mark was able to use his how easily it can be trading contacts to obtain ruptured by violent and The Pipes family was able to false Bolivian passports for travel from Lisbon to New himself, Zosia and Ryszard. destructive forces. York in 1940 and settled in They managed to travel via Elmira, New York, where awareness of how thin is the Breslau to Italy in October they again began to produce crust of civilization and how 1939 immediately after the chocolate. Richard now easily it can be ruptured by Polish defeat. A large number wrote to a large number of violent and destructive forces. of their friends and family American colleges, seeking went to the main Warsaw When the Pipes family financial support and part- station to see them off. One of arrived at the German-Italian time work and was admitted them took with him the Pipes’ border on the Brenner pass, to Muskingum College (now family dog, which the family the Gestapo were clearly Muskingum University) in felt compelled to leave behind. suspicious. However, the fact Ohio. In his junior year, he The dog clearly sensed what that this so-called “Bolivian” was drafted into the Army was happening and at the last family had their dog with Air Corps and sent to study minute jumped out of the arms them convinced them of their Russian at Cornell. There, of the person holding him, authenticity, as this would not he met his future wife, Irene boarded the train and hid, re- have been the case in their Roth, who was a student appearing at the door of their prejudiced view of the world of architecture. She came compartment near Breslau. had the travelers been Jews. from a similar acculturated Richard has described in his Richard has described his Jewish background—her autobiography, Vixi: Memoirs reaction on arriving in Rome: father Marcell hailed from of a Non-Belonger, the “It was still summer—the Busk in East Galicia and nightmarish experience of sky was all blue and there her mother, Maria, from travelling through the deserted were white marble buildings Warsaw where they settled battlefields with their ruined everywhere. I thought I had after Polish independence, equipment and dead bodies. arrived in heaven.” His main and where they had common His lifelong conservatism was interests at the time were art acquaintances. Like the Pipes clearly in part a product of his family, they had miraculously

64 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 escaped from Poland in He became a full professor world canvas. Other notable 1940. Irene and Dick (as he there in 1958, holding the works include: The Russian was affectionately called) Frank B. Baird Jr Chair until Revolution (1990), Russia were devoted to each other his retirement in 1996. From Under the Bolshevik Regime throughout their seventy-two 1968-1973, he was Director of (1994) and The Unknown years of marriage, although its Russian Research Center. Lenin (1996), summarized given that both had extremely His doctoral dissertation, in A Concise History of the strong personalities, they which reflected his lasting Russian Revolution (1995), sometimes clashed. In his interest in national questions, and Communism: A Brief autobiography Vixi Dick wrote was published under the History (2001), which stress of her as follows: title, The Formation of the the conspiratorial nature Soviet Union: Communism of the Bolsheviks and the We complemented and Nationalism, 1917-1923 continuities between Russian each other perfectly: to (1954). Perhaps his most and Soviet history. Pipes’ paraphrase Voltaire, she impressive work is Russia commitment to liberal assumed command of the Under the Old Regime (1974), conservatism emerges clearly earth, I of the clouds, and which abandoned chronology in his two-volume biography between us, kept our little and examined different aspects of the liberal politician Peter universe in good order. of the pre-revolutionary Struve, Struve: Liberal on the Her charm, beauty, and joie past—the peasantry, the Left, 1870-1905 (1970) and de vivre have never faded church, the machinery of Struve: Liberal on the Right, for me. state and the intelligentsia— 1905-1944 (1980). Two of My marriage was for me thematically. Its key argument his books examine Soviet- a continuous source of joy was that the main reason for American relations, U.S.- and strength. In a book the failure of Russia to evolve Soviet Relations in the Era of which I dedicated to her into a liberal constitution was Détente (1981) and Survival Is after we had celebrated its character as a “patrimonial Not Enough: Soviet Realities our golden wedding state,” in which the Tsar not and America’s Future (1984). anniversary I thanked her only ruled but also owned his One of his most moving for ‘having created for me domain and its inhabitants, and revealing books is his ideal conditions to pursue thereby making impossible autobiography, published in scholarship.’ the development of the 2003, in which he writes: concepts of private property There are various reasons for Richard Pipes graduated from and individual freedom. In writing an autobiography, but Cornell in 1946 and received a later work, Property and for me the most important his doctorate in history from Freedom (1999), he explored is to get to know oneself. Harvard University in 1950. these links on a larger For if one has lived to a ripe

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 65 old age, as I have, one’s Yakovlev: The Man Whose life is a long story whose Ideas Delivered Russia from earlier chapters are clouded Communism, in 2015 and in darkness. Are we the also published several articles same over these decades? in the New York Review of Can we still understand Books in the following year. what we have once said and As his son Daniel wrote, “He done, and why? To write remained lucid, if increasingly an autobiography is akin to short of memory, until the doing an archeological dig, exact turn of 2018, when an with the difference being that exhausted body and mind the digger is also the site. gradually failed him.” He was a unique individual and will Dick was greatly encouraged be sorely missed. We express by the collapse of the our deepest sympathy to his Soviet Union. He was also wife Irene, long-standing saddened by the failure of the President of the American country to develop towards a Association for Polish Jewish constitutional state. In 1999, Studies, to his sons Daniel he observed: and Steven and their four I was very hopeful in children, Sarah, Anna, ’91, ’92, that they would Elizabeth and Mark. n take a more democratic course. I don’t think there’s the slightest chance communism will come back…but it’s entirely possible that they’ll go to some kind of authoritarian regime — and that would be consistent with their traditions.

Richard Pipes remained active until the near-end of his long life. He produced his final book, Alexander

66 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 In Memory of Michael Schudrich Abram Henryk Prajs

hen was the last time a horse attended a Jewish Wfuneral? This question, weird as it may sound, does have a precise answer: Sunday April 29, 2018, at Warsaw’s Okopowa cemetery. Polish military custom has it that cavalrymen’s funerals are attended by cavalry horses – and lieutenant Abram Henryk Prajs of blessed memory had been a soldier in the 3rd Light Cavalry Regiment of the Polish Army. Therefore a horse – Photograph of Abram Henryk Prajs and his daughter Małgorzata, at Prajs’s home unsaddled and bedecked in in Góra Kalwaria. Image courtesy of Centropa. black – accompanied him to his grave, as did an honors havoc behind enemy lines, on September 17. He was 101 guard of the 3rd Light Cavalry but then had to withdraw when he passed away at home with sabers drawn, but in under continuous Luftwaffe in his native Góra Kalwarja reconstructed uniforms. For bombardment. Ten days later – or Ger, as the Hassidim had the 3rd Light Cavalry, with in Olszewo they clashed with called it in Yiddish. whom lieutenant Prajs had general Heintz Guderian’s Born in a poor and pious gone into battle, is no more: armored army, losing over artisan family, Abram Chaim the battles it had fought in 30 officers and men. There, – he adopted the Polish Poland’s doomed war against on the battlefield, he was second name Henryk only in the German invasion in 1939, made commander of his the army – lost his father in had been its last. squadron, which had lost its a bandit attack when he was commanding officer. Prajs, Prajs was 23 then: his three. The family gave him a wounded in battle, withdrew squadron conducted a strong Jewish identity – Prajs with his bloodied unit – only successive raid into Germany studied in cheder and joined to be taken prisoner by the on September 3rd, wreaking the General Zionist youth Soviets, who invaded Poland

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 67 movement, and in the army [A]s the population was Jewish community and various received weekly payments dignitaries, including the being deported to the from the quartermaster to Polish minister for veterans buy himself kosher food that ghetto in Warsaw, affairs, the mayor of Góra the military did not provide Kalwarja with the flag of the – as well as a strong Polish Prajs, spurred on by city, and representatives of the patriotic one: his father had, his mother, fled. army, attended his funeral and on Poland’s declaration eulogized him. The honors of independence in 1918, guard of the 3rd Light Cavalry participated in the disarming the ghettoes, or eventually in stood at attention, displayed of occupying German troops. Treblinka and Majdanek. his military decorations and “I had been happy twice in my Prajs survived, hiding with gave him military honors. life – he used to say – when I Polish families: the Pokorskis, Not surprisingly: this joined the army in 1937, and the Kurachs, the Majewskis, unprepossessing Jewish man when I heard that Israel had in the countryside. They are had, after all, been Poland’s been proclaimed in 1948”. all recognized as Righteous last surviving cavalryman Between these two dates lies a Gentiles by Yad Vashem. Mrs who had fought in the war n history of despair. Pokorska delivered one of the of 1939. Eventually liberated from moving eulogies at his funeral. Michael Schudrich is the Soviet captivity by having When the war ended Prajs Chief Rabbi of Poland. concealed his officer rank, returned to Góra Kalwarja Prajs returned to Góra and spent his entire life there, Kalwaria in late 1939 and was marrying in 1949 a local rejoined with his family. But Polish woman. He frequently in January 1940 the Germans attended, for as long as his created a ghetto in Góra health permitted, holiday Kalwarja: in a testimony with services at Warsaw’s Nożyk the Jewish Historical Institute shul, where he would read in Warsaw, Prajs described, prayers in a beautiful, pre- after the war, the atrocious war Polish Hebrew. He was conditions which prevailed overjoyed at the post-1989 there. One year later, as the rebirth of Polish Jewish life. population of ghetto was being deported to the ghetto in He is survived by his Warsaw, Prajs, spurred on by daughter, 6 grandchildren and his mother, fled. 36 members 5 great-grandchildren. The of his family died, either in family, friends, the Warsaw

68 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Claude Lanzmann Antony Polonsky July 11, 1923—July 5, 2018

laude Lanzmann, who Lanzmann had long been died in Paris on July 5, fascinated by the cinema. C2018 at the age of 92 was Immediately after the war, one of the great documentary he spent some time in Israel film-makers of the late and his first film, a three hour twentieth and early twenty- documentary, Pourquoi Israel first century. Best-known for (Why Israel, 1973) was the his revolutionary masterpiece product of his discomfort at Shoah, a nine and a half the portrayal of the Jewish hour film which abjured state as a colonial enterprise documentary footage and a by his friends—he had musical score and was based edited a special issue of the only on interviews, often Director Claude Lanzmann in 2011, journal Les Temps Modernes at the Literaktum Festival in San conducted in the places where Sebastián, Spain. with Sartre on the Israeli- mass murder had taken place. Photograph by Iñigo Royo. Wikimedia Palestinian conflict. Commons. Lanzmann was born into a Shoah, his masterpiece, secular Jewish family with the French left, working at the appeared in 1985 and grew roots in Eastern Europe, the journal Les Temps Modernes out of this film. He was eldest of three children. His with Jean-Paul Sartre and approached by an Israeli parents separated in 1934 and Simone de Beauvoir, who official to make a two hour he became radicalised in the was his lover for nine years. documentary about the 1930s, partly as a result of his He subsequently remained in Holocaust from the “Jewish experience of antisemitism in touch with both Sartre and de point of view.” However, his school in Paris. Beauvoir, and, long after the when the initial research had affair had ended, de Beauvoir Under the Nazi occupation, his still not been completed far provided much of the financial father and the three children beyond the budgeted eighteen support for Shoah. A prolific moved to the country. He months, the Israelis withdrew journalist, Lanzmann wrote continued to attend school in their support. The project for a number of journals, Clermont-Ferrand, helping to would take over eleven years including extensive accounts smuggle arms and ammunition to complete and would result for Le Monde and Les Temps to the resistance. After the war, in 350 hours of raw footage Modernes of the situation in he was an active member of which was condensed into Germany.

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 69 a mammoth nine-and-a-half What lay at the heart of for those he interviewed hour epic (originally thirteen Lanzmann’s vision was and indeed provoked them hours). to speak of their deepest his realization during feelings, forcing the viewer The epoch-making character to confront the terrible human of this film has been widely his first trip to Poland cost of survival under the recognized. According to that the sites of mass Nazi regime. One of the Richard Brody, writing in the most compelling interviews New Yorker on 6 July 2018: murder were actual is with a former prisoner …Shoah, the crucial physical places. at Treblinka, Abraham cinematic confrontation Bomba, a professional with the Holocaust (a word would have to take up barber, interviewed while that Lanzmann hated), the ultimate challenge; cutting a woman’s hair in changed the history of take the place of the non- a barbershop in Tel Aviv, cinema with its absolute existent images of death who tells of giving women absence of archival footage, in the gas chambers…For haircuts minutes before they with its incarnation of twelve years I tried to stare were to be gassed. Bomba history in the present tense relentlessly into the black begins to describe the arrival as a first-hand, first-person sun of the Shoah. of transport from his native act of political engagement. shtetl but breaks down and It changed political history In spite of Lanzmann’s cannot continue. Pressed by with its journalistic statement, the other major Lanzman he gives an account revelations and its moral theme of Shoah is, in of how he was forced to insights. fact, survival. The film cut the hair of his wife and contains interviews with sister, able only to share a What lay at the heart of former members of the brief embrace before the final Lanzmann’s vision was his Sonderkommando forced, on parting and their deaths. realization during his first trip pain of death, to prepare other to Poland that the sites of mass Jewish prisoners for murder The film has been widely murder were actual physical and with Jewish resistance praised. Roger Ebert called it places. In his autobiography, fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. “one of the noblest films ever The Patagonian Hare (English In his view, this is justified made,” and Time Out and The edition, 2012), he wrote: since survival has to be seen Guardian in London were as an act of resistance. among those who ranked it as I knew that the subject the greatest documentary of of the film would be Lanzmann was an aggressive all time. It had a major impact death itself. Death rather and intrusive interviewer. on Poland and was clearly a than survival. The film He showed little compassion major factor in inducing the

70 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 literary critic, Jan Błoński, The film..demonstrates Poles rejected Lanzmann’s to write his article “Biedny Lanzmann’s division of European Polacy patrzą na ghetto,” society during the Holocaust in Tygodnik Powszechny extraordinary ability to (particularly in Poland) into in November 1987, a major empathize with those the murderers, their victims, turning-point in the discussion and the bystanders, largely of Polish-Jewish relations in Jews who hoped to work unsympathetic to the fate post-war Poland. When the with the Nazis to save of the Jews. Yet many were film was was first shown in shocked by his interviews Paris, it was bitterly attacked Jewish lives. with Polish peasants living by the official Polish press as in the vicinity of the death an anti-Polish provocation and who took part in the all-day camps, in which they revealed the Polish government even discussion that followed, and the persistence of crude delivered a note of protest to which I chaired, were Claude antixemitic stereotypes the French government which Lanzmann himself, Jerzy in the Polish countryside. had partly financed the film. Turowicz, Professors Jerzy For Catholics - the However, in the spring of 1985 Tomaszewski of Warsaw overwhelming majority of the Polish embassy in London, and Józef Gierowski of Poles - Lanzmann’s argument whose minister-counselor Krakow, Józef Garliński that Nazi anti-Semitism had played a key role in and Rafael Scharf of London, was the logical culmination facilitating the participation Michal Borwicz of Paris, of Christian anti-Semitism of scholars from Poland in the and Abe Brumberg of was also unacceptable. But Oxford conference on Polish- Washington, D.C. the film, too, forced a re- Jewish relations in September examination of many strongly- The discussion was heated, 1984, approached the Institute held attitudes. partly because of the abrasive for Polish Jewish Studies in personality of Lanzmann, but Lanzmann subsequently used Oxford and suggested that it it enabled an important circle the 350 hours of footage organize a showing of the film of opinion makers in Poland he had accumulated in the in Oxford (in fact the British to see the film. Reports on making of Shoah to produce premiere of the film), at which the screening and discussion several other films. The first of prominent Polish and Jewish reached the Polish press and these, Visitor From the Living scholars would be present and the Oxford showing was one (1999) was an interview with would discuss the film. The of the factors that led the Maurice Rossel, a Second showing took place, with the Polish government to finally World War Red Cross official participation of both the Polish allow the screening of the film who had written a glowing and French embassies, in in Poland. When it took place, report on the Theresienstadt late September. Among those reactions were mixed. Most ghetto. This was followed by

GAZETA SUMMER 2018 n 71 Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 footage, The Last of the Unjust p.m. (2001) an account of the (2013). This was an extended uprising and escape from the interview with Benjamin Sobibor death camp. Murmelstein, a Viennese rabbi who was the last Judenälteste In 2010 he produced The of the ghetto. Murmelstein, Karski Report, a 42 minute who survived the war, was interview with Jan Karski in credited with saving the lives which the Polish resistance of thousands of Jews by fighter described his mission facilitating their emigration, to the West in November 1942 but his collaboration with the during which he attempted to Nazis led to his ostracism inform Western leaders of the after the war. The film again Nazi plans for the mass murder demonstrates Lanzmann’s of the Jews of Europe. There extraordinary ability to was clearly a strong affinity empathize with those Jews between him and Lanzmann. who hoped to work with the Lanzmann was the first person Nazis to save Jewish lives. to induce Karski to express publicly his attempt to bring In 2011 Lanzmann was made the Jewish tragedy to the Grand Officer of the Legion attention of the world and to d’Honneur, and in 2013 persuade him to talk about was awarded an honorary it, about which he had been Golden Bear by the Berlin silent since 1945. When some film festival. He was married Poles in London attempted three times: to actor Judith to prevent the showing of Magre, German writer the film in Oxford in 1985, Angelika Schrobsdorff and Karski telephoned me from epidemiologist Dominique Georgetown to make sure Petithory (whom he married I would not give in to this in 1995 and who survives pressure. “This is a film which him). Claude Lanzmann was the Poles must see,” he told me. a man with uncommon energy and charisma. As one of his He returned to the issue of the friends observed after his Theresienstadt ghetto in his death, “We all assumed he was final film using this material, indestructible.” He will be which also includes new sorely missed. n

72 n GAZETA VOLUME 25, NO. 2 Taube Philanthropies’ Shana Penn (center) and the Jewish Historical Institute’s Jan Paweł Śpiewak (left) at the entry to the Institute’s new permanent exhibition on the Oyneg Shabes Archive. Image courtesy of Taube Philanthropies.

If you would like to suggest an article and/or author for the next issue of Gazeta, or submit one yourself, please email: [email protected]. The submission deadline for the next issue is October 8, 2018.

[email protected] www.taubephilanthropies.org