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Gazeta                                                               Volume 26, No. 1
                                                                         Spring 2019

                             Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) Albert Einstein in his office,
                             Princeton University, New Jersey, 1942. Gelatin Silver print.
                             The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California,
                             Berkeley, gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn, 2016.6.10.

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

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

    FEATURES
    The Road to September 1939
    Jehuda Reinharz and Yaacov Shavit ......................................................................................... 4
    Honoring the Memory of Paweł Adamowicz
    Antony Polonsky ..................................................................................................................... 8
    Roman Vishniac Archive Gifted to Magnes Collection of
    Jewish Art and Life
    Francesco Spagnolo ............................................................................................................. 11
    Keeping Jewish Memory Alive in Poland
    Leora Tec ............................................................................................................................. 15
    The Untorn Life of Yaakov Weksler
    Michael Schudrich ................................................................................................................ 17

    ANNOUNCEMENTS
         BOOKS
         Elie Wiesel: An Extraordinary Life and Legacy
         Reported by Tressa Berman ............................................................................................. 19
         Józef Czapski: Three New Books
         Reported by Adam Schorin .............................................................................................. 20
         Recent Polish Jewish Studies Books of Note
         Compiled by Agnieszka Ilwicka ........................................................................................ 22
         Auschwitz Jewish Center Publishes Guidebook ...................................................... 23

         CONFERENCES
         Art and the Holocaust ................................................................................................ 24

         Reported by Antony Polonsky
            November Hopes: Jews and the Independence of Poland ............................... 25
            Poland and Hungary: Jewish Realities Compared .............................................. 27
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EXHIBITIONS
    The Free Bird. Der Frayer Foygl at Jewish Historical Institute ................................ 29
    Terribly Close Awarded Best Cultural Event ............................................................. 30

    AWARDS
    Marcin Wodziński Wins 2019 U.S. National Jewish Book Award ........................... 32
    Yiddish Glory Nominated for Grammy Award .......................................................... 33

    GENERAL
    Auschwitz Jewish Center Releases New App ......................................................... 34
    Helping Jews and Poles to Discover their Roots ..................................................... 35
    New Director Appointed to FODŻ ............................................................................. 38
    New Leader of Union of Jewish Communities in Poland ........................................ 39
    GEOP and POLIN Announcements and Opportunities .......................................... 41

    IN BRIEF
    Reported by Fay and Julian Bussgang
       Jews in the Military Conference .............................................................................. 43
       “I Love Poland” Blogger .......................................................................................... 43
       Nevzlin Book Prize Announced .............................................................................. 44

OBITUARIES
Mara Vishniac Kohn ......................................................................................................... 45
Amos Oz ........................................................................................................................... 46
Simcha Rotem .................................................................................................................. 48
Leopold Kozłowski ........................................................................................................... 50

                                                                                                             GAZETA SPRING 2019      n   1
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President, American Association
Message from                                             for Polish-Jewish Studies

Irene Pipes                                              Founder of Gazeta

Dear Members and Friends,

This Spring 2019 issue of Gazeta welcomes a diverse set of voices.
I am pleased to see a discussion of Volume 32 of POLIN, titled “Jewish
Realities Compared,” on the theme of Poland and Hungary. This volume
is dedicated to my late husband, Richard Pipes, who died last May. It is
a hard time for me.

The outstanding activity this past year was a performance in Lexington
of Remembrance of Things Past: Keeping the Stories of Jewish Poland          Irene Pipes
Alive. It consisted of a performance by Witek Dabrowski of the Lublin
Brama Grodzka Theater in Polish [also known as the Grodzka Gate –
NN Theatre] in Polish, and David Liebers and Leora Tec reading the
stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer. In the latter, the Jew did not feel any
connection to Poland; in the former, a non-Jewish Pole did not know
what had befallen the Jews during the war. Unwittingly, walking these
parallel paths, they do the same work of preserving the Jewish memory
in Poland.

Finally, we organized a film showing of A Town called Brzostek, from
where Jonathan Weber’s grandfather emigrated, and where Jonathan
restored the cemetery. The film shows how, after many years of hatred,
suspicion and fear, neighbors finally united.

Looking ahead to a pleasant Passover.

Irene Pipes
President

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Message from
                                              Chairman and Executive Director,
Tad Taube and                                 Taube Foundation for Jewish Life
                                              & Culture
Shana Penn
               Elie Wiesel once remarked that a single person of integrity can make a
               difference. The stories in this issue of Gazeta bear him out. Among our
               feature articles, for example, the first describes the strenuous efforts of
               Jewish leaders in Palestine and Europe during the 1930s to find a refuge
               for Polish Jews on the eve of a seemingly inevitable disaster. They met
               only partial success, but not for lack of commitment. The second article is
               the obituary of a modern-day Polish political leader, Paweł Adamowicz,
               who paid the ultimate price for publicly exercising his moral integrity,
               including strong support for Poland’s Jews. Another article describes the
Tad Taube      astonishment of an American Jew who visited the town of her mother’s
               childhood in Poland, to find that non-Jewish Poles were carefully
               preserving the history of the long-gone Jewish community because they
               regarded it as part of their own history.
               Many such persons of commitment and honor adorn the life and history
               of the Jews of the Polish lands. Some of them are household names, some
               obscure, but as Elie Wiesel would surely have agreed, they all matter. We
               are honored to tell you their stories.

               Tad Taube and Shana Penn
Shana Penn
               Chairman and Executive Director

                                                                          GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   3
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FEATURES                                                                 Jehuda Reinharz and
                                                                         Yaacov Shavit
The Road to September 1939

We are pleased to present in this issue of Gazeta an essay adapted
from the introduction of The Road to September 1939: Polish Jews,
Zionists, and the Yishuv on the Eve of World War II by Jehuda Reinharz
and Yaacov Shavit. Originally published in Hebrew by Am Oved
Publishers in 2013, this translation, published by Brandeis University
Press in the Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry,
introduces English-speaking audiences to the important scholarship of
Professors Reinharz and Shavit. The Road to September 1939 shows,
through letters and memoirs, that contrary to popular belief, Zionists
in the Yishuv worked tirelessly to attempt to save European Jews from
Hitler in the years before World War II. As we approach the eightieth
anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland, this book offers an
opportunity for critical reflection on what was, and was not, possible   Jacket image for The Road to
before the storm clouds of the war fell on Europe.                       September 1939: Polish Jews,
                                                                         Zionists, and the Yishuv on the
                                                                         Eve of World War II by Jehuda
                                             — Gazeta Editorial Team     Reinharz and Yaacov Shavit.

T    his book serves as a sort
     of collective diary of
statesmen, social and political
                                    We do not intend to
                                    describe the events
                                                                         everyday life, rather than on
                                                                         the big questions of the hour,
                                                                         they bring to life this crucial
activists, and ordinary people                                           moment in Jewish history and
whose first-person eyewitness
                                    by reading history                   illuminate more effectively
accounts were recorded in           backward. We have tried              than some traditional histories
personal diary entries, letters,                                         the events that led up to World
and memoirs, along with             not to read the story from           War II and the Holocaust.
daily newspaper accounts.
                                    its endpoint but rather              We do not intend to describe
These accounts are a record
                                                                         the events by reading history
of what they knew, thought,         as much as possible in               backward. We have tried not to
and felt in “real time.” In their
                                                                         read the story from its endpoint
focus on the vicissitudes of        the “present.”
4   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
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but rather as much as possible    The countries of the free           If in 1929 Palestine took in
in the “present.” Before August                                       less than a tenth of Jewish
1939, as well as during that      world had no interest               emigration from Poland, then
month, no one really knew         in resolving Poland’s               in the years prior to the Second
what was in store. It is only                                         World War it became the
a retrospective reading that      internal problems by                principal destination for that
determines that the events                                            emigration. In 1935, Palestine
                                  opening their gates
moved inexorably toward an                                            absorbed around 80.6 percent
unequalled calamity and that      to a large Jewish                   of the emigrants, and in 1937,
it was impossible to halt their                                       32.2 percent. Between 1919
course. A fog of uncertainty      immigration.                        and 1939, around 140,000
and lack of knowledge                                                 people emigrated from Poland
shrouded that month. And in       The reader of this book will find   to Palestine—around 35
any case, even if everyone        almost no German Jews in it.        percent of the mandate’s total
had known where history was       Likewise, it will not discuss the   Jewish population. During
heading, they would have          fate of the Jews of Romania,        the mandate period, Poland
been helpless to divert the       Hungary, or France, for             was thus the largest source
ship toward a safe haven. The     example. The choice to focus        of immigration to Palestine
processes that preceded the       on Polish Jews seems obvious        and the main source of the
breakout of the Second World      to us. Poland was home to the       Yishuv’s demographic growth.
War have been reconstructed       largest Jewish population in the    In addition, a large part of
and analyzed in numerous          world—around 3.5 million Jews       the private capital that was
books, some of them recording     in 1939—and after 1924, it          imported to Palestine belonged
and reconstructing the behind-    was the main source of Jewish       to Polish Jews, who made a
the-scenes occurrences that       emigration across the Atlantic      considerable contribution to
were unknown to people at the     and to Palestine. From 1929         the national funds.
time. The history of the Jewish   to 1938, more than 400,000
                                  Jews left Poland. Initially, most   In the middle of the 1930s, as
people, the Zionist movement,
                                  of them went to the United          the pressure to leave Poland
and the Yishuv, the Jewish
                                  States, but from 1924 onward        grew and Palestine became the
community in Palestine prior
                                  the rate of those immigrating to    almost exclusive destination,
to the establishment of the
                                  Palestine increased. Between        the British government
State of Israel in 1948, in the
                                  1929 and 1935, Palestine            imposed new restrictions
1930s have been the subjects
                                  absorbed around 43.7 percent        on Jewish immigration. As
of an extensive body of
                                  of the total Jewish emigration,     a result, the country’s gates
literature. This book could
                                  whereas the United States           were shut to many who
not have been written without
                                  absorbed 10.9 percent.              wanted to immigrate to it.
consulting it.
                                                                      The Zionist movement and

                                                                                 GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   5
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its institutions had to lay the     Polish Jews had a                   This led to the conclusion that
bridge on which at least some                                           it would be possible to spur the
Polish Jews would cross over
                                    rich and multifaceted               governments and the world’s
to Palestine. The Yishuv’s          existence as an integral            conscience to see finding a
political future and its power                                          solution for the Jews’ plight
were now intertwined with           part of Polish life and             as a lofty conscientious duty.
the fate of Polish Jews. The        under its influence. The            This was also accompanied
fate of Polish Jews, however,                                           by a belief that the power
as opposed to the fate of           shadow of a possible war            of the Jewish world could
German Jews and later that                                              not be reduced to its plight.
                                    weighed on them without
of Jews under the Third                                                 Weizmann, however, did
Reich, was not on the public        being necessarily tied to           not mean that putting the
and international agenda. It                                            subject of Jewish emigration
                                    the future of the Jewish
did not occupy any place in                                             on the international agenda
British or international policy     Yishuv in Palestine, and            would include alternatives to
considerations, because Polish                                          Palestine. He—and others—
Jews had not been expelled          even in isolation from it.          believed that when it would
and therefore did not become                                            become clear that there
                                    wrote to Moshe Shertok
asylum-seeking refugees. The                                            were no such alternatives,
                                    (Sharett), director of the Jewish
countries of the free world                                             Palestine’s status as the
                                    Agency’s political department,
had no interest in resolving                                            only destination would be
                                    that Poland had put the
Poland’s internal problems by                                           reinforced.
                                    question of Jewish emigration
opening their gates to a large
                                    from Eastern Europe on the          However, it would be a
Jewish immigration.
                                    international agenda: “The          mistake to describe the history
The Zionist movement found          recent pronouncements of            of Polish Jews between the two
itself in a difficult dilemma.      the Poles have made a very          world wars only from a Zionist
On the one hand, putting            great impression. The Polish        or a Palestinian perspective.
the need for Jewish                 problem transcends the              Most of the Jews in Poland
emigration from Poland on           ordinary boundaries and makes       were not Zionists, and many of
the international agenda was        it patent to everybody that our     them opposed Zionism or were
welcomed. On the other hand,        misfortunes will soon grow          indifferent to it. Nor did many
directing this emigration to        to a first-rate international       Zionists show an urgency or
different countries in Africa       calamity for which we cannot        eagerness to immigrate to
or South America meant              take responsibility and which       Palestine. Polish Jews had a
that Zionism would become           may affect vitally the state of     rich and multifaceted existence
irrelevant. In October 1936,        affairs in the East and South       as an integral part of Polish
for example, Chaim Weizmann         East Europe.”                       life and under its influence.

6   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
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The shadow of a possible war        The research literature,         publicly and behind closed
weighed on them without being                                        doors, stirring up the debate
                                    and even more so the
necessarily tied to the future of                                    and creating polarization. Plans
the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine,     political and public             can testify to the sense of time
and even in isolation from it.                                       and to a will to act. But they
                                    debate, have been                do not indicate that those who
At the end of a dinner held
                                    suffused for over fifty          thought up the plans had the
on February 22, 1938, at the
                                                                     power and the means to carry
house of Leopold Amery,             years with a bitter              them out. As will become
the Secretary of State for
                                    disagreement around the          apparent in the narrative
Dominion Affairs from 1924
                                                                     that follows, individuals
to 1929, Ben-Gurion told Sir        question to what extent          and organizations within the
Harold MacMichael, who was
                                                                     Zionist movement feared for
appointed High Commissioner         Jews in general, and the
                                                                     the fate of the Jews of Europe
for Palestine in 1938 (and held
                                    political leadership of          and did what they could within
the position until 1944), that
                                                                     the fog of uncertainty and with
the Zionist movement wanted         the Zionist movement in
                                                                     limited resources. Once the
“to save the young generation
                                    particular, were aware           war broke out, however, the
of Eastern and Central
                                                                     fate of European Jewry was
European Jewry—and it’s             that time was pressing.          virtually sealed. n
possible. It’s a question of two
million Jews.” MacMichael           bitter disagreement around the   Jehuda Reinharz is Richard
replied that the Jews were          question to what extent Jews     Koret Professor of Modern
“rushing things.” Ben-Gurion        in general, and the political    Jewish History, director of the
wrote in his diary: “And again      leadership of the Zionist        Tauber Institute for the Study
I saw that we are hitting a wall.   movement in particular, were     of European Jewry at Brandeis
The Englishman doesn’t know         aware that time was pressing.    University, and president of
what time means for us.”            Did the “awareness of time”      the Jack, Joseph, and Morton
                                    change between 1935 and          Mandel Foundation.
What was the Zionist
                                    1939? What was done under
“dimension of time” in the                                           Yaacov Shavit is Professor
                                    the pressure of time in order
1930s? Can we distinguish                                            Emeritus at Tel Aviv University.
                                    to break through the “wall,”
between rhetoric and plans of
                                    and did the Jews of Poland and
action, wishes and means? The
                                    of the Yishuv share the same
research literature, and even
                                    “concept of time”?
more so the political and public
debate, have been suffused          Various plans and solutions
for over fifty years with a         were mooted and discussed

                                                                                GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   7
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Honoring the Memory of Pawel/
Adamowicz: November 2, 1965 –                                               Antony Polonsky

January 14, 2019

T    he tragic death of Paweł
     Adamowicz, murdered
on January 13, 2019, while
                                                                         According to Adamowicz,
                                                                         civil society “is not about
speaking on the stage at the                                             enlightened absolutism
concert of the Great Orchestra
                                                                         imposed from the top.
of the Christmas Charity
Foundation, has robbed Poland                                            It takes place through
of one of its most able and
                                                                         the activism of different
progressive leaders. As mayor
of Gdansk since 1998, he was                                             entrepreneurs and people
responsible for numerous
                                                                         of different professions
civic innovations, including
Poland’s first “civic panel,”                                            and ideas, as well as
to develop policies on flood
                                                                         through public disputes
prevention, with residents
drawn at random to “raise the                                            and conflicts. That is how
level of civic engagement in the    Paweł Adamowicz in July 2018.
                                    Photograph by Rudolf H. Boettcher.   civil society is created.”
areas most challenging to the       Wikimedia Commons.
city.” According to Adamowicz,
                                    in politics as head of the           and member of Civic Platform
civil society “is not about         committee that organized the         (Platforma Obywatelska—PO).
enlightened absolutism imposed      strikes in Gdańsk in 1988,
from the top. It takes place        and that contributed to the          He made his reputation as a
through the activism of different   convening of the roundtable          progressive, supporting the
entrepreneurs and people of         talks culminating in the             settlement of immigrants
different professions and ideas,    negotiated end of communism          in Gdańsk, sex education
as well as through public           in Poland. He was elected to         in schools, gay and lesbian
disputes and conflicts. That is     the Gdańsk city council in           rights—in 2018 he was an
how civil society is created.”      1990 and in 1998 became its          honorary patron of the fourth
                                    mayor, a post to which he was        Gdańsk Gay Pride Parade, in
Born of parents who                 re-elected several times. In         which he also participated—
emigrated after the war             2018, he was re-elected as an        and the national rights of the
from Vilnius to Gdańsk,             Independent, although he had         Kashubes. As a symbol of his
Adamowicz became active             previously been a co-founder         support for women’s rights,

8   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
he granted the keys of the city     “The death of Mayor               created by PiS had led the
to the women of Gdańsk to                                             assassin to commit his
commemorate the hundredth           Paweł Adamowicz is yet            heinous act.
anniversary of women’s              another tragic warning            Adamowicz had previously
suffrage in Poland. As he told
                                    signal that in our society,       been verbally attacked
The Guardian in 2016, “I am a
                                                                      by right-wing politicians.
European, so my nature is
                                    ideological differences,          In 2017, the Młodzież
to be open. Gdańsk is a port
                                                                      Wszechpolska (All-Polish
and must always be a refuge         and differences of
                                                                      Youth), whose president,
from the sea.”
                                    worldview, can lead – in          Adam Andruszkiewicz, was
He spoke out strongly when                                            recently appointed Deputy
the windows of the Gdańsk           extreme cases – to acts of        Minister for Digitalization,
synagogue were broken               physical violence.”               published a series of ten
last year, denouncing the                                             “political death certificates”
                                      —Joint statement issued by
vandalism. In the aftermath of                                        of pro-European politicians.
Adamowicz’s assassination,            Polish Jewish organizations     Adamowicz’s certificate
all the main Jewish                                                   described his “cause of
organizations in Poland issued      he was treated for paranoid       death” as “liberalism,
a joint statement. It asserted:     schizophrenia while in            multiculturalism, stupidity.”
“Sadly, hatred is becoming          prison but stopped taking his     The prosecutor’s office
more and more visible and           medication before his release.    decided that these tacit threats
more widely accepted in             After stabbing Adamowicz,         did not constitute a breach
Polish political and social life.   the assassin seized the           of the law, but were rather a
The death of Mayor Paweł            microphone and claimed            form of legitimate criticism
Adamowicz is yet another            that he had been falsely          of the politicians involved. In
tragic warning signal that          imprisoned and tortured at        an interview with a right-wing
in our society, ideological         the hands of the previous         media outlet broadcast on the
differences, and differences        PO government. One of the         day that Adamowicz’s death
of worldview, can lead—in           main claims of the present        was announced, the far-right
extreme cases—to acts of            Polish government, headed         politician Grzegorz Braun
physical violence.”                 by the Law and Justice Party      described him as a “traitor to
                                    (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość—          the nation.”
The mayor’s assassin, a             PiS), is that the courts were
27-year-old resident of             dominated by a PO-created         According to Rafał Pankowski,
Gdańsk, had a criminal              mafia, and that this had          head of the Nigdy Więcej
history that included bank          necessitated the large-scale      (Never Again) association, an
robberies and an attack on a        purge of the judiciary—a          anti-racist campaign group,
police officer. According to        claim that led many to assert     Adamowicz became a symbol
reports in the Polish press,        that the hate-filled atmosphere   of something bigger than the

                                                                                 GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   9
attack itself. “He died during       It is vital to “put an end
a charity event that tries to
                                     to the wave of hatred,
bring Poles together. As a
result, he became a symbol           respect the dignity
of the death of unity in this
                                     of man, and engage
society.” In Pankowski’s view,
Adamowicz “started to become         in a reckoning of
more and more outspoken on           conscience.”
issues of diversity and minority
rights and tolerance, just as          —Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz,
society was moving in the                 Archbishop of Warsaw
opposite direction. It was very
impressive. He was a very            It is to be hoped that this
brave man—and he paid for it.”       tragic event will lead to a
                                     diminution of the divisive
The government claimed
                                     and abusive character of
there was no evidence that
                                     Polish political life. Cardinal
the attack was politically
                                     Kazimierz Nycz, Archbishop
motivated, and that the
                                     of Warsaw, at the mass
assassin had also threatened
                                     celebrated in the presence of
the president. President Duda
                                     members of the government
condemned the murder as a
                                     on the Sunday after the
“hard to imagine evil.” The
                                     murder, argued that it is vital
stabbing was also condemned
                                     to “put an end to the wave
by other members of the
                                     of hatred, respect the dignity
PiS. Less than ten days after
                                     of man, and engage in a
the murder, however, one of
                                     reckoning of conscience.” n
President Duda’s advisers,
on state television, talking         Antony Polonsky, PhD, is
about Lech Wałęsa, Jerzy             Chief Historian at POLIN
Owsiak (the founder of the           Museum of the History of
foundation that sponsored
                                     Polish Jews.
the charity event), and Paweł
Adamowicz, claimed that the
public scene was affected by
a form of “mystification” that
“makes angels of individuals
whose behavior raises many
questions.”

10   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Roman Vishniac Archive Gifted to
the Magnes Collection of Jewish                                     Francesco Spagnolo
Art and Life (University of
California, Berkeley)

R     oman Vishniac (1897 –
      1990) was a Russian-
born modernist photographer
                                  of photographic prints, but
                                  also negatives, contact sheets,
                                  slides, and personal and
                                                                    Professor of Jewish History
                                                                    at UC Berkeley, which took
                                                                    place at The Magnes last
who is best known for his         professional records. The         November, days after the
poignant images of traditional    Magnes will exhaustively          collection was moved to
East European Jewish life,        catalogue, document, and          Berkeley.
especially Polish Jewish street   organize all of these materials
                                                                    Francesco Spagnolo: The
life, in the years immediately    so that they will be accessible
                                                                    photograph, An Elder of the
preceding the Holocaust. His      for teaching, research, and,
                                                                    Village, Vysni Apsa, is one
photographs of this era also      ultimately, public display. The
                                                                    of the most iconic and well-
capture the plight of Jewish      collection likewise promises
                                                                    known images by Roman
and other displaced persons       to be of inestimable value to
                                                                    Vishniac. It went on the cover
across Europe before and          the UC Berkeley community
                                                                    of his book, A Vanished World
after World War II. Once in       of research into 20th-century
                                                                    (1983). What does the image
the United States, Vishniac       East European Jewry.
                                                                    mean, and what does the book
photographed minorities and       We are especially grateful to     mean? They have a global
immigrants in New York            Roman Vishniac’s daughter,        significance, but they’re also
City and elsewhere. He was        Mara Vishniac Kohn, and           very particular.
also a passionate science         her children, Naomi and
photographer and a pioneer in                                       John Efron: Yes. [This
                                  Ben Schiff, who gifted the
microscopic photography.                                            man] is from Vysni Apsa, in
                                  collection to UC Berkeley.
                                                                    Carpathian Ruthenia, which is
The Magnes Collection of          [Please see obituary for Mara
                                                                    sort of Ukraine today and was
Jewish Art and Life at the        Vishniac Kohn in this issue of
                                                                    divided up between various
University of California,         Gazeta, [page 45].
                                                                    new countries after World
Berkeley, is now the grateful                                       War I. And it’s iconic because
                                  Roman Vishniac:
repository of Vishniac’s                                            the portraiture is just perfect,
                                  A Conversation
complete archive, representing                                      the way he’s both leaning the
one of the museum’s most          Following is an edited version    hand on the cane, and his head
important acquisitions since      of a conversation between         in his hands, so he’s in this
its founding in 1962. The         Frances Spagnolo, curator         deep thoughtful pose, and he’s
Roman Vishniac Collection         of The Magnes Collection,         an elder of his community.
includes not only thousands       and Dr. John Efron, Koret         And so for Vishniac, it

                                                                              GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   11
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990), [Woman walking on crutches                    Image 1: Roman Vishniac (1897–1990), Albert Einstein in His
through ruins], [Berlin (Germany)], 1947. Black-and-white                 Office, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1942. Gelatin silver print.
inkjet print (from original negative).                                    The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley,
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California,   gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn, 2016.6.10.
Berkeley, gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn, 2016.6.15.

signifies the community itself.                         clearly, but both learned in                         to materials in the Vishniac
Vishniac represented this part                          their own way, and they’re                           archives—things he wrote—
of the community as deeply                              both deep in thought. You                            we see that there is not only
religious and deeply pious.                             wouldn’t expect this small                           a poetry in how he describes
                                                        town elder from the shtetl                           a living animal, but there
FS: Once Roman Vishniac
                                                        and Einstein to have much in                         is really a humanist gaze
arrived in the United States,
                                                        common, but the way Vishniac                         on science that we also see
he set up to do studio
                                                        has portrayed them, I think I                        reflected in a more scientific,
photography, and traveled
                                                        can say that they actually do                        taxonomic gaze on human
to Princeton to take portraits
                                                        have something in common,                            beings. So he’s a man of
of Albert Einstein (Image 1),
                                                        and of course we know that                           the two cultures combined,
who apparently stated that
                                                        both of their worlds came to                         science and humanities. He
his portraits by Vishniac
                                                        an end.                                              writes about the stork, “the
were among his favorites.
                                                                                                             wings of the planing bird are
It’s a different type of both                           FS: I remember that when I
                                                                                                             the prototype of our airplane
Jewish American and global                              exhibited these images I put
                                                                                                             wings. Gliding and sailing
iconography here, right?                                them one next to the other for
                                                                                                             birds were the models for
                                                        the very same reason.
JE: Right, but there are two                                                                                 inventors,” and he talks about
things: [the village elder and                          Roman Vishniac took many,                            the struggle of the flight of the
Einstein] were both, at this                            many photographs of storks                           stork in detail in his notes. And
particular point, relatively                            (e.g., Stork in Flight). It’s                        these notes in his archives were
elderly Jewish men from                                 something that could be                              typewritten at the same time
different parts of Europe, very                         surprising, but if we relate this                    as his reflections on the city of

12   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Paris (from the point of view
of a gargoyle on Notre Dame),
as well as on the toils of the
European Jews. He writes
about Jews in the same way
that he writes about storks, and
their struggle in flight: “Four
million human beings driven
to despair by humiliation,
suffering, and destitution,
hope to be saved if not for
themselves, then for their
children that they may grow
up to live and work in a better
world.”
                                    Image 2: Roman Vishniac (1897–1990), Amino Acid (00 000), ca. 1970.
JE: He doesn’t express any          Chromogenic print.
                                    The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley, gift of Mara Vishniac
knowledge of the systematic         Kohn, 2018.15.
extermination of European
Jewry, but needless to say,
                                    negatives and other materials,                          JE: There almost is
                                    [including images like                                  a disproportionate
he’s fully aware of the
systematic persecution of
                                    Amino Acid (Image 2), of                                representation of Jews
Europe’s Jewry. So we’re at a       microscopic objects which                               reading, both children and
point where for him personally      are photographed—in stark                               adults, and even in the
that knowledge is not there,        contrast to his black-and-                              picture of Einstein, he is
and then there’s still sort of a    white photos—in color],                                 reading. So, Jews as a sort
glimmer of hope, perhaps tied       that we hope will unleash                               of a reading civilization
to ... the picture of the stork,    numerous paths of research on                           is the way he wished to
that the stork will still be able   the UC Berkeley campus.                                 portray them, irrespective of
to make its ascent and remain                                                               what country they’re in, or
                                    Many of his photographs
in the air, so he still sees a                                                              where they’re from: whether
                                    depict children—he
possibility at this particular                                                              they’re from Germany, like
                                    devoted a whole book to
point ... and doesn’t realize                                                               Einstein, or whether they’re
                                    Jewish children—but he
that there is none.                                                                         from Carpathian Ruthenia,
                                    photographed children in
                                                                                            or whether they’re now in
FS: Roman Vishniac was              many communities, in many
                                                                                            America, reading what looks
a pioneer in microscopic            ways, and especially children
                                                                                            like an English-language
photography. The Vishniac           who were also readers (Boy
                                                                                            book. They’re nonetheless
collection now at The               Reading), like his photographs
                                                                                            reading.
Magnes includes around              of East European and Jewish
1,500 scientific prints, plus       children in the cheder, a                               FS: Roman Vishniac traveled
                                    religious elementary school.                            to Israel several times, and

                                                                                                            GAZETA SPRING 2019        n   13
black-and-white photos, and
                                                                                                          the [slides] are in color. So
                                                                                                          it sort of represents a dawn,
                                                                                                          as it were, a brightness of a
                                                                                                          possible future, as opposed
                                                                                                          to a visual recording of
                                                                                                          photographs of a civilization
                                                                                                          that’s on the brink. This is a
                                                                                                          civilization on the brink of
                                                                                                          a new future; so these are in
                                                                                                          color, and they’re also very
                                                                                                          striking. But these are very
                                                                                                          intimate portraits, again, of
                                                                                                          both Jews and non-Jews.

                                                                                                          FS: And self-portraits, as
                                                                                                          well! We see him in action,
                                                                                                          roaming the roads of Israel.
                                                                                                          What’s interesting, and very
                                                                                                          important, about these images,
                                                                                                          is that there is no real public
                                                                                                          documentation of Vishniac in
                                                                                                          Israel. This gives us a sense of
                                                                                                          the potential of this archive,
                                                                                                          and how many more roads
                                                                                                          we need to take in order to
                                                                                                          document the extraordinary
Image 3: Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) [Israel], October 1967. Diapositives (slides).                        work of this photographer. n
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley, gift of Mara Vishniac
Kohn, 2018.15.                                                                                            Frances Spagnolo is Curator
                                                                                                          of The Magnes Collection
[his slide series] Israel (Image                        acquired for access to Jews.
                                                                                                          of Jewish Art and Life at
3) depicts a trip in October-                           And also there is again the
                                                                                                          UC Berkeley, and Affiliated
November of 1967, shortly                               topic of elderly Jewish, or
                                                                                                          Faculty with the Berkeley
after the Six Day War. We                               in this case even Samaritan,
                                                                                                          Center for the Study of
have no prints in the archive,                          men with ritual texts, and of
                                                                                                          Religion.
but we have many, many                                  bearded elderly men.
slides. He gives a wide-                                                                                  John Efron, PhD is Koret
                                                        JE: Also, one of the things
ranging portrait of Israel, and                                                                           Professor of Jewish History at
                                                        that’s most noticeable is that
especially Jerusalem, the Old                                                                             UC Berkeley.
                                                        he’s known, of course, for
City, which had just been re-
                                                        these stunning and striking

14   n   GAZETA    VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Keeping Jewish Memory Alive in Poland                                         Leora Tec

W        e trudged through
         the snow up a steep
hill. I had to pull myself up
                                  When we reached the
                                  site, Inga asked if I
                                                                   encountered them in 2005,
                                                                   when visiting Poland with
                                                                   my mother, Nechama Tec.
by the bannister that our         wanted to light candles          Her memoir Dry Tears, about
host, Inga Marczyńska, had                                         her experience passing as
                                  in memory of the dead.           a Catholic girl during the
installed to make access
easier. We were headed to         She reached into her tote        Holocaust, had just been
the mass grave where 260                                           translated into Polish, and
                                  bag and pulled out two           Lublin was one of the stops on
Jews from Kołaczyce and
Brzostek are buried. They         candles. She never goes          her book tour. I had no inkling
were marched there on August                                       that there were people in my
                                  anywhere without them.           mother’s hometown honoring
12, 1942—mothers carrying
their babies and toddlers, with   Rescuers of Memory, Inga is      the memory of Jews of that
no bannister to steady them.      trying to save Jewish memory     place. I now must admit that
Inga, who is tireless in her      “from oblivion,” to quote        I had barely thought about
efforts to commemorate the        Rafał Kowalski, Deputy           my ancestors in Lublin—
Jews of Kołaczyce, seemed         Director of the Museum of        barely thought beyond my
unbothered by her high heels      Mazowian Jews in Płock. My       mother’s immediate family.
or the fact that her skirt was    recorded conversations with      But the non-Jewish Poles
covered in snow. When we          Inga and Rafał will join other   that I encountered there were
reached the site, Inga asked      conversations to be archived     remembering for me. They
if I wanted to light candles      on the Grodzka Gate – NN         were gathering facts, photos,
in memory of the dead. She        Theatre website.                 sounds, testimonies, and
                                                                   lovingly placing them in what
reached into her tote bag
                                  It is appropriate that Grodzka   they call an Ark of Memory.
and pulled out two candles.
                                  Gate – NN Theatre should
She never goes anywhere                                            I was so moved by their
                                  house them. Brama is an
without them.                                                      reverence and dedication
                                  amazing organization of more
                                  than fifty non-Jewish Poles      that I felt called to highlight
Like so many extraordinary
                                  who, for almost three decades,   them and those that do similar
non-Jewish Poles whom I
                                  have dedicated themselves        work—not only people doing
have had the honor to meet
                                  to Jewish remembrance            grassroots projects such as
in the course of my work
                                  in Lublin, Poland. I first       cleaning up cemeteries, but
to create a video archive of
                                                                   also teachers, those working

                                                                             GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   15
Inga Marczyńska at the mass grave where 260 Jews from Kołaczyce and Brzostek were murdered.
Courtesy of Leora Tec.

in institutions, and academics.           Rafał Kowalski from Płock                 Leora Tec is the founder and
What moves them to do this                says it was almost as if he               director of Bridge to Poland
precious work? After my                   were possessed by a dybbuk                and an AAPJS board member.
friend Robert Kuwalek (an                 when he set out to find the               She is currently in Poland as
expert on the Bełżec and                  survivors from Płock all over             a Stevens Traveling Fellow
Majdanek death camps and                  the world and interview them.             from Wellesley College.
the Jews of Lublin) died                  Perhaps I am not possessed by
unexpectedly at the age                   a dybbuk but I am determined
of forty-seven, I became                  to shout from the rooftops in
even more convinced of the                my own way—through video,
importance of recording                   writing and talks—to tell the
the voices and stories of                 world about these amazing
people like him. He counted               people who wake up every
survivors among his friends.              morning looking for new
In a hundred years, who will              ways to fill the hole left in
carry on this memory work?                Poland after the Holocaust. n

16   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Michael
The Untorn Life of Yaakov Weksler                                                             Schudrich

I   first met Yaakov Weksler
    more than twenty years
ago when he was Father
Romuald Waszkinel, a priest
and a professor of theology
in Lublin. Only a few years
earlier he had discovered that
he had been born a Jewish
baby near Vilna, around the
year 1941, and had been given
away by his Jewish mother
in order to save him from         Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Israel Meir Lau, Yaakov Weksler, and
the Shoah. While Yaakov’s         Shaya Ben Yehuda, who is reading from the Torah.
adoptive Polish parents           Courtesy of Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich.

risked their lives to save him,   that he was born to Jewish                             roots of Christianity as well
they never wanted to tell         parents who gave him to them                           as his own family’s roots.
him that, in fact, he was not     in order to save his life. A few                       The journey was deep and
their biological child. More      years later, Yaakov met his                            therefore took time. Indeed, it
than fifty years ago, Yaakov      biological uncle, the brother                          was the journey of a lifetime.
decided to enter the priesthood   of his Jewish father, and then
                                                                                         About ten years ago, Yaakov
and asked his parents if he       traveled several times to Israel
                                                                                         decided that he wanted to live
was really theirs since he did    to meet him.
                                                                                         on a religious kibbutz in order
not look like them. They
                                  And so began Yaakov’s Jewish                           to taste in some way the way
responded by saying “Don’t
                                  journey.                                               his parents and grandparents
we love you?” but could
                                                                                         had lived their lives. After
not tell Yaakov the truth.        For him, a theologian, this                            a soul-searching discussion
SoYaakov went on to enter the     journey was a profoundly                               with the rabbi of the kibbutz,
priesthood. Around twenty-        spiritual and intellectual                             Yaakov was accepted and
five years ago, his adoptive      one. Yaakov spent years                                lived on the kibbutz for over
father passed away, at which      learning more and more about                           a year. This gave him the
time his adoptive mother told     Judaism, following in the                              opportunity for the first time to
him the truth—that he was         footsteps of Pope John Paul                            see Jewish life up close, and to
not their biological child and    II of discovering the Jewish

                                                                                                    GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   17
live Jewishly every day. His         Watching Yaakov                  Yaakov shared with us, in
experience was an inspiration                                         Hebrew, his tremendous
                                     beaming from cheek
to others, and is depicted in the                                     happiness, his gratitude to
film Torn, made during his stay      to cheek, watching a             both his Jewish and Polish
on the kibbutz. The movie’s          man who as a baby had            parents and to all of us.
title aptly describes Yaakov’s                                        “Chazarti habayita,” he said.
dilemma between the two              survived the Shoah,              “I have returned home.”
worlds in which he lived.            so full of happiness             The torn man is now whole.

I was in regular contact             and contentment was              Mazal tov, Yaakov! Ohavim
with Yaakov throughout his           an experience that               otcha!—We love you!
incredible journey of self-
                                     transcends words.                Postscript: Yaakov decided
discovery, full of its ups and
                                                                      that he wanted to stay in
downs and his search for self-       I arrived at the synagogue       Israel and has been working at
reconciliation.                      that day and found a packed      Yad Vashem since 2011. n
Over the years in which              room full of people who had
we met, I increasingly               only one goal in mind: to wish   Michael Schudrich lives in
encountered a person who             Yaakov a mazal tov! All had      Warsaw and is the Chief Rabbi
was becoming more and more           gathered to wish him well        of Poland.
at home with himself and his         in the next part of his life’s
newly “untorn” identity.             journey, to welcome
                                     him home.
This past Yom Kippur,
Yaakov was in Warsaw and             Watching Yaakov beaming
attended services at our Nożyk       from cheek to cheek, watching
Synagogue. I offered him             a man who as a baby had
an aliya, to be called to the        survived the Shoah, so full of
Torah. He declined, saying           happiness and contentment
that he was home in the              was an experience that
synagogue but not yet ready          transcends words. This
for an aliya.                        seemingly impossible moment
                                     filled the room with awe—to
On February 6, 2018, Yaakov          see a person who persevered
decided to put on tefilin and to     for over twenty-five years
be called to the Torah for the       as a conflicted human being
first time in the Yad Vashem         now standing proudly in his
synagogue. A very belated            tallit and tefilin in perfect
Bar Mitzvah!                         wholeness, no longer “torn.”

18   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Books
Elie Wiesel: An Extraordinary Life and Legacy                                 Reported by
Writings, Reflections, Photographs                                            Tressa Berman
Edited by Nadine Epstein. Foreword by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
Afterword by Ted Koppel (Moment Books, 2019)

T    his newly released
     tribute to the late Elie
Wiesel (1928–2016) is a
                                  “I have learned the
                                  danger of indifference,
                                                                   with that memory to prevent
                                                                   collective harm and to heal
                                                                   it where it already occurred.
selected compilation of           the crime of indifference.       As he stated in his acceptance
visual narratives and personal    For the opposite of              speech for the 1985
reflections on the life and                                        Congressional Gold Medal of
                                  love … is not hate but
legacy of one of the most                                          Achievement, “I have learned
preeminent human rights           indifference.”                   the danger of indifference,
thought leaders of the 20th                        —Elie Weisel    the crime of indifference.
and early 21st centuries.                                          For the opposite of love, I
Elie Wiesel is remembered         carried with him six million     have learned, is not hate but
here by such prominent and        fragments of our people. His     indifference.” From receiving
diverse Jewish voices as Itzak    was the voice of memory          the Nobel Peace Prize in
Perlman, Michael Berenbaum,       when others sought to forget.”   1986 until the final decade
Dani Dayan, Mark Podwal,                                           of his life, Elie Wiesel lived
and Martha Hauptman (his          Included in this compendium      his words with a prophetic
personal assistant for almost     is an interview with Wiesel      grace and an empathy for
thirty years), plus many more     himself, conducted by Elisha     humankind borne of his
unexpected contributors,          Wiesel (the son of Elie and      own experience. n
including Oprah Winfrey.          Marion), standing before the
                                  famous quote of his father:      Tressa Berman, PhD, serves
Most vivid are the portraits
                                  “One person of integrity can     as Managing Editor of Gazeta.
by those who knew him
best, and most telling are the    make a difference.” This
praises by historians of the      personal and public account of
Holocaust and Jewish history,     his father’s accomplishments
the survivors, the celebrators    and teachings segues into
of life, and the recoverers of    perhaps the most captivating
loss, to which Wiesel’s life      section of the book—Elie
itself was a living testament.    Wiesel’s own words, essays,
Indeed, as Rabbi Jonathan         and speeches, written and
Sacks points out in the preface   presented in over forty years.
of the book, “Whatever he did     His mission was not only to
and wherever he went, Elie        remember, but to act in accord

                                                                             GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   19
Reported by
Józef Czapski: Three New Books                                            Adam Schorin

Last autumn, The New York                                           for public awareness about
Review of Books published                                           the situation in Communist
three books by and about Józef                                      Poland.
Czapski, the 20th-century
                                                                    The recently published books
Polish painter and writer.
                                                                    are Almost Nothing: The

C     zapski was born in                                            20th-Century Art and Life
      Prague in 1896 and                                            of Józef Czapski, Lost Time:
died in France in 1993: he                                          Lectures on Proust in a Soviet
lived through and witnessed                                         Prison Camp, and Inhuman
the Russian Revolution, the                                         Land: Searching for the
Parisian art world of the                                           Truth in Soviet Russia, 1941–
roaring twenties, the front                                         1942. The first of these is a
lines of World War II, the                                          biography of Czapski by Eric
Siberian gulag, and the fall                                        Karpeles, a painter himself,
of communism. As a young                                            that has been reviewed by
man, he studied law in Saint         “Together these books          Robert Hass as “an amazing
Petersburg and painting in                                          and completely unexpected
                                     document Czapski’s
Warsaw and Kraków; in 1924,                                         achievement told with a
                                     physical and spiritual         steadiness of vision that is
he moved to Paris, where he
worked as a painter and critic.      survival during a              breathtaking.” Karpeles also
As a Polish reserve officer                                         translated Czapski’s lectures
                                     nightmare era, but, more
fighting against the Nazis in                                       on Proust (collected in Lost
the first weeks of World War         than that, they re-create      Time), which he originally
II, he was taken prisoner by         an overlooked life, one        delivered to his fellow
the Soviets. One of the few                                         inmates in a labor camp
                                     marked by an exemplary         in Siberia.
soldiers excluded from the
massacre of Polish officers at       measure of modesty,
                                                                    Inhuman Land is Antonia
Katyn, he was sent instead to        moral clarity, and artistic    Lloyd-Jones’s new translation
a gulag labor camp. Though                                          of Czapski’s reportage of his
                                     richness.”
he never returned to Poland                                         time in Anders’ Army. General
after the war, he continued in                —Cynthia Haven,
                                                                    Władysław Anders had
his adopted France to fight               The Wall Street Journal

20   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
personally assigned Czapski      Cynthia Haven writes in
the task of investigating the    The Wall Street Journal:
disappearance of thousands       “Together these books
of Polish officers, including    document Czapski’s physical
those who had been killed        and spiritual survival during
on Stalin’s orders at Katyn,     a nightmare era, but, more
a crime for which the USSR       than that, they re-create an
never accepted responsibility.   overlooked life, one marked
In the book, Czapski also        by an exemplary measure of
describes his release from       modesty, moral clarity, and
the gulag labor camp, and his    artistic richness.” n
arduous journey with Anders’
Army through Central Asia        Adam Schorin is Assistant
and the Middle East to fight     Editor of Gazeta.
on the Italian front. The book
includes an introduction
by Timothy Snyder, Yale
University Professor and
historian of Eastern Europe
and the Holocaust.

                                                                 GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   21
Recent Polish Jewish Studies Books of Note
Compiled by Agnieszka Ilwicka

1. Anna Bikont, Sendlerowa. W ukryciu. Warszawa:          10. Artur Markowski, Przemoc antyżydowska i
    Czarne, 2017                                                wyobrażenia społeczne. Pogrom białostocki
                                                                1906 r. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu
2. A
    rchiwum Ringelbluma. Konspiracyjne archiwum                Warszawskiego, 2018
   getta Warszawy, t.29. Pisma Emanuela
   Ringelbluma z getta, ed. Joanna Nalewajko-              11. Ojzer Warszawski. Szmuglerzy, trans. and ed.
   Kulikov, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu                  Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Magdalena Ruta,
   Warszawskiego, 2018                                          Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-
                                                                Skłodowskiej, 2018
3. Archiwum Ringelbluma. Konspiracyjne archiwum
                                                           12. Pogromy Żydów na ziemiach polskich w XIX i XX
    getta Warszawy, t. 29A. Pisma Emanuela
                                                                wieku. Tom 1: Literatura I sztuka, ed. Sławomir
    Ringelbluma z bunkra, ed. Eleonora Bergman,
                                                                Buryła, Warszawa: Instytut Historii PAN, 2018
    Tadeusz Epsztein, Magdalena Siek, Warszawa:
    Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2018           13. Przecież ich nie zostawię. O żydowskich
                                                                opiekunkach w czasie wojny. Red. Monika
4. M
    ordechaj Canin, Przez ruiny i zgliszcza. Podróż            Sznajderman, Magdalena Kicińska. Warszawa:
   po stu zgładzonych gminach żydowskich,                       Czarne, 2018
   trans. and ed. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska,
   Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Nisza, 2018                       14. Monika Stępień, Miasto opowiedziane.
                                                                Powojenny Kraków w świetle żydowskiej
5. Maria Cieśla, Kupcy, arendarze i rzemieślnicy.              literatury dokumentu osobistego. Kraków:
    Różnorodność zawodowa Żydów w Wielkim                       Austeria, 2018
    Księstwie Litewskim w XVII i XVIIIw. Warszawa:
                                                           15. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Pod klątwą. Społeczny
    Instytut Historii PAN, 2018
                                                                portret pogromu kieleckiego. Warszawa: Czarna
6. D
    alej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych                      Owca, 2018
   powiatach okupowanej Polski. Ed. Barbara                16. Marcin Wodziński, Hasidism: Key Questions.
   Engelking, Jan Grabowski, Warszawa: Centrum                  New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
   Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2018                                2018

7. Urszula Glensk, Hirszfeldowie. Zrozumieć krew.         17. Marcin Wodziński, Historical Atlas of Hasidism,
    Kraków: Universitas, 2018                                   Cartography by Waldemar Spallek, Princeton:
                                                                Princeton University Press, 2018
8. Karolina Koprowska, Postronni? Zagłada
    w relacjach chłopskich świadków. Kraków:               18. Żydzi polscy w oczach historyków.
    Universitas, 2018                                           Tom dedykowany pamięci Profesora A.
                                                                Gierowskiego, ed. Adam Kaźmierczyk, Alicja
9. J oanna Lisek, Kol isze. Głos kobiet w poezji jidysz        Maślak-Maciejewska. Kraków: Wydawnictwo
   (od XVIw. do 1939r.). Sejny: Pogranicze, 2018                Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2018

                                                           Agnieszka Ilwicka is a Yiddish Studies scholar and a
                                                           researcher at Taube Philanthropies.
22   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Auschwitz Jewish Center Publishes Guidebook to
Oświecim Jewish Cemetery

T    he Auschwitz Jewish
     Center (AJC) recently
published a guidebook titled
The Jewish Cemetery in
Oświęcim: History, Symbols,
Nature, written by Dr. Artur
Szyndler, the chief curator
of the Jewish Museum at
AJC, Dr. Jacek Proszyk,
Wojciech Gałosz, and Marcin
Karetta. The book describes
the cemetery’s history and
current condition, presented
in four sections: “History,”
“People,” “Symbols,” and
“Nature.” Each section
addresses different aspects
of the cemetery, ranging
from the notable community
members buried there to the
unique biodiversity of the     Jacket image of The Jewish Cemetery in Oświęcim: History, Symbols, Nature,
site. The text, illustrated    published by the Auschwitz Jewish Center.
with photographs from the
cemetery and including
details of particular
headstones, is available in
Polish and English. n

                                                                                     GAZETA SPRING 2019     n   23
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Conferences
Art and the Holocaust
Conference in July 2019

T    he international
     conference Art and the
Holocaust: Reflections for
the Common Future will
take place on July 2–3,
2019, in Riga, Latvia. The
conference is organized by
the Riga Jewish Community
Museum, Jews in Latvia, and
the Museum of Romans Suta
and Aleksandra Belcova,
in collaboration with the
International Centre for
Litvak Photography (Kaunas,
Lithuania) and the Jewish
                                     Monument at the site of the Great Choral Synagogue in Riga, which was burned
Historical Institute (Warsaw,        down in 1941 by the Nazis.
Poland). The aim of the              Photograph by Adam Jones. Wikimedia Commons.
conference, according to
its call for papers, is “to          as depicted by non-Jewish
present new researches               artists, and art created in sites
about the relationships              of imprisonment. n
between the Holocaust
                                     For more information,
and art (drawing, painting,
                                     please visit http://www.
sculpture, photography,
                                     jewishmuseum.lv/en/item/318-
contemporary art, the art of
                                     international_conference_art_
commemoration),” as well
                                     and_the_holocaust_july_2-3.
as about the ways in which
                                     html.
individuals behaved during
the Holocaust and how the
Holocaust has influenced
European society. Some
thematic areas to be covered
are the fates of artists during
the Holocaust, the Holocaust

24   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
Conferences
Reported by Antony Polonsky
November Hopes: Jews and the Independence of Poland

A    n international conference
        —November Hopes:
Jews and the Independence
                                  [T]he fact that Jews were
                                  a significant proportion
                                                                   At the same time, these years
                                                                   were marked by a series
                                                                   of anti-Jewish outrages, in
of Poland in 1918—convened        of the Communist                 which between 350 and 500
on November 29-30, 2018,                                           Jews lost their lives. As the
                                  leadership in Russia and         Poles fought to establish their
at the POLIN Museum of
                                                                   frontier, they showed little
the History of Polish Jews        in Poland, and that some
                                                                   understanding for the desire
in Warsaw. It was organized
                                  of them had welcomed             of Jews in ethnically mixed
by the POLIN Museum and
                                                                   areas such as East Galicia
the Institute of History of the   the Bolshevik revolution,        or Lithuania to maintain a
University of Warsaw, within                                       neutral posture in the national
                                  was seized upon as a
the framework of the Global                                        conflicts. Moreover, the fact
Education Outreach Program        means of discrediting the        that Jews were a significant
and under the patronage                                            proportion of the Communist
                                  postwar revolutionary
of the Polish Society for                                          leadership in Russia and in
Jewish Studies. It received       wave as a primarily              Poland, and that some of them
generous support from Taube                                        had welcomed the Bolshevik
                                  Jewish phenomenon.               revolution, was seized upon
Philanthropies, the William
K. Bowes, Jr., Foundation,        principle of nationality. In     as a means of discrediting
and the Association of the        the new state, the largest and   the postwar revolutionary
Jewish Historical Institute       most powerful in East Central    wave as a primarily Jewish
                                  Europe, the Jewish community     phenomenon.
of Poland, with additional
support from the European         perceived both positive          These complex and
Association for Jewish Studies    and negative implications        controversial issues received
                                  in national independence.
and the Ministry of Science                                        careful and insightful
                                  The rights of the Jews in
and Higher Education, as part                                      examination in a speech at
                                  Poland were assured under
of the commemoration of the                                        Carnegie Hall in New York on
                                  the treaty protecting national
centennial of independence.                                        July 28, 1919. Louis Marshall,
                                  minorities that the Poles        one of the main architects
The re-emergence of the           had been compelled to sign.      of the National Minorities’
Polish state after World War I    The democratic constitution      Treaties, described what had
was the most obvious example      established in 1921              been achieved in ecstatic
of the postwar triumph of the     strengthened the hope that       terms. “For the first time, the
                                  Jews would be equal citizens.

                                                                             GAZETA SPRING 2019   n   25
nations of the world have            speech by David Engel with
recognized that, in common           the title “Independence for
with all other peoples, we           Whom? Jews and the New
are entitled to equality in          Political Order in Eastern
law … It has now become an           Europe after 1918.” The
established principle that any       second day opened with a
violation of the rights of a         session, “Realities,” chaired
minority is an offense not only      by Professor Stola. Antony
against the individuals but          Polonsky led the concluding
against the law which controls       roundtable on “Jews and
all of the civilized nations of      Polish Independence.
the earth.” One hundred years        100 Years Later.” The
later, the conference amplifies      deliberations of this
these themes from historical         stimulating and thought-
perspectives.                        provoking conference will
                                     be published in a special
The conference opened                edition of East European
with addresses by Professor
                                     Jewish Affairs. n
Dariusz Stola of the POLIN
Museum and Professor
Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spano
of the Institute of History of
the University of Warsaw.
A roundtable on “Polish
Independence, the Jewish
Question and the Neighbors”
was then chaired by journalist
Maciej Zakrocki. The next
panel dealt with the “hope”
of independence and was
chaired by Kamil Kijek of the
University of Warsaw. After
that came a session, chaired
by Jerzy Kochanowski of
the Institute of History, that
addressed the “fears” that
accompanied the regaining
of Polish statehood. The
evening featured a stimulating
and provocative keynote

26   n   GAZETA   VOLUME 26, NO. 1
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