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Gazeta Volume 28, No. 2
Spring/Summer 2021
Wilhelm Sasnal, First of January (Side),
2021, oil on canvas.
Courtesy of the artist and Foksal
Gallery Foundation, Warsaw
A quarterly publication of
the American Association
for Polish-Jewish Studies
and Taube Foundation for
Jewish Life & Culture
Editorial & Design: Tressa Berman, Daniel Blokh, Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Shana Penn, Antony Polonsky, Aleksandra Sajdak,
William Zeisel, LaserCom Design, and Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning
CONTENTS
Message from Irene Pipes ................................................................................................ 4
Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn .................................................................... 5
FEATURES
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Diaspora Nationalist and Holocaust Historian ............................ 6
From Captured State to Captive Mind: On the Politics of Mis-Memory
Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz ................................................................................................. 12
EXHIBITIONS
New Legacy Gallery at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
Tamara Sztyma ..................................................................................................................... 16
Wilhelm Sasnal: Such a Landscape. Exhibition at POLIN Museum ............................ 20
Sweet Home Sweet. Exhibition at Galicia Jewish Museum
Jakub Nowakowski ............................................................................................................... 21
A Grandson’s Reflection on Sweet Home Sweet
Adam Schorin ....................................................................................................................... 24
REPORTS
Kraków to Stop the Sale of “Lucky Jews”
Magda Rubenfeld Koralewska ................................................................................................ 25
Changes in Governance at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Antony Polonsky ................................................................................................................... 27
CONFERENCES
History of the Jewish Workers’ Alliance—the Bund
Antony Polonsky ................................................................................................................... 28
Symposium in Honor of Professor Antony Polonsky
Michael Fleming, François Guesnet, and Christine Schmidt ...................................................... 30
“What’s New, What’s Next?” Online Conference at POLIN Museum .......................... 32
International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) ......................... 33
“Restoring Jewish Cemeteries of Poland” ..................................................................... 33
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BOOKS
Warsaw Ghetto Police: The Jewish Order Service during the Nazi Occupation.
By Katarzyna Person ..................................................................................................... 34
Islands of Memory. By Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs ............................................... 35
The Stage as a Temporary Home. By Diego Rotman ................................................ 35
The Rebellion of the Daughters. By Rachel Manekin ................................................ 36
2 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2
Hasidism, Suffering and Renewal: The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy
of Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira. Edited by Don Seeman, Daniel Reiser, and
Ariel Evan Mayse ........................................................................................................... 36
The Touch of an Angel. By Henryk Schönker ............................................................. 37
Tale of a Niggun. By Elie Wiesel .................................................................................. 37
The Towns of Death: The Pogroms of Jews by Their Neighbors.
By Mirosław Tryczyk ...................................................................................................... 38
Ashkenazi Herbalism. By Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel ...................................... 38
The August Trials: The Holocaust and Postwar Justice in Poland
By Andrew Kornbluth .................................................................................................... 39
Philo-Semitic Violence: Poland’s Jewish Past in New Polish Narratives
By Elżbieta Janicka and Tomasz Żukowski ................................................................ 39
AWARDS
Barbara Engelking Receives 2021 Irena Sendler Memorial Award .......................... 40
Jósef Hen Receives Lifetime Achievement Award ..................................................... 41
IN BRIEF
Stanford Libraries Receives International Military Tribunal
Nuremberg Trial Archives ...................................................................................... 42
Jewish Historical Institute Dedicates Jan Jagielski Heritage
Documentation Department ......................................................................................... 43
GEOP Announcements ................................................................................................. 44
New Foundation to Support LGBTQ+ Communities in Poland ................................. 46
OF SPECIAL INTEREST
The Rediscovered Caricature Art of J.D. Kirszenbaum-Duvdivani
Nathan Diament .................................................................................................................... 47
POEM
The Tale of a Niggun (Excerpt)
Elie Wiesel ........................................................................................................................... 49
OBITUARIES
Roman Kent
Antony Polonsky ................................................................................................................... 50
Jan Jagielski
Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute ........................................................................ 53
Faye Schulman
Tressa Berman ..................................................................................................................... 54
Marek Web
Joanna Lisek ........................................................................................................................ 56
Jewlia Eisenberg
Naomi Seidman .................................................................................................................... 57
Teresa Żabińska-Zawadzki .............................................................................................. 59
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 3
President, American Association
Message from for Polish-Jewish Studies
Irene Pipes Founder of Gazeta
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Cambridge, Massachusetts. I am very happy that the POLIN
Museum in Warsaw is again open and very much hope to be able to visit it in
the near future.
We have continued to take advantage of the wonders of technology to carry on
our important work. In my last message I described the opening of the Legacy
gallery at POLIN Museum which honors Polish Jews who have made a major
contribution to the life of Poland and the wider world. A series of online events has
marked its opening. Among these are the series of interviews “Meet the Family”
Irene Pipes
in which Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the
Core Exhibition at the Museum, discussed the lives of prominent Polish Jews with
members of their families.
Antony Polonsky, Chief Historian of the Global Education Outreach Program of POLIN Museum, has
organized a series of online discussions of recent books on the history of Jews in Poland, intended to
lead up to the international conference “What’s New, What’s Next? Innovative Methods, New Sources,
and Paradigm Shifts in Jewish Studies” to be held at POLIN this October. Among the most recent books
to be discussed are Nancy Sinkoff’s, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics
of Jewish History (featured in this issue in an interview conducted by Professor Samuel Kassow),
Jeffrey Shandler’s Yiddish: Biography of a Language, and others.
One notable event also described in this issue was the online symposium held in honor of Professor Antony
Polonsky on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Its theme was “The Holocaust in Eastern Europe:
Sources, Memory, Politics,” and it brought together established and junior scholars to review the state of
knowledge on this complex and disputed topic. The importance of this sort of exchange is made clear by
Tomasz Tadeusz Kuncewicz’s article, which clearly shows the complexities of history and memory to meet
the challenges that face Poland today.
I hope you are all well and that we shall soon be able to meet in person.
With best wishes,
Irene Pipes
President
4 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2
Message from
Chairman and Executive Director,
Tad Taube and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life
& Culture
Shana Penn
Two of our lead stories in this issue of Gazeta address a very serious issue:
intolerance and its impact on Jewish communities from the end of World War
I until today. Our first story is an interview conducted by Samuel Kassow
with Nancy Sinkoff, the biographer of Lucy Dawidowicz, arguably one of the
most influential Jewish writers since World War II. In her most famous book,
The War Against the Jews, Dawidowicz argued that anti-Semitism was the
driving force in Hitler’s worldview and an essential part of his European war.
She also argued that Poles themselves had a strong anti-Semitic streak, as she
witnessed first-hand on a visit to Vilna in 1938.
Tad Taube
Sinkoff concludes her interview with questions that Davidowicz’s writings
pose for today’s readers. “How do we understand the penetration of
intolerance in a society? Who’s responsible for it?”
These are exactly the kind of questions that dominate our second lead story,
by Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, a legal studies scholar from Poland known
for his human rights scholarship and advocacy. His article focuses on the
current Polish government’s efforts to define Poles and Poland in a way that
imposes a single national narrative. Unfortunately, explains Koncewicz,
that ultranationalist narrative discourages, even punishes, the unbiased
examination of Poland’s complicated and often painful history, including
the relations between gentiles and Jews. To Sinkoff’s query of “Who’s
Shana Penn
responsible” for the “penetration of intolerance in a society?” Koncewicz
has a direct and sobering answer.
Both of our lead stories urge the importance of maintaining an open and
objective public and scholarly dialogue as a way of curbing intolerance. And
this, in turn, flourishes best in a democratic nation animated by civility and
the freedom to speak frankly about truth and justice. We hope you will find
that this issue of Gazeta helps to advance this critical discussion.
Tad Taube and Shana Penn
Chairman and Executive Director
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 5
FEATURE ARTICLES
Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915–90), Diaspora Nationalist and
Holocaust Historian
Samuel Kassow Interviews Nancy Sinkoff About Her Award-Winning Book
E ditors’ Note: This
interview has been
adapted from a conversation
Polish Republic, to spend a
year as a research fellow at the
YIVO Institute. She returned
between Professors to New York during the war
NancySinkoff and Samuel years, working closely with
Kassow on Sinkoff’s award- refugee scholars. She went
winning book, From Left to back to Europe, to post-war
Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, occupied Germany, in both
The New York Intellectuals the American and the British
and the Politics of Jewish zones. After fifteen months
History (Wayne State in two very different areas of
University Press, 2020). the occupation, she returned
Sinkoff and Kassow spoke to New York. She quite
on the webinar series literally was transnational
Encounters, co-hosted by the in her peregrinations.
University of Massachusetts Intellectually, she connected
the Jews.’” What does that
Amherst’s Institute for the US diasporic experience
mean, and how does the
Holocaust, Genocide, and back to Europe. She also
approach relate to her diaspora
Memory Studies, and the connected what I call the
nationalism and to the
Avraham Harman Research long Jewish past in European
traditions of Jewish historical
Institute of Contemporary historiography to the post-war
writing that preceded her in
Jewry at the Hebrew American Jewish experience.
Europe?
University of Jerusalem.
The book covers all these
See the full interview at: Sinkoff: Lucy Dawidowicz
subjects and is sensitive
https://www.youtube.com/ embodies transnationalism.
to the long Jewish past,
watch?v=gdvwgrpiW_Q. She was an American-born
Dawidowicz’s present
immigrant daughter raised
Kassow: Congratulations, in an intensely Jewish
moment, and the context,
Nancy Sinkoff, on a wonderful namely, the worlds of Yiddish
environment in inter-war
book. Your book claims that scholarship, American Jewish
New York City. In 1938, she
Dawidowicz argues “Jewish politics, and the transnational
made a fateful decision to
history must be written with connections that she—and
go to Vilna, then within the
Ahavat Yisrael, ‘love of I—would argue exist among
boundaries of the Second
6 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2
Jews. She saw herself as Kassow: Can you discuss
deeply connected to this her main contributions to
entity called the transnational the history of the Holocaust?
Jewish people. How do they stand up today,
forty-five years after the
Dawidowicz was informed
publication of The War
by the ideology known as
Against the Jews?
“diaspora nationalism,” or
diaspora national identity, Sinkoff: Dawidowicz was
which insists on the not Lucy Dawidowicz
peoplehood of the Jews. The until January 1948. Born
people themselves are the in 1915, her name was
motor of their history. Their Lucy Schildkret, or Libe in
religion, ideology, and politics Yiddish. In December 1947,
all derive from their existence Professor Nancy Sinkoff. she returned to the United
as a nation, which embodies a Nan Melville. Used with permission States, and at age thirty-three,
sense of belonging to a people after her two sojourns in
[Dawidowicz] connected
with a long historic past. Europe, she married Szymon
She was educated in diaspora what I call the long Dawidowicz, a refugee from
nationalist institutions. Warsaw who immigrated
Jewish past in European
Starting in childhood, she to New York before the
wrote in Yiddish, studied historiography to the Holocaust but lost his wife
Yiddish literature, and many and children in the Warsaw
post-war American
of her teachers were great Ghetto. They had a wonderful
Polish Jewish historians. Jewish experience. marriage. They did not have
children, but she got a Polish
Her diaspora nationalism ―Nancy Sinkoff
surname, Dawidowicz.
encouraged her to go to Vilna.
they had come and which
Diaspora nationalism infused Until the publication of the
they cherished.” She was
the Yiddishist ideologues Golden Tradition: Jewish
taught to love Jews and
with ahavat yisra’el/ahaves Life and Thought in Eastern
Jewishness, to relish Jewish
yisroyel (Heb. and Yid. love Europe in 1967, her anthology
experience and creativity.
of the Jewish people). In a of East European Jewish life,
1968 talk, she recalled that her This meant that in her she was relatively unknown.
childhood teachers “wanted perspective the historian of The book that makes her
to transmit what was viable of the Jews should acknowledge famous is the War Against
East European Yiddish culture a commitment to the Jewish the Jews: 1933–1945.
to their children, namely its people and care about it. It It’s still in print, which
ambience, the mood, the spirit, was a form of nationalism is interesting because, in
the values of the internal that privileged the belonging many ways, Dawidowicz
Jewish society from which of the Jews to a people. has been disregarded or is
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 7
no longer significant to the war against the Jews was a
historians who write on the distinct and deliberate war.
Holocaust. Highly acclaimed The campaign to destroy the
in 1975, it is known for its Jews was already a blueprint
perspective on the causes in Hitler’s mind from the
of the Final Solution. She publication of Mein Kampf.
wrote that Hitler’s ideology That forms the first part of
of anti-Semitism was a her book.
linear steppingstone to the
The second part, “The
destruction of the Jews during
Holocaust,” is about the
the war. That concept is called
Jewish communal response to
“intentionalism.”
the attack. In this regard, the
When the book was re-issued book differs from the works
in 1985, she wrote, “It has that had preceded it in English
been my view, now widely because it emphasizes Jewish
Lucy Schildkret, Hunter College
shared, that hatred of the graduation, 1936.
sources, Jewish historical
Jews was Hitler’s central and Courtesy of Laurie Sapakoff agency, and the Jewish
most compelling belief and collective will to live, which
that it dominated his thoughts the gift that keeps on giving. is a reflection again of her
and actions all his life. The Scholars are still arguing about diaspora nationalism.
documents amply justify this. To what degree was anti-
Semitism the motor of Hitler’s Kassow: Though the book
my conclusion that Hitler
ideology? Can modern anti- has been superseded by other
planned to murder the Jews
Semitism be linked to earlier research, her discussion of
in coordination with his plans
forms of anti-Jewish hatred? the Jews—especially of the
to go to war for Lebensraum
How influential was it among ghettos—brought the attention
(living space) and to establish
the masses of German soldiers? of the wider public to the fact
the Thousand Year Reich. The
How important are ideas in that the ghettos were Jewish
conventional war of conquest
shaping historical change? communities and were worthy
was to be waged parallel to,
How important are “great men of study. Outside of Israel,
and was able to camouflage,
in history”? How important are the ghettos were not being
the ideological war against the
structures of society, socio- studied, they were regarded
Jews. In the end, as the war
economics, happenstance, as holding pens for the death
hurtled to its disastrous finale,
idiosyncrasy, etc.? camps. One issue that stands
Hitler’s relentless fanaticism
out is Poland. Can you discuss
in the racial ideological war Dawidowicz’s statement that her analysis of Poland, Polish-
ultimately cost him victory in her views were widely shared Jewish relations in the inter-
the conventional war.” is not true, but it represents war period especially, and the
Among historians of the her position that, in contrast war period? Other historians,
Holocaust, this paragraph is to conventional war, the such as Celia Heller, whose
8 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2
book was entitled On the Edge system. Her view of Eastern
of Destruction: Jews of Poland Europe was decisively shaped
between the Two World Wars, by her anti-communism.
saw Poland as inexorably
Regarding the inter-war years,
anti-Semitic and Jewish life as
when Dawidowicz arrived in
doomed from the onset of the
Poland in 1938, she’s already
Polish state’s independence
reading about Nazism and
after World War I. How did
fascism. The Yiddish press
Dawidowicz evaluate those
reports the discrimination
years in her memoir From That
against Polish Jews. Still, it
Place and Time?
was better to be a Polish Jew
Sinkoff: There are two parts in inter-war Poland than it
to your question. First, what was to be a German Jew after
is the “reality” of Polish- the rise of Nazism. There
Jewish relations in the inter- were no Nuremberg Laws in
war years? Second, how does Poland, even if anti-Semitism
Dawidowicz remember that Lucy Schildkret in Vilna, August 1939. increased after the military
Courtesy of Laurie Sapakoff
when she writes her memoir hero Józef Piłsudski died in
in 1989–90? The memoir is 1935. Before that, anti-Jewish
How do we understand
a late-in-life reflection on actions were present but were
the important years of being the penetration of not instrumentalized through
in Europe, returning to New the state, unlike in Nazi
intolerance in a society?
York, and the destruction of Germany.
Ashkenazi Jewish civilization. Who’s responsible for
Dawidowicz arrives in 1938,
The book is poignant and
it? I think the issues which we now know was the
written with a great sense
beginning of the end. The
of loss. raised during Lucy S.
drums of war are beating
Lucy Dawidowicz is living Dawidowicz’s life will hard. She’s well aware
in the Cold War period. She of anti-Jewish hatred and
speak to people today.
looked at Eastern Europe predations on the street and
through the lens of the Cold ―Nancy Sinkoff in the university. But in 1938,
War and the destruction of no one knew about Zyklon
Jewish particularism, of underground in those societies. B gassings. The Celia Heller
autonomous Jewish culture It was difficult to be publicly perspective, that Jews lived
in the Soviet Union and in involved with autonomous on the edge of destruction,
communist Poland. Jewish culture in Eastern gives you the false sense
Europe. We knew later that that Jews woke up in August
She didn’t have full access there were continuities of 1938 and rent their clothing
to much that was happening Jewish identity under the Soviet in mourning.
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 9
Lucy Schildkret and Szymon Dawidowicz, 1946.
Courtesy of Laurie Sapakoff
A poignant part of Polish landscape. Jews felt among some historians to say
Dawidowicz’s memoir that way, and they did so in that Polish anti-Semitism has
describes going to see an Yiddish, in Hebrew, and in been greatly exaggerated.
exhibit, Jews in Poland, Polish. The exhibit showed I hope that by spelling out,
that CYSHO (Yid. Tsentral the enormous cultural and in small detail, what really
yidishe shul organizatsye) political vitality. Some Jews happened, my book will help
had prepared on Jewish life left if they could, but Poland to set the record straight.”
in Poland, which opened was their home.
Kassow: While there was
with a map showing Jewish
Dawidowicz, however, increasing anti-Semitism
communal life everywhere.
observed the discrimination, after Piłsudski died, Poland
The Jews were an urban
the anti-Jewish violence, the never passed a version of the
majority in Poland; they were
ghetto benches. Later, in an Nuremberg Laws. Once the
everywhere. This exhibit was
interview, she said—in her Polish pre-war government
to show the doikeyt (Yid.
typical forthright fashion— realized they needed the
“hereness”), the relatedness,
“It’s very fashionable now support of the Western
the belonging of Jews to the
10 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2democracies, they had to put Nancy Sinkoff, PhD, is the
on hold many restrictions that Academic Director of the
they had intended to inflict Allen and Joan Bildner Center
on Polish Jews. Many Polish for the Study of Jewish Life
Jews, at the end of the 1930s, and Professor of Jewish
were cautiously hoping for Studies and History at Rutgers
new grounds within Polish University—New Brunswick.
society. Dawidowicz made From 2014 to 2018, she
no effort to learn Polish or to served as Rutgers University’s
really understand the Poles. Director of the Center for
I’m not apologizing for the European Studies.
Poles, but in this I think she
was strident and unable to Samuel D. Kassow, PhD, is
understand some deeper things Charles H. Northam Professor
that were going on within of History at Trinity College,
Polish society. where he specializes in the
Lucy Schildkret in Belsen.
history of Ashkenazi Jewry.
Sinkoff: I agree with your Courtesy of Laurie Sapakoff His groundbreaking book,
comments 100 percent. She Who Will Write Our History?
did not learn Polish. Her and because of the learning was adapted into an award-
husband spoke Polish. One of of languages. What did it winning film in 2018.
the reasons she could never mean for the average peasant
forgive the Poles was deeply hearing a sermon chastising
personal. First, the murder of the Jews versus a functionary
her beloved mentors, Zelig in a bureaucracy? And Jan
and Riva Kalmanovich, Gross put this question on
who were like parents to the map again with his
her. Second, the murder of famous book, Neighbors:
Szymon’s daughter, who The Destruction of the Jewish
was a ghetto fighter. And so, Community in Jedwabne,
she was angry and embittered. Poland, about the murder of
the Jews by their neighbors.
One of the complexities of
studying the relations of locals These are big questions.
to anti-Jewish incitements How do we understand the
is this divide, if you will, penetration of intolerance
between governmental in a society? Who’s
practices and from-the-ground responsible for it? I think
attitudes. That’s part of what the issues raised during Lucy
historians can do because of S. Dawidowicz’s life will
the opening of the archives speak to people today. n
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 11From Captured State to Captive Mind: Tomasz Tadeusz
On the Politics of Mis-Memory Koncewicz
I n loving memory of my
late grandmother Czesława
Strąg, a Righteous Among the
the state capture that has
taken place in Poland since
2015. With the judiciary
Nations, who taught me that and public media in tatters,
in order to move forward, we the government is now
must never forget about where implementing what I have
called elsewhere a “politics
we come from.
of mis-memory” that seeks to
Poland, March 2021 present one correct vision of
history for all Poles.
A court’s finding, only
weeks ago, that two Polish Czesława and Maria in 1994. The most dangerous installment
history professors are guilty Family Archives of Tomasz T.Koncewicz. of such politics came with
Used with permission
of defaming an individual the 2018 amendment to
for activities during the the Law on the Institute of
Holocaust, is not just a In a room where people National Remembrance,
case brought to protect the unanimously maintain which criminalized perceived
reputation of a relative. erroneous public statements
Rather, we seem to be entering a conspiracy of silence, which assigned to the Polish
unchartered territory, where nation any blame for crimes
one word of truth sounds
the long arm of the law committed by the Nazi
becomes a method of settling like a pistol shot. invaders. Minister of Justice
scores. In this case, the sacred Zbigniew Ziobro presented
―Czesław Miłosz,
dignity of the Polish nation, Nobel Lecture (1980) the rationale as follows. The
hidden under the argument of Polish government, he said,
protecting the “good name” done and, ultimately, are we “took an important step in the
of a person, overshadows ready to face it now, if ever? direction of creating stronger
the need to have a robust legal instruments allowing us
historical conversation about These questions face Poles to defend our rights, defend
the fate of millions of often today. The defamation suit of the historical truth, and
anonymous victims. Our focus the historians did not happen defend Poland’s good name
on this one case runs the risk in a legal vacuum, nor can everywhere in the world.” He
of obscuring a national debate we claim that we did not see vowed to prosecute all those
about fundamental questions: it coming. Quite the contrary. who defame the Polish nation
Who are we? What have we It follows from the logic of by these means.
12 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2Even at its drafting stage, the split perception created “two
law sparked an uproar over moral vocabularies, two sorts
its breathtaking scope and the of reasoning, two different
severity of its sanctions (up pasts. In this circumstance,
to three years’ imprisonment) the uncomfortably confusing
and has been criticized as recollection of things done
yet another example of the by us to others during the
ultranationalist revival in war … got conveniently
Poland and the return of a lost.” Judt rightly points out
right-wing revisionist history. the communists’ interest in
Critics have pointed out the “flattering the recalcitrant
possible dangers of limiting local population by inviting it
free speech and of building to believe the fabrication now
a martyrological narrative deployed on its behalf by the
claiming that the world USSR—to wit, that central and
does not understand how eastern Europe was an innocent
much Poland and Poles Czesława Strąg and Rozalia
victim of German assault.”
have suffered. Kateganer (Maria Damaszek) during
the war. Czesława decided to protect The retracted legislation
The diplomatic fallout with Rozalia by having her baptized, with sends the signal that history
the name of a Polish girl who was
Israel that followed the law’s thought to have been sent to Siberia.
is being instrumentalized
entry into force saw the Family Archives of Tomasz T.Koncewicz. to serve a new vision of the
government finally cave in to Used with permission past. Imposing or threatening
pressure by withdrawing the sanctions for statements
Facing History Honestly
most controversial provision. contradicting the official
and Openly
This minor concession was understanding of “what
intended to improve the In trying to understand happened” clearly inhibits the
diplomatic optics. A more the current Polish way of free flow of ideas and leads to
general provision (Article historical mis-memory, the a singular vision of the past.
133 of the Criminal Code) analysis of the late historian Protecting the good name of
remains in force and states: and essayist, Tony Judt, can the state or nation is deemed
“Whoever publicly insults be instructive. He has argued more important than a robust,
the Nation or the Republic that two kinds of memories comprehensive, and inclusive
of Poland shall be subject to emerged from what he calls the discussion about the past—a
the penalty of deprivation of official version of the wartime discussion that must tolerate
liberty for up to three years.” experience, which became statements, often shocking
It is now being deployed dominant in Europe by 1948. and controversial, though
to impose the approved One was that of the things done nonetheless adding to the
historical narrative on all of to “us” by the Germans during debate. Historical discourse
us. Civil liability, as used in the war, and the other that of belongs to this category.
the case of the two historians, things (however similar) done
completes the repression. by “us” to “others” after the By revealing the past, we
war. According to Judt, this discover the present. This
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 13approach allows us to bring of the Polish people and
controversial aspects of the the heroism of the Polish
nation’s history to the fore Righteous Among the Nations
and discuss them openly and or questioning Poland’s
dispassionately. These are both resistance in the face of the
the price for and the challenge Nazi atrocities. Nobody denies
of maintaining what American that. My point is different.
political philosopher John We survived because history
Rawls has evocatively called was always a repository
an “overlapping consensus” from which to imagine a
and living in a society with new order and rebuild life.
competing visions and We relied on our shared
understanding of our history. commitment and moved
Nobody should be excluded, Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz accepts forward. We remembered
Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the
much less penalized, for Nations medal on behalf of his family, both the good and the bad
professing their own vision 2014. and what saved us and our
of history, which may go Family Archives of Tomasz T.Koncewicz.
way of life. Therefore, my
Used with permission
against the mainstream argument against an imposed
political narrative. struggles and common understanding of history
commitments.” This is the favors an inclusive historical
Moving Forward: A kind of intellectual and civic memory that brings together
Collective Denial? fidelity that should inform our and exposes all national
Poland and the Poles find understanding of our history. experiences and narratives.
themselves at a critical Building a historical debate
Unfortunately, in Poland the calls for a living pact among
juncture, suspended between
past continues to be seen as the past, present, and future.
old myths and the narratives of
a collection of indisputable That would move us away
“what happened,” on the one
truths, not open to divergent from what American historian
hand, and the rejection of any
interpretations and historical J. Connelly has called “a
attempts to discover the multi-
debate. Paranoid politics, historiography obsessed with
dimensional past, on the other.
having destroyed judicial minutiae and overgrown
Historical debate should strive
review, the courts, and the free with easy assumptions
for pragmatic recognition that
media, have now set their sights about martyrology,” and
we reshape and re-examine
on historical memory. The push us toward more critical
our civic and constitutional
Polish “politics of resentment” understanding of who we
commitments as we move
and the rising politics of mis- Poles are and where we come
forward. As legal scholars J.
memory threaten to make the from. A nation unready to
Balkin and R. Siegel remark,
past an uncontested sphere, embark on a comprehensive
“we turn to the past not
dominated by one truth journey into its past cannot
because the past contains
superimposed by the state. move forward. When grand
within it all of the answers to
our questions, but because it is All this must not be read gestures dominate, and soul-
the repository of our common as belittling the sufferings searching is lacking, the
14 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2nation becomes a captive of its With the judiciary and in this context is about a
past rather than its master. public media in tatters, generational reading of our
national history. It is not about
More than thirty years ago, the government is now uncritical iconoclasm. It is
Jan Błoński’s taboo-breaking implementing what I about recognizing that the past
essay, “The Poor Poles Look
have called elsewhere a must be a key to the future.
at the Ghetto,” broke the cycle
After all, national constitutions
of silence. He wrote (my “politics of mis-memory” must be understood as
translation): that seeks to present one documents made for people of
Genocide, of which the correct vision of history different views. What matters
Polish people were not guilty, is that no one overarching
for all Poles. narrative exists, and that
happened after all on our
soil and stigmatized this as a tool to fight political disagreement should account
soil forever...Our memory adversaries and to divide for many “contested pasts.”
and public consciousness Poles into “better” and In Poland in 2021, we may
must never forget about this “worse” sorts. Yet, this be crying out in the historical
bloody and heinous sign … politics seems to be engulfing wilderness, but we must not
Our homeland is built first Poland. What is most alarming give up. After all, this is my
and foremost of memory; in is the rise of a government- history, your history, our
other words, only memory backed historical narrative civic history that should be
of the past gives us a chance claiming that a bunch of fancy recognized and owned up
to be ourselves. This past is historians, by revisiting a from bottom-up, rather than
not to be disposed of freely, settled and one-dimensional be ordained top-down by
even though we cannot be history, has transformed the sleight of opportunistic
held directly responsible for poor Poles from victims into political hand. And for
the past in our individual perpetrators. We are told that carrying this truth with me,
capacity. We are obliged to their research and academic I will be forever grateful to
carry this past inside us, queries betray the nation and my grandmother. n
irrespective of how painful aim at deforming the history
it might be. And we should by equating Nazi crimes Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz
strive to cleanse it ... all with the actions of the heroic is Director of the Department
the profanity that happened Poles. Is this attractive for of European and Comparative
here on this soil obliges us the masses? By all means, Law, University of Gdańsk,
to perform such an act of as the captive mind is prone a member of the Council
cleansing. On this graveyard to embrace intuitive and of the Fondation Jean
this obligation really boils exonerating myths. Monnet Pour l’Europe, and
down to a respect for one an attorney specializing in
thing: to see our past in truth. Again as put by Błoński, “On litigation before European
this graveyard this obligation supranational courts.
The last thing Poland needs really boils down to … one
today is the spreading of thing: to see our past in truth.”
a culture of treason, using My understanding of civic and
its own vision of the past constitutional commitment
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 15EXHIBITIONS Barbara Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett
New Legacy Gallery at POLIN
Museum of the History of Polish Jews Tamara Sztyma
T he new Legacy gallery
at POLIN Museum of
the History of Polish Jews
features distinguished Polish
Jews and their achievements.
Conceived as an epilogue
to POLIN Museum’s
Core Exhibition, which
presents the thousand-year
history of Polish Jews, the
Legacy gallery showcases
exceptional individuals in a
beautiful architectural space
overlooking the Monument to Legacy gallery in POLIN Museum.
the Ghetto Heroes. Photograph by Maciek Jaźwiecki. Courtesy of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
In determining whom to exclude them? What about • W
ho is representative?
feature in the new gallery and converts? Would the Which individuals best
how to present them, we individual in question want represent the diversity of
considered the following to be identified as a Jew what it means to be a
questions: (and as a Polish Jew) and to “Polish Jew” and the broad
be included in this spectrum of fields in which
• W
ho is a Jew? Who is a presentation? they were active—from the
Polish Jew? How do 18th century to the present?
individuals identify • W
hy does it matter?
themselves in relation to Assuming a case can be • W
ho is distinguished? On
how others identify them, made for identifying an what basis should
whether as Jewish or individual as a Jew (and as a “distinction” be determined?
Polish? If they do not Polish Jew), what is the
• S
hould living individuals
identify themselves as relevance of such
be included?
Jewish or “of Jewish identifications for each
origin,” on what grounds individual and for the • A
nd finally, how does the
would we include or Legacy gallery more story of a particular
generally? individual illuminate the
16 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2history of Polish Jews, and Our goal as curators life, and reflection on the
how does the history of condition of modern man.
was to make a selection
Polish Jews illuminate an n I saac Bashevis Singer,
individual’s story? that would form a
Nobel laureate, who, in his
Our goal as curators was not
coherent whole, however novels written in Yiddish
simply to select outstanding kaleidoscopic it might be, but translated into many
individuals, but to make a languages, evoked the world
and to raise questions,
selection that would form a of Jewish towns in Poland.
coherent whole, however indeed the very questions n Shmuel Josef Agnon,
kaleidoscopic it might be, and that we asked ourselves. Nobel laureate, who was a
to raise questions, indeed the creator of modern Hebrew
very questions that we asked to explore the lives, careers, literature, where his Polish
ourselves. The twenty-six and achievements of the hometown of Buczacz, in
individuals featured in the twenty-six individuals in Austrian Galicia, and the
Legacy gallery represent but greater depth. Tamara Sztyma, Land of Israel meet.
one constellation—twenty- co-curator of the gallery,
Bruno Schulz, who
undertook extensive research
n
six is the numerical value of
combined literature and art
koved (Heb. honor) in and selected the rich content
and made the world of
gematria. The volume that for beautifully designed
Drohobycz, his provincial
accompanies this gallery (see interactive stations.
hometown, the mythical
link below) presents many
In this gallery and in the center of his artistic
more individuals, and we hope
accompanying volume, we microcosm.
even more will be nominated
bring a critical perspective to
by our visitors and readers and n Henryk Berlewi, a founder
what might otherwise be a
included in an online of the Jewish and Polish
“Hall of Fame” and Jewish
supplement to the gallery. inter-war avant-garde, who
apologetics, by considering
was also a pioneer of
The Legacy gallery offers the social and historical
modern typography.
another way to engage with the conditions that affected Jewish
history of Polish Jews. creativity throughout the n Alina Szapocznikow,
Hopefully, those who thousand-year history of whose highly personal
experience this gallery will be Polish Jews. sculpture, at the juncture of
inspired to revisit the Core body, memory, and trauma,
Exhibition and rediscover The Twenty Six defined a new direction in
some of these luminaries contemporary art.
n J ulian Tuwim, one of the
within the historical narrative most admired creators of n Ida Kamińska, doyenne of
presented there. The Legacy modern Polish poetry, who the Yiddish stage as actress,
gallery offer a more intimate combined the creative director, and theatre
visitor experience in an potential of language, poetics manager before and after
inspiring space and opportunity of the paradoxes of everyday the Holocaust.
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 17n Arnold Szyfman, founder
of modern Polish theatre as
director, playwright, and
institution builder.
n Samuel Goldwyn, one of
Hollywood’s creators, a
film producer known for
excellence in the movie
industry.
n Aleksander Ford, key
figure in 20th-century
Polish cinematography and
creator of the iconic film,
The Teutonic Knights.
n H
enryk Wars, a popular
composer for cabaret and
film, remembered to this day
for his hit tunes in both
Poland and the United States.
n Artur Rubinstein, virtuoso
pianist, considered his era’s
greatest interpreter of
Chopin.
n Bronisław Huberman,
celebrated violinist and
founder of the Palestine
Symphony Orchestra
Hubert Czerepok’s Tree of Life, inspired by the Kabbalah, won POLIN Museum’s
(forerunner to the Israel competition for an artwork capturing the Legacy gallery’s celebration of the
Philharmonic Orchestra) in achievements of Polish Jews.
Photograph by Maciek Jaźwiecki. Courtesy of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
1936, who helped musicians
flee Europe for British n Rosa Luxemburg, activist n arek Edelman, member
M
Mandate Palestine on the
of the Polish and German of the Bund, the Jewish
eve of the Holocaust.
socialist movement, Labor Movement, a leader
n avid Ben-Gurion, first
D supporter of democracy and of the Warsaw Ghetto
Prime Minister of Israel, the proletarian revolution, Uprising, and an activist
signed the Declaration of the who paid with her life for in Poland’s post-war
Establishment of the State of her involvement in the democratic opposition.
Israel on May 14, 1948. revolutionary movement.
18 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2n Ludwik Zamenhof, creator The Legacy gallery n Leopold Kronenberg,
of Esperanto, the most entrepreneur, industrialist,
offers a more intimate
successful international banker, and philanthropist,
language, in support of visitor experience in active in Polish and Jewish
the utopian ideal of worlds during the 19th
an inspiring space and
universal humanity. century.
opportunity to explore
n J anusz Korczak, educator, n Helena Rubinstein, an art
pediatrician, and writer, the lives, careers, and collector and business
founder of Jewish and woman who created one of
achievements of the
Catholic orphanages, creator the first cosmetic empires in
of a modern pedagogy that twenty-six individuals the world, revolutionizing
supports the autonomy and the idea of beauty.
in greater depth.
rights of the child.
The Legacy gallery’s
Parliament, co-founder of
n S
ara Schenirer, creator of companion book is Legacy of
the Institute of Judaic
a network of pioneering Bais Polish Jews, edited by Barbara
Sciences in Warsaw, and a
Yaakov schools, which Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and
leader in Jewish communal
transformed the education of Tamara Sztyma, published by
life in Poland during the
Orthodox Jewish girls by POLIN Museum of the History
inter-war years.
offering secular subjects, and of Polish Jews, 2020. n
which continue to this day in n Joseph Rotblat, nuclear
Copies of the e-book can be
Europe, North America, physicist who worked on
ordered at:
Israel, and South Africa. the atom bomb, but
https://ebookpoint.pl/ksiazki/
abandoned that project to
n Abraham Stern, brilliant legacy-of-polish-jews-barbara-
devote himself to research
mathematician and inventor, kirshenblatt-gimblett-tamara-
on the devastating effects of
active in the 18th and 19th sztyma,e_1wzg.htm.
radiation, and who received
centuries, the first Jew
the Nobel Peace Prize for
admitted to the Warsaw Barbara Kirshenblatt-
his advocacy for nuclear
Society of the Friends of Gimblett, PhD, is the Ronald
disarmament.
Science. S. Lauder Chief Curator of the
n Raphael Lemkin, lawyer Core Exhibition and Advisor
n elene Deutsch, disciple
H to the Director at POLIN
who created the word
of Sigmund Freud, co- Museum of the History of
“genocide,” after the
founder of the Vienna Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Holocaust, and who fought
Psychoanalytic Institute,
tirelessly for the United
pioneer in the study of Tamara Sztyma, PhD, is
Nations Convention on the
female psychology. Curator of Exhibitions at
Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide, POLIN Museum of the History
n Moses Schorr, rabbi,
which was ratified in 1948. of Polish Jews.
historian, Member of
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 19Wilhelm Sasnal: Such a Landscape
Temporary Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
June 17, 2021–January 10, 2022
I n June 2021, a new
exhibition of works by
Wilhelm Sasnal, one of the
most outstanding contemporary
Polish artists, opened at POLIN
Museum. The exhibition
presents paintings and drawings
depicting familiar and remote
landscapes juxtaposed with
well-known figures.
Set against the “landscape” of
the Shoah, this exhibition is part
of POLIN Museum program
activities in which artists
explore the history, culture, and First of January (Back), 2021, oil on canvas.
legacy of Polish Jews. The Courtesy of the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw
exhibition, curated by Adam imately sixty artworks will be debate on the difficult past and
Szymczyk, promises to draw presented for the first time. art (October), and a lecture on
international attention to new Wilhelm Sasnal’s abstract
ways of (re)configuring the land Wilhelm Sasnal’s work has been
painting (November). For
in relation to its peopled history. inspired by visual information
information on the Sasnal
In 2003–14, Szymczyk was at derived from various sources
exhibition and activities,
Kunsthalle Basel, and during and contexts, including
please visit:
2014–17 served as artistic television, the internet, and the
https://www.polin.pl/en/
director of Documents 14 in press. Sasnal also draws
wilhelm-sasnal and
Athens and Kassell. inspiration from works by other
https://www.polin.pl/en/
artists, especially photographers.
The exhibit features works on geop-online-activities-and-
loan from the artist, interna- Online events will accompany initiatives. n
tional collections, and public the exhibition. The program
and private collections in will include a discussion on the
Poland, including POLIN lasting impacts of Holocaust
Museum. Some of the approx- landscapes (September), a
20 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2Sweet Home Sweet: A Story of Survival,
Memory, and Returns Jakub Nowakowski
Galicia Jewish Museum
August 2021–July 2022
When [my father] was
in the Kraków ghetto he
was still taking photos,
and those photos were
buried in Płaszów and
discovered after the war,
he hid them in a pickle
jar, a glass pickle jar
in Płaszów . . . So I sat
with him in his home
with these photographs
and I asked him who
everyone was in the
Clockwise from top left: Lutz Bergman, Ernest (“Erni”) Abraham, Adam Goldberger,
photo . . . and he told me. and Richard Ores. Likely in late 1941 or early 1942 in the Kraków Ghetto.
Courtesy of Michelle and Nina Ores
He remembered their
names, he remembered if family and their relationship to remove the dead
to Poland. The exhibition bodies in a wooden cart.
they survived the war, he
will explore how Holocaust
remembered everything When they got near me,
memory and narratives are
about them. transmitted through the I spoke and scared them.
—Michelle Ores generations, and how the “Sorry,” I said. “I am
children and grandchildren
S
still alive. Could you
weet Home Sweet: A Story of survivors engage with
take me to the hospital,
of Survival, Memory, contemporary Poland.
and Returns, an upcoming please?”
exhibition at the Galicia Background on the ―Richard Ores’s testimony
Jewish Museum in Kraków, Ores Family
Poland, is devoted to three Two men came with a Oskar Ryszard Ores, known as
generations of the Ores stretcher . . . and started Richard, was born in Kraków
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 21in 1923, into an assimilated
Jewish family. His father held
several jobs and his mother’s
family owned a kosher
sausage factory in Kraków.
After the outbreak of World
War II, Richard was forced
to live in the Kraków ghetto
with his mother and sister. In
March 1943, he was marched
to Płaszów, a nearby labor
camp. In the final months of
the war, he was a prisoner
Irena Keller, Richard Ores’s first wife, in the early years of the war.
in three other concentration Photograph by Richard Ores. Courtesy of Michelle and Nina Ores
camps: Sachsenhausen,
Flossenbürg, and finally and care of many of the city’s work has focused on Jewish
Dachau, where he was Jewish heritage sites, with the history and heritage. Many
liberated in April 1945. Ronald Lauder Foundation. other members of the family
For these actions, he was have forged their own various
Richard was the only one in awarded the Knight’s Cross relationships to Poland and
his immediate family who of the Order of Merit of the the Holocaust.
survived. After the war, he Republic of Poland, the Cross
recuperated in a US Army of the Home Army, and the The Galicia Museum
hospital and, a few years later, Oświęcim Cross. He was Exhibit
attended medical school in also a consultant on the film I lived in Kraków for two
Bern, Switzerland, emigrating Schindler’s List as the film
to New York in 1955. But he years, that’s where my
depicted several of the places
never forgot about Poland. in which he survived the war. grandfather grew up. He
Richard maintained a was there during the war,
Though Richard died in
relationship with Poland 2011, the second and third he was in the Płaszów
after the war, returning generations of his family concentration camp.
frequently and staying in have continued to be When I was in Kraków,
touch with friends in Kraków, involved with Polish Jewish
among them heroes from the for most of the time I
life. His daughter Michelle
Kraków Ghetto like Julian is engaged in the Kraków lived a ninety-second walk
Aleksandrowicz and Tadeusz Jewish community and the away from the apartment
Pankiewicz. In New York, preservation of Jewish life my grandfather lived in
he raised funds for hospital and heritage in Poland. One of
equipment for a clinic in before the war . . . and the
her sons, Adam, has lived in
Kraków and for the renovation Poland since 2017, where his market I would always
22 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2go to was right across the
street from it. . . . I would
pass by the cemetery
where there’s a monument
for his family members
and a little plaque for his
family members who were
killed in the Holocaust,
and I gave tours of the
concentration camp that
he was in . . . and of the
ghetto that he was in. I
went to Rosh Hashanah
Richard Ores (hidden in middle) and two friends, likely during forced labor on a
services in 2018 in the farm in Prokocim in 1941.
Photograph preserved by Richard Ores. Courtesy of Michelle and Nina Ores
room where he was
Bar Mitzvahed in the life today. Richard visited about the relationship between
Poland frequently, bringing ethnic Poles and Jewish
High Synagogue.
his family to visit Kraków and survivors and visitors, with
―Adam Schorin Warsaw during communism, the goal of understanding this
Many Polish Holocaust the early days of democracy relationship today.
survivors and their in the 1990s, and the current
The exhibition will be
descendants understandably period of Jewish renewal. The
arranged in a modern and
have a view of Poland that family’s story offers a path of
visually attractive style. It will
resembles the Poland of their how one family formed their
present both historical objects
parents’ or grandparents’ own vibrant connections to the
(letters, documents, photos)
childhood and the horrors country of their roots, while
and audiovisual materials:
of the war. The Ores family, still living with the pain and
interviews and testimony
through its continued trauma of the Holocaust.
from Richard, recorded in
engagement with Poland, While Poland has become the 1990s and early 2000s, as
has a relationship with the an important destination for well as interviews with family
country that, while very Jewish heritage tourism over members recorded specifically
centered on the Holocaust the last few decades, there for the exhibition. n
and their family history, is rarely any meaningful
has a strong connection to interaction between visitors Jakub Nowakowski is
Poland as a whole and to the and locals. This exhibit will Director of the Galicia Jewish
renewal of Jewish Polish raise challenging questions Museum in Kraków. n
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 n 23A Grandson’s Reflection
on Sweet Home Sweet: The
Ores Family Exhibition
Adam Schorin
F or the past nine months, I have been on the
curatorial team behind Sweet Home Sweet, the
Galicia Jewish Museum’s upcoming exhibition
on Richard Ores and his family’s relationship One of the photographs Richard Ores buried in Plaszόw.
to Poland. Unique among the curators, I am It depicts, from left: Adam Wnuczek, Rena Rosenberg,
two unidentified people, Lusia Łuszczanowska, Helga
also a member of this family—Richard was my Łuszczanowska, Irena Keller, Władek Ratner (or Rath),
grandfather. I didn’t know him very well: he was Helena Haber, and Richard Ores.
somewhat estranged from the family, having left Courtesy of Michelle and Nina Ores
my grandmother nearly thirty years before I was you notice the arched wall of the ghetto stretching
born. My grandmother, Celia, is also a Holocaust from the edge of the frame, peaking in a small hill
survivor. I grew up seeing her several times a over Irena’s head.
week and I’ve known her story of survival as
long as I can remember. But Richard’s story What to make of these images? What do they tell
was something of a mystery to me. There were us about the people and events they depict, and the
comments he’d made to me about Kraków in the person (or persons) behind the camera? Richard
latter years of his dementia (comments I hardly continued to take photographs (and videos) for the
remember now), the framed Jude star he kept in rest of his life, leaving behind boxes and trash bags
his living room (I didn’t even know if it had been and film canisters with thousands of images across
his), and the handful of wartime stories passed continents, marriages, families. He often appears
down by my mother. himself, handing the camera off to a wife, a child,
or a friend, smiling goofily or looking formal and
It wasn’t until I moved to Poland in 2017 that I composed. Taken together, these photographs
finally watched Richard’s testimony and looked and videos form a kind of auto-ethnography of
through the photographs he buried in a glass jar Richard, a narrative threaded through the various
in Płaszów. These were photographs of his family states and stages of his life. Even though I knew
and friends from childhood, as well as some taken him only obliquely, it occurred to me recently that
in the early years of the war, at a forced labor I’ve seen more images made by Richard than by
farm in Prokocim and in the Kraków Ghetto. anyone else in my family—probably more than
In one photograph, of several friends including by anyone else I know. That’s been near the heart
Richard and his future first wife Irena, everyone of the work I’m doing with the museum team in
seems to have removed their armband (which preparing this exhibition: coming to know my
Jews were forced to wear and which appear in grandfather through the images he saved and the
other photos), or hidden it behind the arm of the ones he created. n
person next to them. They look like any group of
young people from the past, some smiling, some Adam Schorin is a writer and former co-director
stiff, some (Richard included) not looking at the of FestivALT. Based in Warsaw, he is a former
camera. You don’t realize anything is wrong until assistant editor for Gazeta.
24 n GAZETA VOLUME 28, NO. 2You can also read
