Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory: Jewish Poland and Polish Jews, During and After the Holocaust [1 ed.] 1032461438, 9781032461434

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction and Overview
Introduction
1 Jews in 20th-Century Poland
Part II: Studies of Wartime
2 The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland According to the Akedat Yitzchak Book
3 “I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”: Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) Meets Holocaust Refugees from the German-Occupied Part of Poland, 1939–1941
4 “Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better” – Letters from Włodawa County during the Holocaust
5 Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive
6 Josef Bürger – The Executioner of the Jews in Łuków
7 Jewish Initiatives of Rescue by Means of Labor and Jewish Self-Help in the Face of Aktion Reinhardt
8 February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto: The Writings of Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff
Part III: Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation
9 Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages
10 Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics
11 My Love Affair with Jewish History: From Small Town to Source of Identity
12 In Search of the Victims’ Agenda: German Scholarship on Polish Jews During the Holocaust
13 March 1968 – The Last Chapter in the History of Polish Jews – Reflection and Representation of the Events of March 1968 in Polish Films
14 Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers
15 “Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia” – Exhibition Organised by the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia
16 21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah: The Struggle for the Memory
Part IV: Family History, Family Memory
17 In Search of the Lost Tydors: An Exercise in Holocaust Documentation
18 “My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”: History and Personal Memory
19 Dis-location: Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town
20 My Jewish Kraków
21 Following My Roots: Building the Unknown Puzzle of My Family Roots in Poland
22 Can I Be a Good Historian?
About the Contributors
Index Names
Index Places

Citation preview

Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory

This volume is both a study of the history of Polish Jews and Jewish Poland before, during, and immediately after the Holocaust and a collection of personal explora‑ tions focusing on the historians who write about these subjects. While the first three parts of this book focus on “text,” the broad nature of Pol‑ ish Jewish history surrounding the Holocaust, the last section focuses on subtext, the personal and professional experiences of scholars who have devoted years to researching and writing about Polish Jewry. The beginning sections present a vari‑ ety of case studies on wartime and postwar Polish Jews, drawing on new research and local history. The final part is a reflection on family memory, where scholars discuss their connections to Holocaust history and its impact on their current lives and research. Viewed together, the combination sheds light on both history and historians: the challenges of dealing with the history of an unparalleled cataclysm, and the personal questions and dilemmas that its study raises for many of the historians engaged in it. Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory is a unique resource that will appeal to students and scholars studying the Second World War, Jewish and Polish history, and family history. Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz is the director of the Finkler Institute of Holo‑ caust Research and Professor of Modern Jewish History at Bar‑Ilan University in Israel. She has written and edited numerous publications about gender, Holocaust, memory, commemoration, Israel, and descendants of Holocaust survivors. Lea Ganor is the founder and Director of the Mashmaut Center in Kiryat Motzkin and Senior Scholar/Coordinator of the Poland Forum, Bar‑Ilan University. Her re‑ search focuses on the IDF and the Holocaust. She received the Night Cross Order of Merit from the president of Poland for fostering Polish‑Israeli dialogue.

Routledge Studies in Second World War History

The Second World War remains today the most seismic political event of the past hundred years, an unimaginable upheaval that impacted upon every country on earth and is fully ingrained in the consciousness of the world’s citizens. Traditional narratives of the conflict are entrenched to such a degree that new research takes on an ever important role in helping us make sense of World War II. Aiming to bring to light the results of new archival research and exploring notions of memory, prop‑ aganda, genocide, empire and culture, Routledge Studies in Second World War History sheds new light on the events and legacy of global war. Recent titles in this series Memories of the Second World War in Neutral Europe, 1945–2023 Edited by Manuel Bragança and Peter Tame Evacuee Encounters on the Soviet Home Front During the Second World War Natalie Belsky Jerusalem in the Second World War Daphna Sharfman Jews, Suicide, and the Holocaust Mark A. Mengerink The Crisis of British Sea Power The Collapse of a Naval Hegemon 1942 James P. Levy Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory Jewish Poland and Polish Jews, During and After the Holocaust Edited by Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge‑Studies‑in‑ Second‑World‑War‑History/book‑series/WWII

Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory Jewish Poland and Polish Jews, During and After the Holocaust Edited by Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing‑in‑Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978‑1‑032‑46143‑4 (hbk) ISBN: 978‑1‑032‑46145‑8 (pbk) ISBN: 978‑1‑003‑38024‑5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245 Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

PART I

Introduction and Overview

1

Introduction

3

JUDITH TYDOR BAUMEL‑SCHWARTZ AND LEA GANOR

  1 Jews in 20th‑Century Poland

7

ELI TZUR

PART II

Studies of Wartime

19

  2 The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland According to the Akedat Yitzchak Book

21

LIOR ALPEROVITCH

  3 “I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”: Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) Meets Holocaust Refugees from the German‑Occupied Part of Poland, 1939–1941

31

YAACOV FALKOV

  4 “Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better” – Letters from Włodawa County during the Holocaust

41

ELIYAHU KLEIN

  5 Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive

51

KAMIL KOPERA

  6 Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków KRZYSZTOF CZUBASZEK

61

vi  Contents   7 Jewish Initiatives of Rescue by Means of Labor and Jewish Self‑Help in the Face of Aktion Reinhardt

70

WITOLD MĘDYKOWSKI

  8 February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto: The Writings of Mordechai Tenenbaum‑Tamaroff

80

WERONIKA ROMANIK

PART III

Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation

91

  9 Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages

93

BATYA BRUTIN

10 Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics

109

AGNIESZKA HASKA

11 My Love Affair with Jewish History: From Small Town to Source of Identity

120

GRZEGORZ KRZYWIEC

12 In Search of the Victims’ Agenda: German Scholarship on Polish Jews During the Holocaust

126

STEPHAN LEHNSTAEDT

13 March 1968 – the Last Chapter in the History of Polish Jews – Reflection and Representation of the Events of March 1968 in Polish Films

136

HANA OREN

14 Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers

145

RIVKA CHAYA SCHILLER

15 “Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia” – Exhibition Organised by the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia IWONA ZAWIDZKA

154

Contents vii 16 21st‑Century Polish Literature and the Shoah: The Struggle for the Memory

166

SŁAWOMIR JACEK ŻUREK

PART IV

Family History, Family Memory179 17 In Search of the Lost Tydors: An Exercise in Holocaust Documentation

181

JUDITH TYDOR BAUMEL‑SCHWARTZ

18 “My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”: History and Personal Memory

192

LEA GANOR

19 Dis‑location: Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town

201

RUTH WEYL GEALL

20 My Jewish Kraków

207

MICHAŁ NIEZABITOWSKI

21 Following My Roots: Building the Unknown Puzzle of My Family Roots in Poland

217

INBAL RAZ

22 Can I Be a Good Historian?

226

EWA WIATR

About the Contributors Index Names Index Places

237 243 249

Part I

Introduction and Overview

Introduction Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor

Introduction The Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar‑Ilan University is devoted to the study of the Holocaust. Its motto states what it is and what it does – “Remember, Research, Commemorate. Create Communities, build Bridges between the Gen‑ erations”. Its guiding purpose is to remember the immediate past by encouraging commemorative scholarly and public Holocaust‑related endeavors; sustain the pre‑ sent by furthering Holocaust‑related study, activism, and education; and by doing so, help insure the future. It creates bridges not only between generations but also between scholars and activists, in the hope of furthering academic and popular cooperation and the sharing of information. For that purpose, since 2018, the Finkler Institute has created eleven interna‑ tional Holocaust‑related Forums, including the “Poland Forum”. Composed of his‑ torians specializing in the history of the Jews of Poland and scholars active in the field of Holocaust education and commemoration, its function is to serve as a meet‑ ing ground to share ideas, discuss ongoing research projects, and receive feedback on various initiatives. One of the Poland Forum’s first activities, initiated by its senior scholar and coordinator, Dr. Lea Ganor, was a year‑long international Zoom seminar in which Forum members presented their ongoing research and new projects. When the sem‑ inar continued into its second year, it became obvious that in addition to the histori‑ cal “text” – the topics and projects being discussed – there was a subtle subtext: what working on these topics meant to the scholars conducting the research, and how it affected them not only on a professional level but also on a more personal one. As the seminar discussions eventually broadened to include both text and sub‑ text, they created a fascinating and subtle dynamic among the participants. Eventu‑ ally, a few of them even pointed out that much of what was being discussed, both the new research projects and the now‑overt discourse regarding the impact of personal involvement, might make for an interesting and innovative publication. Thus, the initial idea of this book was born. Research institutes often initiate, sponsor, and publish academic monographs and collected volumes of academic essays. The Finkler Institute had done so, both DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-2

4  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor in the distant past and in the immediate present. In addition, it had recently pub‑ lished two collected volumes of academic autobiographies, professional “ego doc‑ uments”, charting the personal and professional journey that members of two of its Forums had undergone. Now it was the Poland Forum’s turn! Our initial idea was to publish a Forum‑ based collected volume of research dealing with the history of Polish Jews and Jewish Poland before, during, and immediately after the Holocaust. But as we did not wish to replicate existing volumes dealing with the history of Polish Jewry, while also seeing the fascinating dynamics that had developed during the interna‑ tional seminar meetings, we realized that by focusing solely on “text”, we would be telling only part of the story. To round out the picture, it was imperative to show how much the personal and the professional were often intertwined. Today, scholars, students, and educated readers have learned to ask: “who is the historian?” and not only “what is the history?”, and we see this as one of the unique components of our book. Consequently, for the first time in the Finkler Institute’s history, we decided to combine the two types of books into one. Some of the book’s chapters portray the “text”, the broad nature of Polish Jewish history during and af‑ ter the Holocaust, offering readers a selection of different forms of local, personal, and microhistory while explaining what holds them together. This allows readers to explore new ways of examining the history of the Jews of Poland, particularly through cutting‑edge scholarship by both veteran and younger historians who focus on local history and case studies that have not been examined elsewhere. Other chapters focus on the subtext, the personal and professional experiences of scholars throughout the world who have devoted many years to researching and writing about Polish Jewry. The international flavor of the memoir section, includ‑ ing points of connection and contrast, exemplifies the conceptual underpinnings of the entire volume. Each section may be read separately, but when viewed together, the reader is treated to a seamless transition from history to the historians: the chal‑ lenges of dealing with the history of Jews in Poland during and after an unparal‑ leled cataclysm, and the personal questions and dilemmas that its study raises for many of the historians engaged in it. This book is divided into four distinct sections, each containing a broad scope of topics held together by a chronological or theoretical framework. The first section provides an introduction by the editors and an overview of Jewish life in 20th‑­ century Poland, written by Prof. Eli Tzur, historian of Jewish Poland and academic CO of the Yad Ya’ari Research Institute at Givat Haviva, Israel, who has authored a number of monographs dealing with the history of various Jewish and Zionist groups in Poland, before, during, and after the Holocaust. The second section is historical and is devoted to the war years. Entitled “Studies of Wartime”, it is composed of seven chapters portraying various aspects of the his‑ tory of the Jews in Poland during the Second World War. Dr. Lior Alperovitch, Head of the Center for the Study of Holocaust Visualization at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, analyzes the role of the Hassidic leader in Poland facing radical antisemitism during the late 1930s; Dr. Yaacov Falkov, a history lecturer at Tel‑Aviv University, and a scientific advisor to the Ghetto Fighters Museum (Israel)

Introduction  5 and the Riga Ghetto Museum (Latvia), explores the activities of the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) during the first years of the Holocaust in Nazi‑occupied Poland; Eliyahu Klein, a doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University, depicts the history of the Jews of the Włodawa county during the Holocaust; Kamil Kopera, a Holocaust researcher at the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor, describes the strug‑ gle of the Jews from Markowa to survive during the war; Independent Researcher Dr.  Krzysztof Czubaszek, a researcher of the history of the Jews of Łuków and guardian of the memory of the Jewish community of his hometown, analyzes the case of Josef Bürger, known as “the executioner” of the Łuków ghetto; Dr. Hab. Eng. Witold Mędykowski, Researcher at the Abraham J. Heschel Center for Catholic‑­ Jewish Relations at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, portrays Jewish initiatives involving Jewish social “Self‑Help” organizations in occupied Poland; and Dr. Weronika Romanik, a promoter of the idea of social archives who is involved in numerous educational projects, explores the events in the Bialystok Ghetto in February 1943 from the perspective of the leader of the ghetto resistance movement. The third section is also historical and focuses on the postwar period. Entitled “Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation”, it is a transition section linking history, identity, and memory. Composed of nine chapters, it focuses on the postwar years, the efforts to commemorate the fate of Polish Jewry, and representations of the life of prewar and wartime Jews in Poland. Art Historian Dr. Batya Brutin, Spiegel Fellow of the Finkler Institute, portrays the forms, meanings, and messages of Holocaust monuments in Poland; Dr. Agnieszka Haska, an assistant professor at Polish Center for Holocaust Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, analyzes the case of Hotel Polski, showing how history can rapidly metamorphose into politics; Dr. Grzegorz Krzywiec, an associate professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, writes about what he calls his “love affair with Jewish history”, show‑ ing how the history of a small town can become a source of identity; Prof. Stephan Lehnstaedt, Professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Studies at Touro College in Berlin, discusses why so little is known in contemporary Germany about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust; Hanna Oren, Student Project Coordinator at the “Mashmaut” center in Kiryat Motzkin, Israel, focuses on the events of March 1968, which she entitles “the last chapter in the history of Polish Jewry”, and portrays its reflection in Polish films and television; Dr. Rivka Chaya Schiller, Translator and Independent Scholar from New York, writes about a Jewish honor court in New York in 1947 that tried two Jewish brothers who had been in the ghetto adminis‑ tration of Ostrowiec; Dr. Iwona Zawidzka, Ethnologist and Curator of the Boch‑ nia museum, documents a new exhibition in which she has been involved, about the Jewish community in Bochnia, organized by the local Prof. Stanisław Fischer Museum; Prof. Sławomir Jacek Żurek, Director of the International Centre for Re‑ search of the History and Cultural Heritage of the Central and Eastern European Jews and the head of the Centre for Polish‑Jewish Literature Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, writes about 21st‑century Polish Holocaust literature and the struggle to understand who its Jewish victims are for Poles today and how Poles view themselves in this context.

6  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz and Lea Ganor The fourth section is retrospective and personal, focusing on the historian and his or her connection to the history of the Jews of Poland. Entitled “Family His‑ tory, Family Memory”, it is devoted entirely to the dynamics that developed in the space linking the personal and the professional. Each of its six articles focuses on a different aspect of the personal and professional journeys of scholars dealing with the fate of Polish Jewry during and after the Holocaust. Prof. Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz, Holocaust Historian and the director of the Finkler Institute at Bar‑Ilan University, analyzes what happened when oral and written documenta‑ tion clashed in her search to reconstruct her family’s prewar and wartime history; Polish‑born Dr. Lea Ganor, the Poland Forum’s Senior Scholar and Coordinator and Founder of the “Mashmaut” Center in Kiryat Motzkin, discusses the factors that propelled her to specialize in the history of Polish Jewry; Independent Scholar Ruth Weyl Geall, former Senior Social Care Researcher, Planner, and Manager for a number of London local authorities and national disability charities, and today an independent scholar, plots her journey to understand and document the 20th‑century multi‑cultural refugee/Holocaust history of people from the Silesian town where her father was raised; Dr. Michał Niezabitowski, Director of the His‑ torical Museum of the City of Kraków, writes about his endeavors to study the his‑ tory of the Jews in Kraków; Inbal Raz, Deputy Director of the “Mashmaut” Center in Kiryat Motzkin, describes her efforts to build the puzzle of her family roots in Poland; Dr. Ewa Wiatr, Assistant Professor at the Center for Jewish Research at the University of Łódź, charts her growing emotional involvement in studying the history of the Jews of Łódź during the Holocaust. Together, the different sections of this volume offer the reader a rich portrayal of the history of Jews in Poland in the 20th century and insight into the lives and activities of a number of the historians who have dealt with this topic.

1

Jews in 20th‑Century Poland Eli Tzur

Polish Jews before the Second World War The history of the Jews of Poland dates back for close to 1,000 years. Initially the home of the largest (Ashkenazi) Jewish community in the world, following three 18th‑century partitions between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, Poland’s size was progressively reduced until it ceased to exist as an independent political entity. Culturally, however, “Poland”, including Jewish Poland, continued to exist until it was reconstituted as an independent nation after the First World War. A French traveler described 18th‑century Poland as “a country full of swamps and a multitude of Jews”. Poland emerged after the Napoleonic wars as a country where the local Jews were ruled by a different set of laws. In Eastern (Russian) Poland, known to Poles as the Kresy, the Jews were limited to fixed borders de‑ fined as the “Pale of Settlement”. In Central Poland, known as “Congress Poland”, Jews lived according to the rules of the previous Polish Commonwealth. Prussian Poland became void of Jews, who emigrated to Germany. The Austrian monarchy, weakened by the revolutionary wave of 1848, granted limited rights to national aspirations, as long as it didn’t endanger the Empire. In Galicia, the Jews could express their aspirations in open terms and dispute them in quasi‑parliamentary forums. The large mass of the Jews lived in townships established and owned by the lo‑ cal nobles and intended to be economic hubs for the nearby countryside. The Jews’ economic role was to serve as an intermediary between the peasantry and the land‑ owners. As a rule, those more closely connected to the nobles were wealthier, hold‑ ing a higher status in the local Jewish community. Intermingling with the rabbinate (including through marriage), they were the traditional elite of their communities. The Jewish socio‑economy changed during the last third of the 19th century after serfdom was annulled. Capitalist modernization took place rapidly and ­Jewish investors played an important role in the economic development of the ­Russian empire. In Łodz, the hub of the textile industry, the Jews were promoters of that industry. In Warsaw, Jews formed a group of major investors in railways and ­finances – engines of economic growth. Those new technological inventions designed the demographic map of Poland. Shtetls near a railway developed, while those without it declined and became DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-3

8  Eli Tzur villages. A profession of horse carriages’ drivers, until then monopolized by the Jews – balegules, disappeared, but new professions evolved, mainly in the emerg‑ ing industrial centers. On the eve of the First World War, the demise of Jewish shtetls and the emigration to new industrialized towns was documented by an an‑ thropological expedition, also showing that the emerging Jewish proletariat was not employed in the larger factories, but in numerous small shops. Following the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia (1881), and the ensuing anti‑Jewish pogroms, masses of Jews began emigrating, mainly to the United States. Simultaneously, Galician Jews were emigrating out of economic distress. Between 1881 and 1914, approximately 1,100,000 Jews emigrated from the western provinces of the Russian Empire and Congress Poland, while another 350,000 Galician Jews moved abroad. In addition, Jews also migrated from small shtetls to larger towns, and from there to the cities, in the hope of improving their living standards and to escape the cultural, mental, and spiritual stagnation of the shtetls. A famous example of internal relocation was the “Litvak (Lithuanian‑Jewish) emigration”. Responding to legal discrimination and local pogroms, a wave of some 10,000 Jews from the western provinces migrated to Congress Poland. They brought with them new ideologies such as Zionism and Socialism which had a long‑range impact on the conservative, stagnated local Jewish society. Their ar‑ rival also awakened the dormant Polish antisemitism, whose followers accused the Litvaks of being agents of russification in Poland, intending to weaken the Polish drive for independence. The First World War broke out in August 1914, and by 1915, Poland was occu‑ pied by the German Army. The German Command hoped to mobilize the local civil society to its side and published rules which allowed political activity in Poland, as long as it didn’t clash with its military needs. This opened a new stage in the activities of the Jewish public. On the other side of front line, Russian authorities evacuated the Jewish population, suspected as “not being loyal”, into the Russian hinterland, while Galician Jews, fearing the approaching Russian army, escaped into the Western parts of the Habsburg Empire. In 1917, the Russian army collapsed, and the demise of the Russian Empire soon followed. After March 1918, a cruel Civil War tore Russian society to shreds. One of its most visible aspects were the pogroms, which decimated the Jewish communities. Poland also became an arena of pogroms perpetrated by the newly established Polish army, the most infamous of which took place in Lvov and in Pinsk. Karl Marx’s famous metaphor compared revolution to a midwife, whose hands, in order to deliver a newborn baby, are covered in blood, but in this case, the blood was Jewish blood. Jews in the Interwar Period In the aftermath of the First World War, national states replaced multinational em‑ pires. Their borders were defined by military actions and by diplomatic efforts in Versailles. Poland conquered territories from Germany and Soviet Russia and,

Jews in 20th-Century Poland  9 despite its claim to be a homogenous Polish state, became a multinational state. Under pressure of a Jewish delegation from the United States and Poland, Poland was compelled to accept the “National Minorities Treaty”, defending the rights of minorities. Nevertheless, Polish diplomacy struggled to abolish this treaty, viewed as a sign of national humiliation. Language and Education The newly born Polish state was composed of territories with different political traditions, unequal economic development, and diverse cultural experiences. This was even more pronounced in Jewish society. The three languages of Polish Jews, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish, were more than a linguistic tool. They were an ideo‑ logical declaration. In the 1931 census, 80% of Polish Jewry declared Yiddish as their mother tongue, 12% – Polish, and 8% – Hebrew. This division did not present a linguistic reality, but rather an ideological obligation. Very few Jews could claim Hebrew as their mother tongue, but the declaration was proof of their adherence to Zionism. Polish was much more accepted, but even those acculturated in the Polish language felt rejected by the Polish society. Jews could be acculturated, but not as‑ similated. Even the greatest Polish poets, Antoni Slonimski and Julian Tuvim, were viewed by Polish literary circles as outsiders. Tuvim expressed this contradiction in his poem “We, the Polish Jews”: “I am Pole, because I like it… a Jew – because of a blood in my veins”. By that time, Yiddish had developed from the language of the masses to a liter‑ ary tool adopted by writers and poets. Modern Hebrew grew in Eastern Europe, was replanted in Palestine, and returned to Poland. To influence Jewish commu‑ nities in Poland, each language needed an agent, actually a triple agent: books, press, and a school system. They also needed a political promoter. The Bund Party advanced the use of Yiddish by its press and by educational system, TSYSHO. Hebrew was promoted by the Zionist parties and youth movements and was the educational language in schools belonging to the Tarbut network. The religious educational system preserved Jewish study based on Aramaic texts presented in Yiddish. In interwar Poland, the local heders and small yeshivas acted under the national umbrella of the Horev educational network supported by the Orthodox Agudat Israel Movement. The Polish government encouraged Jewish youth to study in shabasovki, state schools closed on the Sabbath, intended especially for Jewish pupils. According to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s (JDC) survey of 1936, more than half the pupils in Jewish owned schools belonged to the religious network. The majority of Jewish children studied in Polish schools, mainly in shabasovki. Over the years, high schools with Jewish students underwent changes. Ideo‑ logical schools such as Tarbut almost disappeared, functioning only in distant provinces. In the big cities, especially Warsaw, there was an abundance of Jewish private high schools, but the majority of students studied in Polish state gymnasia. This tendency increased after the educational reform of 1932, the so‑called Jedrze‑ jewicz reform, which increased the Polish‑taught syllabus and the Polish part in the

10  Eli Tzur matriculation exams, required for entering the universities. Those demands paral‑ leled the growing use of Polish among the younger generation. Religion At the beginning of the 20th century, most of Polish Jewry belonged to one of three religious camps: Hassidim, Mitnagdim, and Maskilim. Although the first two camps fought each other, they combined forces to fight the Maskilim. The Maskilim represented the Jewish middle class, educated in non‑Jewish educational institutions, and included secular Jews. During the 19th century, secularism was a creed of the educated middle class, but after the founding of Jewish workers’ par‑ ties, it spread like a wildfire in a forest. It created a generation gap: the older gener‑ ation remained religious, while some of their children tended toward secularism. In an average Polish‑Jewish family, its religious members met with secular relatives of every possible political hue. The ability to confront each other ideologically and politically and remain parts of the same family enabled Jewish pluralism. Jewish society was pluralistic without any democratic tradition. The multiple parties and factions promoted various visions of Jewish society and its future which, in prac‑ tice, could not be realized, and so they remained a flight of imagination. Politics and Zionism Since the Polish Declaration of Independence (1918), the Polish army was engaged in consecutive wars whose aim was to reconquer the territories once belonging to the late Polish Commonwealth. The Poles did not recognize the right of self‑ determination of Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Lithuanians, and considered them‑ selves the only nation in the region entitled to statehood. The Jewish delegates to the Sejm (Polish parliament) created a voting Block with other national minorities to fight for their national rights on the base of the Minorities Treaty. The peak of the Minorities Block’s parliamentary activities was the election of the liberal Polish president, Gabriel Narutowicz, but being accused by the Polish nationalists as “a president of national minorities”, he was assassinated. The leading figure in the minorities’ voting Block was the head of the Congress Zionists, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, who believed that only aggressive activity in the parliament could safeguard the national rights of the Jewish minority in Poland. His policy was opposed by the Galician Zionists who believed in negotiations and political compromises, and who accused Gruenbaum of endangering the Jewish national existence by his aggressive politics. Ultimately, they brought about his downfall and dissolved the Block. The eventual result of their policies was an agreement with the government called Ugoda, which combined the Block’s liq‑ uidation with the government’s promise to preserve the rights of the Jewish com‑ munity. The main problem of the Ugoda was that both sides could not deliver what they promised. During the negotiations, the Polish government led by Władsław Grabski de‑ cided on economic reform. One of its clauses was a demand for increased payment

Jews in 20th-Century Poland  11 for Polish seasonal workers employed in German agriculture. The German govern‑ ment reacted by leveling higher customs on Polish products, causing an economic crisis in Poland. To cope with the crisis, Grabski’s government increased taxation on commercial transactions, challenging the wellbeing of the merchants, the major‑ ity of whom were Jews. The Zionist organization viewed this economic calamity as an opportunity to increase aliyah (immigration) from Poland to Palestine to cre‑ ate a middle‑class society in Palestine. After initial success, by the late 1920s, this socio‑economic endeavor failed, leaving many immigrants bankrupt and demand‑ ing a return of their money from the Zionist emigration organizers. The failure weakened the Zionist parties, which almost disappeared from Jewish political life in Poland. The Zionist project and its failure had an important impact on Jewish youth organizations. In 1918, the Zionists in Warsaw established the Palestine Office, an institution later in charge of distributing British Mandate visas to Palestine (cer‑ tificates). There were two categories of certificates: those for workers and those for capitalists. Certificates in the first category were given to public organizations which allocated them to their members, and mainly served the youth movements. The Hehalutz movement in Poland, originally founded in Russia, but transplanted to the west as a result of the Russian Civil war, became the umbrella organization in charge of delivering workers certificates to various organizations. Hehalutz and its affiliations considered the middle‑class preference of the Polish Zionists to be an act of discrimination in the certificates’ allocation, and a step that endangered its existence. In response, Hehalutz promoted two new Zionist youth movements in Poland and established its World Organization. With the failure of the middle‑class project, the Hehalutz movement grew stronger and was the almost sole distributor of workers’ certificates. One of the largest Zionist youth movements in interwar Poland was Beitar, cre‑ ated in 1923 by the founding father of Revisionist Zionism, Vladimir Ze’ev Ja‑ botinsky. Born in Riga, Beitar spread to Poland and adhered to simple principles: military education, promoting pure, undiluted Zionist ideology (without additions such as socialism), and advancing the idea of a Jewish entity on both sides of Jordan. The relationship between its members and left‑wing Zionist youth was de‑ scribed by veteran Zionist writer, Alter Druyanov: “If the leftist movements could eat Beitar, they would celebrate it as a sacred fest, but if Beitar could transfer them to the other world, it would dance in joy”. The inevitable clash between the Labor movement and the Revisionists occurred in 1933, during the elections to the 18th Zionist Congress. Eventually, Jabotinsky’s supporters left the Zionist organization and established a parallel institution. During the first years of Polish independence, Jewish parliamentarians enjoyed the fruits of democracy and influenced national politics within the framework of the Minorities Block. However, after 1922, the right‑wing governments, formed by a union of the church, landed aristocracy, and nationalist politicians, removed the Jewish politicians from any national influence with the help of Ugoda. The right‑wing governments did not rule for long. In May 1926, a military coup d’etat removed a parliamentary government and crowned an authoritarian government

12  Eli Tzur led by the “leader” Józef Piłsudski. The coup was accepted by the Jewish public. Piłsudski kept the parliamentary vestiges but ruled with the support of a political chimera named the “Non‑Partisan Block for Cooperation with the Government” (BBWR in Polish). Its permanent partner in the Jewish arena was a political entity whose backbone was the Orthodox Agudat Israel political party, that supported the government in any step taken. During the German occupation of Poland, the military command believed that by establishing a religious party, they could ensure the support of the Jewish masses. Agudat Israel already existed in Germany, and its Polish branch appeared in 1916, as a result of the cooperation between the German‑Jewish rabbinical ad‑ visors to the German occupying forces in Poland and the local Jewish Hassidic leadership. Agudat Israel now took on a primacy in much of the Jewish Religious Community, becoming a political force to be reckoned with. However, during the second part of the 1930s, Agudat Israel nominees remained in power only under the pressure of the Polish authorities, competing with a new force – the Jewish socialist party known as the Bund. Founded in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century, the Polish Bund became a separate political party in late 1917. Initially, its Marxist ideology was adapted to the realities of the multinational empire, but with the appearance of the national states, it failed to answer the needs of the Jewish working class in Poland. The Bund refused to cooperate with the Jewish bourgeoisie and opposed nation‑ alistic guidelines. On the other hand, it strived to cooperate with Polish Socialist Party. Opposing the Zionist ideology of emigration, which it defined as a mirror vision of antisemitism, it promoted the principle of doykot (staying here). A small party, its strength came from the massive trade unions which it ruled. The 1930s Poland suffered more than other countries from the economic crisis of 1929. In Jewish society, the crisis caused a polarization between the upper class and the victims of the crisis. Following the crash of 1929, the trade unions represented not only the employed but also the unemployed. As Polish‑Jewish society radicalized and antisemitism grew, the Bund gained power and began competing politically with Agudat Israel in leading the Jewish Religious Communities. Modern Polish antisemitism is connected to Roman Dmowski who promoted a vision of a Polish homogenous nation, without national minorities. His vision gave birth to an ideological camp called National Democracy (Endecja) with many offshoots, some clearly fascist. The camp was never organized as a political party, but it influenced the political arena. When Piłsudski died in 1935, his successors turned to antisemitism as a means of mobilizing public support. Their policies soon were translated into physical attacks on Jews that became pogroms, the most infa‑ mous of which occurred in the Przytyk shtetl. The only political party combatting these gangs was the Bund, organizing self‑defense groups to fight street gangs. In March 1936, the Bund organized a mass strike against the Endecja with participa‑ tion of the Polish Socialists. Polish Jews found themselves under an internal threat

Jews in 20th-Century Poland  13 of antisemitism and an external threat of looming Nazism. Earlier than others, the Bund demanded a boycott on German products. The threating situation renewed the calls for large Jewish emigration from Poland. Immigration to Palestine was the basis of all Zionist movements. Hehalutz re‑ quired a long period of preparation on special farms known as kibbutz hachshara, where trainees learned how to adapt to the conditions in Palestine. Jabotinsky and his Beitar followers dreamed up the idea of evacuation, where a million Jews would land on Palestine’s beaches to liberate the country from the British. He convinced Polish officials that he would remove the Jews from Poland and solve their “Jewish Problem” and he even received a number of loans for his project. Earlier, he hired boats for illegal emigration, but the number of emigrants was minute. The Polish plans for Jewish emigration failed. In 1935, the Polish government established a Jewish Committee for Colonization whose aim was to encourage emigration to South America and Palestine, but the absorbing countries did not collaborate. Even more ambitious was the plan to rent Madagascar from the French and settle Polish Jews there. The Polish plan to deny Polish citizenship from those citizens who were disconnected from their Polishness and did not serve in the army, had tragic results for Polish Jews in the Third Reich. In late October 1938, right before the law was passed in the Polish parliament, Nazi police rounded up thousands of Polish Jews living in Germany since the First World War, and expelled them to Poland, mainly near the border town of Zbąszyń. This affair was a “prelude to the Holocaust”. The Horrors of the Holocaust On September 1, 1939, the German Army invaded Poland. A week earlier the Ger‑ man and Soviet governments had signed a non‑aggression pact that included a secret clause dividing Poland between them. Following the pact, the Red Army oc‑ cupied Eastern Poland 17 days after the German invasion. Large parts of the Jewish population escaped to the East. During the first post‑occupation months, there was free movement over the demarcation line, but in November 1939, both sides sealed it off. The Germans, whose prewar anti‑Jewish policy was to remove the Jews from the Reich, understood that the size of the Polish Jewry prevents a continuation of this solution. They therefore decided to enclose the Jews in ghettoes, some walled, others – only on paper, hoping that isolation, famine, and disease would solve their “Jewish problem”. At the same time, the Soviets strived to annex the new territories and their in‑ habitants. The area was absorbed into the Soviet economic system. Both the local population and the refugees were given the choice of accepting or refusing So‑ viet citizenship. Those who accepted it could be send to work anywhere according to the emergency labor regulations; those who refused were deported. Ironically, deportation could mean life as many of those who accepted citizenship and re‑ mained were murdered by the Nazis after the German invasion of June 1941. About 250,000 Polish Jews deported by the Soviets to Siberia and other distant republics survived thanks to those cruel policies.

14  Eli Tzur Ghettos In German‑occupied Poland, some western regions were annexed directly to the Reich while other areas became part of General government. As usual, Jews were expelled from the Reich areas, while elsewhere they were transferred from small ghettoes to larger ones. Eventually, the entire Jewish population, including pre‑war local inhabitants and those deported from elsewhere, were isolated in ghettoes. The latter group often suffered from appalling living conditions and less accessibility to sustenance. Thus, their chances of survival were almost nil. Every ghetto was un‑ der German administration with internal affairs being run by a Judenrat, a Jewish “Council of Elders”, responsible for food distribution, housing allocation, disease prevention, and keeping order. This last function was executed by the local Jewish police, which often was more powerful (and hated) than the Council. The most vital issue for both Council officials and ordinary Jews was food sup‑ ply. In larger ghettoes the Council operated public kitchens, which often became a gathering point for social and political groups. The meager caloric value of the food officially allowed by the German was less than that required for physical survival. The only way to survive was by smuggling in foodstuffs, on a large scale with compliance of the guards, and on personal scale by members of the family. The large‑scale smugglers became the ghetto’s new aristocracy. Thus, beside the destitute majority, a small group of well‑fed hedonistic Jews emerged, usually con‑ nected to the Council. The German Invasion of the Soviet Union During the winter of 1940–1941, Nazi Germany decided to invade its erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. A “Commissars’ Directive” was prepared, stipulating those con‑ demned to immediate annihilation. On June 22, 1941, the German Army invaded the Soviet Union with the Einsatzgruppen, special‑duty units of the SS responsible for implementing the directive, moving just behind the frontline units. Supple‑ mented by ordinary Army units and the local population, they executed political officers of the Red Army on the spot, marching the Jewish civil population to the killing pits and shooting them only a few weeks after the takeover. From June 1941 until the autumn 1942, the Einsatzgruppen executed about million and half Jews. As this method of extermination created psychological difficulties for the perpe‑ trators and demanded too many army resources, a different, more industrialized extermination plan began to be developed, and was put into operation in December 1941. In January 1942, a group of officials from various Reich ministries chaired by Reinhard Heydrich met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to finalize the project’s final details. During the spring of 1942, three extermination camps began to operate in the General Government (the area of conquered Poland not annexed by the Re‑ ich and not under Soviet control) – Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec, each deep in the forest. The extermination of Polish Jewry, under the command of Odilo Globocnik, was named Aktion Reinhardt in commemoration of SD (SS Secret Service) Chief Reinhardt Heydrich, recently killed near Prague. By the end of September 1942,

Jews in 20th-Century Poland  15 most of the ghettoes were emptied: out of quarter of a million Jews in Warsaw, about 50,000 traumatized people remained, waiting for their turn to die. Jewish Resistance Only after the aktion began was the Jewish resistance movement born. Its origins can be found place soon after occupation of Poland. Youth movement graduates who escaped to Vilna sent back emissaries to Poland to reorganize their move‑ ments. After Vilna itself was occupied by the Germans in 1941, leaders of the Zi‑ onist youth movements, Communists, Bundists, and Beitarists, convened to hear a proclamation ending with a message: “Don’t go like sheep to the slaughter! Fight!” and established a United Partisan Organization. This message was ignored in other ghettoes, but after the summer of 1942, it be‑ came a guideline. In Warsaw, the left‑wing organizations founded the Jewish Fight‑ ing Organization (ZOB), while the Revisionists joined the Jewish Military Union (ZZW). In addition to those two organizations, groups of ordinary people established “wild” formations. Others dug underground shelters to evade the Germans. Jews in the Warsaw ghetto believed that after the German defeat in Stalingrad, German mo‑ rale was at its nadir and would impair the Army’s efficiency. The Germans (mainly their collaborators from the Baltics and Ukraine) attacked the Warsaw ghetto on April 19, 1943, hoping that on next day, Hitler’s birthday, they would announce on the ghetto’s liquidation, but the fighting continued for few weeks. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest Jewish uprising and become symbolic, but there were upris‑ ings in other ghettoes, in the Treblinka and Sobibor extermination camps, and a year later in Auschwitz. Many of the ghetto survivors fought in the partisan formations. The Polish Response The Polish attitude to the Jewish tragedy was very mixed. There were those who helped the Jews and concealed them, including the Zegota organization on a larger scale. But the largest Polish underground formation, the Armia Krajowa generally refused to assist Jewish resistance, and one of its subdivisions (NSZ) murdered Jews directly. In contrast, the pro‑communist Armia Ludowa cooperated with the Jewish resistance, but until 1944, its resources were limited. During this period, about quar‑ ter of a million Jews were murdered or disclosed to the Germans by the Poles. The last group of Jews from the largest ghetto in what had been prewar Poland, the Łodz ghetto, was deported in August 1944, thus ending the story of the largest remaining Jewish community in Europe. Only about 70,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust, dispersed throughout Poland, in the camps in Germany, or hidden among the Poles. The Final Years After the war’s end some surviving Polish Jews tried to return to their homes, and found them occupied by Poles, who either drove them out, or in some cases, murdered them. The survivors heard sayings like “What a pity that Hitler did not

16  Eli Tzur kill you all”. As Poland included formerly German territory the new government intended to populate it with non‑Germans, and the government directed the Jews there. In 1944, the Union of Polish Patriots, the Polish Communist organization on Soviet soil, signed a treaty with the Soviet government regarding the repatriation of Polish citizen from USSR. Some 150,000 Jews were among those who returned to Poland, evoking a combination of three fears (Jews, Russians, Communists) in the Polish antisemitic imagination, that pushed them to violence. The most infamous antisemitic event was the Kielce pogrom of July 1946 when over 40 Jews were murdered by members of the local Polish population, touching off Jewish migra‑ tion from Poland to the west. There is a parallel story. Soon after the liberation the Polish government accused of being Soviet tool presented itself as democratic, progressive, and open minded. One of the targets it attempted to influence were the American Jews. The repatriate Emil Sommerstein was nominated as Minister for Jewish affairs. After the libera‑ tion the influx of survivors and demobilized soldiers required a relief institution. Thus, the Central Jewish Committee (CJC) was born. Built on pluralist political representation, it dealt with cultural, medical, housing, occupational issues, and other problems. The CJC, founded by the Joint Distribution Committee (sponsor‑ ing manufacturing cooperatives, Jewish hospitals, and theaters) and the Polish au‑ thorities, presented the Jewish community to the government. The CJC changed its character under the impact of two elements: the dwindling number of Jews which deteriorated from 210,000 in the spring of 1946 to less than 100,000 a year later. The other reason was a change in the government’s political line. In September 1947, the heads of the Communist parties in Europe decided to adapt the Soviet economic model and change their multiparty political system (with the Communist predominance) to one‑party regimes. In Poland, all the parties were either annulled or merged, with one exception: the Jewish parties of the CJC. In 1949, under the pressure of the Jewish caucus in the Communist party, the state announced a mass emigration of Jews to Israel. The initial idea was to rid Poland of Zionist activists, invalids, and non‑productive persons, but in the an‑ nouncement, every Jew was entitled to emigrate. Toward the end of 1949, all the non‑Communist entities ceased to exist and the CJC was recreated as Social‑ Cultural Association. The new institution was modeled on the religious congrega‑ tions of the pre‑war years. When immigration to Israel was abruptly stopped in August 1950, there were Polish Jews who decided to rebuild Jewish life in Poland. After 1950, the Jews reestablished their cultural life, while accepting the Pol‑ ish political realities. They were helped by the regime’s attitude, which equated antisemitism with anti‑Communism. But in 1956, with Khrushchev in power in USSR, a new government hoped for public support, and for once, Poles could express themselves publicly. The openly voiced antisemitism convinced both the government and the Jewish population to emigrate, mainly to Israel. This time about 50,000 Jews left Poland and those who remained, although of Jewish de‑ scent, viewed themselves as Poles, or as Communists without national roots. During the late 1960s, the economic situation in Poland deteriorated, and the general atmosphere of discontent was mirrored within the Party by infighting of

Jews in 20th-Century Poland  17 various factions. In the aftermath of the Six‑Day War a group of Communist func‑ tionaries led by General Mieczysław Moczar presented Israel as the spearhead of American imperialism against the Soviet bloc. Polish Jews were pictured as Israeli agents, even the stalwart Communists. Moczar mobilized traditional Polish anti‑ semitism in order to gain popularity with the Party rank and file. About 12,000 dis‑ gruntled Jews, who viewed themselves as Poles or nationless, left Poland, mainly to the Scandinavian states. Thus, the story of the large and vibrant Jewish community of Poland, of its trag‑ edies and calamities, ended in a silent cry.

Part II

Studies of Wartime

2

The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland According to the Akedat Yitzchak Book Lior Alperovitch

Introduction1 Rabbi Yitzchak Menachem Mendel Danziger (1880–1942) was the leader of the second‑largest Hasidic community in Poland between the two World Wars.2 The Rabbi, who according to the Hasidic tradition was named after his book – Akedat Yitzchak (Binding of Isaac)  –  was the fourth in the Alexander (Aleksandrów Łódzki) Hasidic dynasty. Apart from minimal references in books and articles, lit‑ tle research has been done about his life and works. This chapter will not present a comprehensive picture of these topics, but will rather illuminate one aspect related to the character of his Hasidic leadership and understanding: how Rabbi Danziger responded to the antisemitic governmental policy in Poland during the late 1930s, and the Nazi invasion, and how these responses reflect his perception of Hasidic leadership. There are very limited sources, especially primary sources, to probe such a topic. My main source will be his book Akedat Yitzchak, which is a file of sermons edited by one of his disciples. The book itself contains sermons, interpretations, and letters written by Rabbi Danziger. Analyzing it will help to explain the Rabbi’s positions on various issues that arose between 1935 and 1939. My goal is to show how the history of this period was reflected and interpreted by a Hasidic leader and how these reflections and interpretations express R. Danziger’s position as a Hassidic Tzadik (righteous and holy person) of the central Polish variety. How, by expressing his inability to perform miracles, he reflects the pure perception of being the religious representative of a member of the Peshischa school of Has‑ sidic thought, with its particular overtones. In fact, his informing his disciples with complete honesty that he can make only limited efforts to ameliorate the situation reflects more than anything the true meaning of being a Tzadik according to his Hasidic interpretation. From Peshischa to Alexander – A Central Polish Type of Tzadik Rabbi Danziger was a Hasidic Leader. His entire lifestyle was inspired and shaped by the main principles of Hasidism, a spiritual and mystical movement that was founded by Rabbi Yisrael Ben Eliezer, a mystical and popular righteous man who DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-5

22  Lior Alperovitch was known by his nickname, the “Ba’al Shem Tov” (Master of the Good Name, also known in the acronyms – “Besht”). He lived in Ukraine, most of the time in Międzybóż, during the first third of the 18th century. In a nutshell, the fundamental principle of Hasidism is that there is a wide range of ways to achieve the basic religious goal of life, known as Kirvat Hashem (close‑ ness to the Almighty), a Hebrew term describing a sort of intimate connection with the Divine as an infinite entity. For that reason, Hasidic thought emphasized not only the act of fulfilling the commandment (mitzvot) but the way in which they are fulfilled in practice. In this context, abstract terms, such as intentions (Kavanot), happiness (Simcha), or devoutness (Dvekut), become very significant in Hasidism.3 Nevertheless, the problem of conducting a religious congregation according to such abstract principles still remains and Hasidism encouraged the first disciples to follow, and in some cases to imitate, the Tzadik, an inspirational figure who can serve as a guide on how to embody and apply these principles. The Tzadik, there‑ fore, became not only just a spiritual leader but the main pivot, responsible for any matter related to his congregation’s existence, including economic welfare.4 The Besht passed away in 1760, and his successor in the leadership of the Ha‑ sidic movement was Rabbi Dov Ber the “Magid ” (Narrator) who handled his center in Mezhirichi (Międzyrzecz Korecki). After his death in 1772, the move‑ ment split into a large number of congregations, led by many of Rabbi Dov’s dis‑ ciples and other Tzadikim who adopted the Hasidic principles. A prominent one was Rabbi Elimelech Weisblum, who founded the first Hassidic court in Leżajsk, and is therefore considered to be the founder of the Polish Hasidic branch. Like in other Hasidic centers, in Poland as well, the movement continued to split into sub‑ communities and schools of thought, each named after the location of their local Hassidic court. One noticeable such court was established during the first decades of the 19th century in the town of Peshischa.5 Its unique character was prioritized in  the intellectual aspect. According to the Peshischa school of thought, the es‑ sence of the Tzadik’s capacity referrers to the intellectual welfare of his disciples. Therefore, he was considered not just a miracle worker like other Hassidic leaders but also a spiritual leader and counselor. The Alexander Hasidic congregation was a direct subbranch of Peshischa, especially in the sense of adopting its Tzadik‑type capacity perception, which I will elucidate upon in the case of Rabbi Danziger. Rabbi Danziger: Biographical Details Rabbi Yitzchak Menachem Mendel Danziger was born in 1880 in Alexander, a town which, unlike other towns that had long‑standing Hasidic, and therefore Jewish, communities, was a relatively new settlement with a developing Jewish population. His main educators were his father, Rabbi Shmuel Tzvi, the third Rebbe (Has‑ sidic rabbi) of Alexander, and his uncle, Rabbi Yerachmiel Yisrael Yitzchak, the second Rabbi of Alexander, who was known as the author of Yismach Yisrael, a basic Hasidic text that emphasizes the practical dimension of the Hasidic lifestyle. Another important principle of his Hassidic group was Jewish brotherhood as a

The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland  23 matter of collective responsibility.6 As we will later see, understanding the mean‑ ing of that principle is crucial for understanding Rabbi Danziger’s self‑perception as a Hasidic leader. Shortly after his Bar Mitzva ceremony, Rabbi Danziger was married to Chana Auerbach, daughter of an affluent Alexander Hasid from Lodz. Over the years, they had a dozen children. In 1924, he replaced his late father as the fourth Rabbi of Alexander and has followers all over Poland.7 He resided in a house next to the Yeshiva, which he opened again after it had been closed during the First World War. He named it Beis Yisroel (Home of Israel) after his uncle, the second Rabbi of Alex‑ ander. It soon developed into a network of institutions that operated all over Poland. Although he suffered from an eyes disease, which made him almost totally blind, hundreds of Jews gathered in his house looking for health blessings and cures.8 Two main issues form the background of R. Danziger’s public activity. The first was the polemic with the Gur Hasidic community that has been covered com‑ prehensively in scholarly works.9 It is important to note this issue because of the connection to the Agudath Israel party, which was the main orthodox political representative party in Poland, controlled by Rabbi Yisrael Alter from Ger (Góra Kalwaria). The second issue was the antisemitic policy of the Polish government, particularly following the death of the Polish president Marshall Józef Piłsudski in May 1935, and its local antisemitic continuation after the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. In the Political Arena Rabbi Danziger’s decision to rejoin the Agudath Israel party was not an obvious one, and it was influenced by the general political and economic atmosphere in Poland. Above all this act surely reflects R. Danziger’s political and historical per‑ ception, which was opposite to his late father, R. Shmuel Zvi the third Rabbi of Alexander. After all, even though in the beginning his father supported the es‑ tablishment of the party in 1919, a short time later he abandoned it and joined the Zionist religious Mizrachi movement. The reason for this unusual move was not based on ideological support for Zionism but was rather a political one, and it should be considered in the context of the polemic with Gur. Even though the rela‑ tionship between Alexander and Agudath Israel Party is described by some as es‑ trangement and hostility.10 The reality was much more complicated, as we can see how on the one hand R. Danziger supported the Agudath Israel list in the elections for the Polish Sejm in 1930 while rejecting the Zionist list.11 But on the other hand, in 1936, his name was signed in a radical call against the Agudath Israel party, for being responsible for the “destruction and burning” of Polish Jewry,12 while the Polemic with Gur, which held political connotations, was continuing.13 It therefore appears that even though Rabbi Danziger is described as a moderate leader who avoided any kind of political activity and chose to be neutral in gen‑ eral politics, the historical documentation reveals a different picture, and it seems that he was much more involved in public matters that originally thought. This is especially true since  1930, when the economic situation in Poland worsened,

24  Lior Alperovitch affecting many Jewish families as a result. In Alexander, in particular, the results of the economic crisis were devastating. Although Alexander was only relatively a small town, and the Jewish population was approximately 3,500,14 it was known as the “the town of socks” or “a city of sock weavers”,15 for being a center of tex‑ tile manufacturing between the two world wars. The economic significance of that with regard to Alexander’s Jewish community, in which the majority worked in the textile industry,16 is that after the economic crisis in 1929, the community suffered from a great economic depression. If a skilled worker earned 25–30 Zlotys before the crisis, his salary was cut in half after 1929.17 All of that changed in August 1937 and R. Danziger became one of Agudath Is‑ rael’s great supporters and regular participants in the party’s activities. The reason can be related to local politics in Alexander, where elections for the city council were to be held in 1938. The economic situation caused a lot of the Jewish city residents to support the left‑wing labor parties and this move treated the Hasidic position as the strongest and larger Jewish representative in the city council.18 It is now clear why this kind of struggle, which probably was similar to that taking place in other places all over Poland, forced R. Danziger to supported by a great, and no less important organized political power. Confronting the Antisemitic Governmental Policy and the Capacity of the Tzadik Another reason for the change in R. Danziger’s political approach was caused by the local Polish anti‑Jewish political atmosphere. Pilsudsky’s death in 1935 re‑ moved the last barrier from the antisemitic Endecja party, which took control of the Polish government and actively promoted the idea of treating Poland’s three and a half million Jews as foreign objects in the Polish national body. During the seventh month of Prime Minister Zyndram‑Kościałkowski’s weak regime and on‑ ward, between October 1935 and May 1936, antisemitic economic policy raised its ugly head. This policy worsened and spread all over the country under the next Prime Minister, Sławoj Składkowski, who, encouraged by the “Second Man”, Ed‑ ward Rydz‑Śmigły, officially called for a boycott against the Jewish population. The directly contradicted the principles of the “Minority Convention” that were a key requirement for the recognition of Polish self‑determination by the victorious nations of World War I.19 It is not surprising that even though Sławoj Składkowski specifically called for economic sanctions against the Jews and not for violence,20 a wave of pogroms struck the Polish Jewish community in March 1936. The first one began in Przytyk and soon after spread out to Minsk Mazowiecki, Brest Litovsk, Czestochowa, and Bialystok. From May 1935 to the fall of 1937, 118 Jews were killed in Poland and about 350 people were hurt as a result of antisemitic acts.21 The atrocities inspired Mordechai Gebirtig, a Jewish poet from Krakow to write a poem entitled Es brent (“it’s burning”), a warning that would become an obscure prophecy for the Holocaust. But it seems that the most prominent action that sym‑ bolized the anti‑Jewish governmental policy was the restrictions on kosher slaugh‑ ter (shechita) which were applied on February 7, 1936.

The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland  25 There are those scholars who treat the campaign against shechita as a matter that was generally motivated generally by economic reasons.22 But, as I wish to show, the Jewish protests against this action were strongly religious in character.23 Thus, the main political Jewish power that stood against it was the ultra‑orthodox Agudath Israel party and its main demonstrative act was the use of a public fast (Taanit Tzibur),24 an action usually reserved for severe public problems, usually one related to food shortages.25 For R. Danziger, the significance of consuming Kosher food was more than physical sustenance. He believed that Kosher food had an inherent ability to be a protector from heretical thoughts and assimilation.26 From the point of view of the Hasidic leadership, and especially according to R. Danziger’s perspective, the main significant thing in this context was the capac‑ ity of the Tzadik as being responsible for the people in his care. In his book, he quoted the Hassidic Rebbe of Peshischa, R. Simcha Bunim who made a distinction between the Tzadik’s capacity before Abraham existence, and after that time. The main difference was that before Abraham’s time, the Tzadik was a selfish type, and in the period after Abraham, the Tzadik’s main concern was for the people of his generation.27 As I would like to show, the clash between the Hasidic ideal of the Tzadik, and the historical situation caused R. Danziger to act in an unusual and unexpected way. Thus, his historical understanding of the political situation of the late 1930s caused him to be loyal to the main principles of being a central Polish Tzadik type, which means to conduct himself according to the values of the Pesh‑ ischa school and admit, one way or another, his inability to help. R. Danziger made prominent reference to the situation in several talks which were given during the Hanukkah holiday of 1936. On the first night, he referred to the misery of the Jews who like a woman kneeling to give birth, are “tortured and oppressed by all kinds of troubles and adventures”.28 But this suffering has a good divine purpose that is implicated in the historical context. Like the women who suffer for the birth of a child, so the people of Israel are suffering for the moment in which the Messiah will come. Like in other relevant cases, R. Danziger finds simi‑ larity to the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt,29 which leads him to the relationship between Jacob and Esau. For his listeners, the analogy is crystal clear. The Polish government is nothing more than a contemporary representative of the biblical Esau, the ancient father of Edom, the nickname of Christian Europe.30 A piece of evidence that reflects the historical meaning of the Poles being the contemporary successors Esau can be found in the way R. Danziger describes in Yiddish (!) how Jacob’s sons are suffering at present from “broken hearts and all their heads are full of pain”.31 This is not the only time that R. Danziger uses a historical religious interpreta‑ tion to spread his critical messages that address the Polish government’s antise‑ mitic character. As a matter of fact, all of the Hanukah sermons can be read as such. Thus, we can understand the harsh and unusual language he chooses to describe “the cursed Greeks, may their name perish”, as he referred to them.32 In one place, he says it in a clearer and more decisive way when he claims that with his own eyes, each Jew can see his own situation, when “the damned evildoers, may their name perish, do whatever they want”.33

26  Lior Alperovitch An accurate reference to the economic decrees was made by R. Danziger in his 1936 Passover sermon. The Rabbi focused on the deprivation and misery that many Jews experience as a consequence of the numerous taxes that the Polish gov‑ ernment levied against them. To depict this misery, he used well‑known biblical terms describing the methods by which Pharaoh tortured the Hebrews slaves under Egypt’s laws. The sermon was somber and described the Jews who barely endure life under the present Polish government policy, which aims to degrade the Jews toward utter hopelessness.34 Glenn Dynner has noted that R. Danziger finds the explanation in a certain Jewish man who had failed to “guard the covenant”, a code name for the masturbation prohibition.35 But there is another way to understand it in a much broader religious sense. The opening of the paragraph deals with the meaning of “poverty bread” (Lechem Oni), the biblical nickname of the Matzah which is eaten all seven days of Passover.36 The semantic similarity is clear, as the Rabbi himself said in his own words, referring to the symbolic connection between this feature of the Matzah and the government’s prohibition of selling bread by Jews, which should be treated not as a concrete decree but as a metaphor for the difficult economic situation.37 At this point, the Rabbi refers to the sin that caused the suffering of lack of bread in Egypt – “for they did not keep the sign of the holy covenant”, with the mean‑ ing of the sign being circumcision.38 The Rabbi’s purpose in using those Halachic (Jewish Law) and Kabbalistic mystical terms was to point to the tension between the revealed, and therefore sacred, and the hidden and thus impure,39 which is re‑ lated to the Rabbi’s main message: the Polish government’s aim is to assimilate, or even convert the Jews by causing them to eat unkosher food, by degrading the Jews to the point of extreme poverty and starvation.40 One can therefore understand R. Danziger’s dedication toward fighting the prohibition of Kosher slaughtering, why it received such special attention that caused him to publish a personal public and general call on the subject.41 From any perspective, this was a unique and un‑ common act for a person who, as mentioned before, preferred not to be involved in political matters. So why did he do it? Because, as I wish to claim, it was part of his capacity as a Hassidic Rebbe and leader, particularly a central Polish one that was a branch of the Peshischa school of thought in which the Rebbe is not just a conduit of heavenly prosperity.42 According to this perspective, the situation of the Jews causes a spiritual down‑ fall that limits the ability of the Tzadik to help them. Consequently, the reliance on the Rebbe is both circular and double. The Tzadik depends on the community, and the community depends on him, with the historical circumstances providing the foundation on which this circle is built. We can therefore find three types of Tzadikim. The first type dedicates himself to praying and studying. The second type acts with a sense of responsibility for the people. The third one completely negates himself in favor of the worship of God and only those are capable of eliminating decrees and turning them into mercy, so that finally, they did not exist at all.43 But, and this is the key point, R. Danziger does not consider himself as one of the third type. For a leader in his capacity, it is obvious why he says it only in an indirect way, but the message is very clear. There are no

The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland  27 Tzadikim to lean on,44 so the Jews must forbid themselves from non‑kosher food, for this is the only way to salvation. “We turned to the right, and there was no helper. We turned to the left and there was no supporter… so we have no one to lean on but our Heavenly Father”.45 Three years later, when the clouds of war will become a horrify‑ ing reality for the Jews of Poland, this sentence will take on its deep Hasidic meaning. Toward the Dark Future The first sign of the German arrival was seen in few days after the beginning of the war, when Nazi airplanes flew over Alexander. Three days after the invasion, Jewish refugees from the Western Polish‑occupied territories started to arrive in Alexander, bringing with them rumors of atrocities that Germans were committing against Jews.46 On September 5th, the Polish government officials escaped from Al‑ exander and a rumor spread in town that all the army veterans must leave and join after the withdrawing Polish army.47 The uncertainty of the new situation caused many Jewish families to escape, the majority of them to Łodz, leaving behind their property, which was looted and demolished by local Poles. Among those fleeing was R. Danziger and his family, who fled to Łodz. The precise date is unknown, but it appears that he did not see the demolition of his house and synagogue, and there is but one piece of evidence regarding his response to all that happened. Just be‑ fore leaving, his brother, Rabbi Avraham Chaim, asked whether the period to come would be like the Cossack riots against Jewish communities in 1648 and 1649. A brief response came from the Rebbe, “I see even more [difficulties ahead]”.48 Although this comment can be treated as mystical, it should be not read as a prophecy, but as a reflection of R. Danziger’s historical understanding of the new situation. At that point, R. Danziger did not feel the brutality of the Nazi policy which was yet to express itself in Poland. But something in the atmosphere con‑ vinced him that the Nazis were going to be different from any other familiar antise‑ mitic policy. As Emanuel Melzer wrote in his study of Polish Jewry, predicting the Holocaust was unreasonable, but the dark cloud of a possible war between Poland and Nazi Germany cast its shadow everywhere, and the option of a Nazi conquest of Poland was very realistic.49 This assumption can be based on several pieces of evidence. Nazi activity in Alexander was conducted by local Germans right after Hitler was elected as chan‑ cellor.50 Many probably identified with the Nazis, so on August 16, 1939, two weeks before the war began, the Polish authorities arrested a mass of local Germans.51 Moreover, clashes between Germans and Jews in Alexander were not a rare phenomenon. During the summer of 1934, locals of German origin encouraged a group of non‑local German youth to come to Alexander and “have fun” with the Jews, as one eyewitness stated.52 The group gathered at Benke’s German restaurant and after becoming drunk, started to beat Jews passing by. A few hours later the German group left Alexander after receiving a threat from 400 Jewish young men that were organized to fight them. Although the Jews succeeded to protect them‑ selves, it seems that the occasion was not forgotten by the local Germans, who waited for an act of revenge.53

28  Lior Alperovitch The last piece of evidence is based on sermons delivered by Polish rabbis who tried to describe the new character of Nazi antisemitism. Among those were the prominent responses by R. Raphael Yechezkel Hochberg from Gliniany, the author of the Divrei Yechezkel book.54 The second is Akavta Demeshicha, which was written by R. Elchonon BunimWasserman from Baranowicze, one of the Agudath Israel party’s famous leaders.55 All of this was probably familiar to R. Danziger, who was a prominent participant in public protest activities against Nazi anti‑Jewish policy, since its inception in Germany, that had been organized by Agudath Israel.56 We lack details about his activity under the Nazi occupation. We know that right after the German invasion he moved to Łodz.57 There he continued to organize Hasidic gatherings (Tish).58 Some interesting details about him are mentioned in Shimon Huberband’s book, Kiddush Hashem. A special issue of the notorious Nazi magazine Der Stürmer from early January 1940, dealt with him.59 From Łodz, he was smuggled to Warsaw. From this point on, testimonies tell two different stories. Huberband writes that he hid there during the winter of 1939–1940, after which he moved to Otwock where he remained at least until June 1942.60 Makover writes that the Rabbi was in the ghetto with his family, hiding for part of the time until he needed to work. After that, he worked as a cobbler in Schulz’s shoe factory.61 Dur‑ ing the month of Elul (late August\early September) 1942, R. Danziger was sent on a transport to Treblinka, where he was murdered. Notes 1 I wish to thank Prof. Judy Baumel‑Schwartz, Prof. Benjamin Brown, Dr.  Dafna Schreiber, and special thanks to Prof. Glenn Dynner, for letting me read the relevant chapter in the draft of his forthcoming book. 2 Piekarz, 1997: 69. Schreiber, 2014: 177, n. 13. 3 There have been many academic attempts to precisely describe the term Dvekut, as it is so central for Hassidism, but it is so difficult to understand. Etkes, 1998: 123–129; Dyn‑ ner, 2006: 255, n. 32. 4 Idel, 2000: 371–377. 5 For comprehensive research on the subject, see Gellman, 2018. Especially from the sixth chapter onward. 6 Eshkoli, 1953: 129; Schreiber, 2014: 193. 7 Makover’s Hagiography contains a list of 114 places all over Poland where there was a synagogue of Alexander Hasidim. Makover, 2011: 18–21. 8 Shmueli, 1986: 93. 9 Schreiber, 2014. 10 Bacon, 1991: 158. 11 Dos Yudishe Togblat 37 (Warsaw), November 12, 1930: 3, 7. 12 Goldstein, 1936: 56. 13 Dos Yudishe Togblat 238 (Warsaw), July 10, 1931: 11. 14 Dabrowska, and Wein, 1976: 54. 15 Shmueli, 1986: 64. 16 In 1921, there were 127 textile factories, which were 65% of all the businesses. Further, 88% of all the Jewish employees worked in textiles. Blumental, 1968: 32–33. 17 Pinkas, 1976: 56. 18 Blumental, 1968: 117. 19 Bacon, 2005: 22.

The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland  29 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Melzer, 1982: 55. Reinharz and Shavit, 2018: 38–41. Melzer, 1982: 78; Tomaszewski, 1997: 425. A prime example of it can be found in a sermon given by Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport, a famous disciple of the Gerrer Rebbe. See Rappaport, 1936: 71–74. Dos Yudishe Togblat 114 (Warsaw), February 11, 1936: 1. BT Yuma 39a, 80a. Sefer ha‑Chinuch, Mitzvah 73. See Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Fasts, 1.1, Danziger, 2005: 174. Danziger, 2005: 35–36. Danziger, 2005: 27. Rappaport, 1936: 73. Yuval, 2001: 26–27. Danziger, 2005: 30. Danziger, 2005: 21, 25, 31, 38, 39. Danziger, 2005: 89. Danziger, 2005: 74. Dynner, 2023: 5:33. Deuteronomy, 16:3. Danziger, 2005: 74. Danziger, 2005: 74. Yaakov haLevi M’Marvish, Shut min haShomayim, Note 5; Danziger, 2005: 75. Danziger, 2005: 75. Dos Yudishe Togblat 140 (Warsaw), March 5, 1937: 11. Idel, 2000: 371–377. Danziger, 2005: 59. Danziger, 2005: 75. Danziger, 2005: 75. Rivka Stein (Sherman) testimony, Blumental, 1968: 227. Gedaliah Frenkental testimony, Blumental, 1968: 211. Makover, 2011: 420. Melzer, 1997: 448. See Meir Alek testimony, Blumental, 1968: 257. See Ben Zion Pomerantz testimony, Blumental, 1968: 199. A. Vielenski testimony, Blumental, 1968: 214. Blumental, 1968: 215. Piekarz, 1997: 301–302. Wasserman, 2009: 306. Dos Yudishe Togblat 147 (Warsaw), March 27, 1933: 1; Dos Yudishe Togblat 144 (War‑ saw), August 19, 1934: 8. Makover, 2011: 420. Aharonson, 1996: 342–343. Huberband, 1969: 255. Huberband, 1969: 297. Makover, 2011: 437.

Bibliography Aharonson, Yehosua Moshe, 1996. Ale Merorot, Bnei Brak: Private Publishing (Hebrew). Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat, Ta’anit, Yoma, Brachot tractates. Bible, Deuteronomy, Psalms. Bacon, Gershon C.  1991. “Haredi Conceptions of Obligations and Rights: Polish Jewry, c. 1900–1939”. In: Jewish Political Studies Review, Fall 1991, Vol. 3, No. 3/4, Obliga‑ tions and Rights in the Jewish Political Tradition (Fall 1991): 85–95.

30  Lior Alperovitch Blumental, Nachman (ed.), 1968. Aleksandrów Łodzki – Yizkor Book, Tel Aviv: Irgun Yotze Lodz BeIsrael Publishing (Hebrew). Dabrowska, Danuta and Wein, Abraham (eds.), 1976. Pinkas haKehillot, Poland, Vol. I, The Communities of Lodz and Its Region, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Press (Hebrew). Danziger, Yitzchak Menachem Mendel, 5765 2005. Akedat Yitzchak, Bnai Brak: Chasidei Alexander Institute Publishing (Hebrew). Dynner, Glenn, 2006. Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dynner, Glenn, 2023. The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holo‑ caust, Oxford University Press (in Print). Eshkoli, Zeev A., 1953. “Hassidism in Poland”, in: Israel Hailperin (ed.), Beit Yisrael BePolin, Jerusalem: HaMachlak Leinianei HaNoar Shel HaHistadrut HaZionit (Hebrew): 86–99. Etkes, Immanuel, 1998. The Beginning of the Hasidic Movement, Tel Aviv: HaUniversita HaMeshuderet Press. (Hebrew) Gellman, Uriel, 2018. The Emergence of Hasidism in Poland. Jerusalem: The Zalman vGoldstein, Moshe, 1936. Tikun Olam, Mukachevo: H. Guttman Printing (Hebrew). Huberband, Shimon, 1969. Kiddush Hashem: Ketavim Miyimei Hashoah, Tel‑Aviv: Zachor. Idel, Moshe, 2000. Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, Tel Aviv: Schocken Press (Hebrew). Jerusalem Talmud, Ta’anit tractate, Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Fasts 1.1. Makover, Yehuda, 2011. Roe Neeman, Bnei Brak: Private Publishing (Hebrew). Melzer, Emanuel, 1982. Political Strife in a Blind Alley: The Jews in Poland 1935–1939, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press (Hebrew). Melzer, Emanuel, 1997. “HaMa’arch HaPoliti Nochach Hakzanat Haantishemiut”, in: Israel Bartal and Israel Gutman (eds.), The Broken Chain: Polish Jewry Through the Ages, Je‑ rusalem: Zalman Shazar center Press: 427–450 (Hebrew). Piekarz, Mende, 1997. Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland during the Interwar Period and the Holocaust, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute (Hebrew). Piekarz, Mendel, 1999. The Hasidic Leadership: Authority and Faith in Zadicim as Re‑ flected in the Hasidic Literature, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute (Hebrew). Rappaport, Shabtai, 1936. Sifsei Kohanim, Bilgoraj: N. Kronenberg Printing (Hebrew). Reinharz, Yehuda and Shavit, Yaacov, 2018. The Road to September 1939: Polish Jews, Zionists, and the Yishuv on the Eve of World War II, Waltham: Brandeis University Press. Schreiber, Dafna, 2014. “The Dispute between Gur and Alexander and Its Impact on Polish Hasidism in the First Half of the Twentieth Century”, Zion 79, no. B: 175–199 (Hebrew). Shmueli, Efraim, 1986. With the Last Generation of Jews in Poland, Tel Aviv: Alef Publish‑ ers (Hebrew). Tomaszewski, Jerzy, 1997. “Ha‑Yehudim be‑meshek Polin be‑shanim 1918–1939”, in: Is‑ rael Bartal and Israel Gutman (eds.), The Broken Chain: Polish Jewry Through the Ages, Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar center Press: 415–426 (Hebrew). Wasserman, Elchonon Bunim, 2009. Kovetz Shiurim, Jerusalem: Ohel Torah Publishing (Hebrew). Yaakov haLevi M’Marvish, 1957. Shut min haShomayim, Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook Press (Hebrew). Yuval, Israel J., 2001. Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians, Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishing (Hebrew).

3

“I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!” Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) Meets Holocaust Refugees from the German‑Occupied Part of Poland, 1939–1941 Yaacov Falkov

Introduction: An Under‑Explored Aspect of Jewish History On 23 October 1939, about a month after the joint German‑Soviet occupation of the Second Polish Republic, David‑Leib Rosenbaum, a 30‑year‑old Jewish watch‑ maker from the German‑ruled southwestern Polish city of Trzebinia, crossed the newly demarcated German‑Soviet border, moving east. He immediately fell into the hands of a patrol deployed by the 93rd Border Detachment (pogranotriad) of the Soviet security and intelligence service, the NKVD. The soldiers detained him as a border trespasser and transferred to the prison in the city of Lvov1 for further identification and clarification of his intentions.2 To his Soviet interrogators Rosenbaum explained that “Jews cannot live in the territory captured by the Germans” because of relentless beatings and shootings for the slightest sign of disobedience, as well as exhaustion by deliberate starva‑ tion and forced labor.3 This emotional evidence of the initial stage of the Holocaust on Polish soil was protocoled by the NKVD personnel, but, unfortunately, failed to help its source. The young Jewish‑Polish watchmaker, whose only “guilt” was trying to save his life by fleeing Nazi hell, was accused of “illegally crossing the border from Germany to the Soviet Union” and sentenced to three long years in one of the Gulag’s “corrective labor camps.”4 The exodus of Polish Jews from the part of their homeland occupied by the Third Reich to the Soviet Union, in 1939–1941, has already been addressed by the histori‑ ography of the Holocaust in Poland. It was established that during the period under discussion about 1.5 million Polish Jews were gathered within the redrawn Soviet borders, of which up to 300,000 came from the German‑occupied Polish lands. Nor unnoticed was the fact that in 1940–1941 close to one fifth of that entire group, 281,000 men and women (including as many as 100,000 who fled the German por‑ tion of Poland), faced forced deportation to the Soviet hinterland, followed by im‑ prisonment and often also death. Thousands of the deportees were accused, like David‑Leib Rosenbaum, of entering the “first worker‑peasant state” illegally, many others were considered “class aliens” or suspected of aiding the Nazis because of their requests to return to their homes and families in central and western Poland.5 DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-6

32  Yaacov Falkov However, the existing historiography of this important phenomenon is mainly based on memories and testimonies of the refugees themselves; or, as Eliyana Adler puts it in her brilliant Survival on the Margins: “allowing the voices of the former refugees to guide the narrative.”6 The Soviet side of the story, including the treatment of the Jewish detainees by the NKVD and the information extracted from them about the reasons that prompted them to leave for the east, remained gener‑ ally overlooked.7 Although limited in scope, this chapter intends to begin filling the historiographical gap using the relevant interrogation files of the Ukrainian NKVD that the author found in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and those he received from the Archive of the Ukrainian Security Service (DA SBU).8 Apart from extracting details about the suffering of Jews in newly occupied Poland, as well as about the practices of escape across the Soviet border, these files will be used to highlight hitherto unknown NKVD procedures for dealing with Polish‑Jewish refugees considered by the Soviets “border trespassers.” From the Unbearable to the Unknown: Becoming a Refugee “For what purpose did you come to Soviet territory?” – this was one of the first standard questions that the NKVD asked people who, by its definition, had “ille‑ gally crossed the Soviet border,” leaving the German‑held Polish lands.9 The an‑ swers, although varying in style, revealed several specific types of circumstances that led Polish Jews  –  mostly young single males, but sometimes also young ­females10 – to the neighboring communist country and, consequently, to the inter‑ rogation cellars of its secret police. Firstly, there was a group, whose representatives had no intention to flee anywhere at all. Some of them moved east from their towns and villages in September–early October 1939, before the new 1,389‑kilometer‑long Soviet‑German border was finally demarcated and sealed,11 and then suddenly realized that the Red Army had overrun their shelters, and these now belong to the Soviet state. For example, ­Natan Plaisner, a 17‑year‑old Jewish boy from the village of Jawornik Polski, fled to the neighboring town Przemyśl and ended up in Soviet rear without physically cross‑ ing any border. Since his village remained in the hands of the Germans, for the NKVD he was neither a local resident obliged to take Soviet citizenship, nor a foreigner formally allowed to enter the Soviet Union. In June 1940, he was arrested and accused of border trespassing.12 Others, like the young Jewish housewife Maria Chorowicz, were stopped by German soldiers, driven to the Soviet border and told “to immediately leave ­German territory”13; or, like the Jewish boy Alfred Engel, were first brought to forced labor near the German‑Soviet border, and then expelled to the USSR under the threat of execution.14 And there were also Jews from eastern Poland caught up in the war in central and the western parts of their country who were desper‑ ately trying to get to their homes and families, despite being unable, for a myriad of reasons, to obtain official German and Soviet permissions. These people did not consider themselves refugees. One of them, a 24‑year‑old former Polish sol‑ dier Shmul Mazurok, who fought the Germans and was wounded in battle, spent

“I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”  33 about two months at the Soviet border, waiting for a “Soviet commission” that was presumably repatriating persons like him to their places of birth now already on Soviet soil. When representatives of the commission failed to appear, on March 4, 1940, the frustrated Mazurok crossed the borderline illegally and was treated by the NKVD as a criminal.15 Among those who purposefully sought refuge in the Soviet state, some, espe‑ cially at the beginning of the German occupation, were not personally affected by the occupiers’ anti‑Jewish policy, but having heard of it from others, decided to move east. Israel Wilner, a 14‑year‑old Jewish boy who reached Soviet territory in February 1940, was among them. His older brother arrived at their family house in an east‑Polish village and reported that the new authorities began persecuting Jews, marking them with special bandages and depriving of jobs. This was enough for the brothers to cross the Soviet border.16 However, over time, the NKVD network of border detachments began catching those who personally got acquainted with German atrocities. “The Germans per‑ secute the Jews on daily basis, murder them for no reason,” testified 19‑year‑old Maer Mer from the city of Klimontów.17 Many also explained their decision to cross the border by the desire to reunite with close relatives now living in the USSR,18 and there were even those who claimed to be members of the Communist Party of Poland and shared their fear of being persecuted as both communists and Jews.19 Whatever the reason, those who decided to move east had to find ways to do so. Some, like 34‑year‑old Jakub Markus from Łódź, applied to the German comman‑ dant’s offices in major cities for official permits to cross the German‑Soviet bor‑ der and stood in lines for hours with many other Jewish applicants.20 Others went straight to places where, according to rumors and tips from the locals, refugees were smuggled or even allowed to legally cross bridges over the border San River. Such a trip could take many hours and even days. David‑Leib Rosenbaum traveled by train about 200 kilometers from Trzebinia to Rzeszów, where he needed to find a horse‑drawn cart that took him and a group of his companions to a small Polish vil‑ lage near San.21 Juda‑Hersz Bursztein covered greater distances by train, about 330 kilometers from Sosnowiec through Kraków to the Soviet border near Przemyśl, and then walked another five kilometers to a Soviet checkpoint.22 A Risky and Expensive Venture: Crossing the Soviet Border The physical arrival of refugees at the German‑Soviet border did not assure that they could cross it. That, in itself, proved to be a highly difficult task. There were Jews who tried to avoid possible trouble by acting in accordance with obscure Ger‑ man and Soviet regulations. On October 24, 1939, Joel‑Kalman Poper and his eight companions arrived in the border town of Sanok. There, for a standard fee of one Polish złoty at the local German commandant’s office, they were given official permits to enter the border zone and cross into Soviet territory. They immediately headed toward the nearby bridge connecting the German and Soviet banks of the San River. At the bridge’s entrance, the Gestapo officer checked their papers, took

34  Yaacov Falkov each of them aside for a thorough body search, and then delivered the group to the Soviet border guards. But then came a nasty surprise: the Soviets ignored the just‑ issued German permits and arrested the poor asylum seekers as border trespassers.23 Other unlucky permit holders were simply stopped at a Soviet checkpoint on the bridge and sent back to German territory. Unable to use the legal passage, they turned to local Polish and Ukrainian guides and human smugglers.24 The latter were easy to find, even through local Jews who lived near the border.25 Sometimes, they hosted the refugees in their homes for a night and then took them to border loopholes supposedly unguarded by German and Soviet troops.26 Yet, from time to time, “surprisingly,” the Germans appeared and demanded money to let the Jews through27; or the local guides brought the poor people to the Germans and them‑ selves robbed them and disappeared without fulfilling their promises. This is ex‑ actly what happened to 26‑year‑old Rozalja Kühnberg from Tarnów in November 1939. She and a dozen of other Jewish refugees were first taken by a local guide to a German border post, where they paid a bribe for not being arrested, and were later robbed by the same guide, who threatened them with a gun.28 Those locals who nevertheless proceeded with the Jews to the border took big re‑ wards for their services. Szlama Mandelbaum, an 18‑year‑old Jewish boy from the village of Falenica near Warsaw, who crossed the Soviet border in February 1941, told his NKVD interrogators that for the approximately 80‑kilometer trip from the town of Biłgoraj to the Soviet border, he and eight other Jews who came with him paid a local Ukrainian guide 300 złotys per person, a total of 2,700 złotys.29 At the time, the Mandelbaum family house in Falenica cost 10,000 złotys.30 Thus, just a few of such trips could reward their local guides with an entire house. Having reached the border, the refugees usually waited until dusk or night hours, and only then crossed the borderline to the Soviet side.31 Very often, the crossing was made by large groups of dozens of people, most of whom did not know each other.32 But sometimes there were also small companies of related persons or even loners.33 If the border line ran along the San River, locals with boats were hired as carriers to the Soviet bank; otherwise, the Jews crossed the water surface on their own, in places identified by the locals as fords.34 It can be assumed that most of the alleged border loopholes were known to Soviet border guards. This may explain the fact that the NKVD protocols, drawn up by the organization’s investigators, mention only a few Jewish “border trespass‑ ers” arrested sometime after crossing the border. One of them, 20‑year‑old Mendel Feldberg from Sosnowiec, managed to get to Lvov, where he spent three days at a refugee shelter before being detained.35 All the others were caught at the entrance to Soviet territory by border detachments already waiting for them or, sometimes, by local inhabitants.36 Farewell to Illusions: In the Hands of the Soviet Secret Police Polish Jews fleeing to USSR dreamed of a better life without persecution. But those of them, who for some reason did not manage to enter Soviet territory legally and were considered “border violators,” stood on the eve of a long period, sometimes

“I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”  35 up to 18 months, marked by multiple interrogations and, finally, an indictment and “trial” by the NKVD. This via dolorosa began already at the Soviet border where male and female de‑ tainees, adults and teenagers alike, were thoroughly body‑searched, deprived of their last personal belongings and money not taken on the German side, and then con‑ voyed to the Przemyśl NKVD prison for initial debriefing (opros). The short proce‑ dure was carried out in Russian or through interpreters. Usually, the debriefers began with asking about seemingly innocent matters – the arrestee’s origin, family, educa‑ tion, occupation, reasons for coming to the USSR, etc. – but ended with the surpris‑ ing question: “Do you know that illegal border crossing is a criminal offence?”37 Probably, it was at this stage that the refugees realized that the Soviet authorities did not intend to help them in their plight and preferred instead to treat their cases as purely criminal ones. Some insisted on their innocence; others confessed to their “criminal behavior.” “Yes, I know I acted against the law,” answered David‑Leib Rosenbaum, “but I had to save my life!”38 Alas, the tactics of both denying guilt and admitting it proved to be ineffective. A standard decree was issued, approved by a local prosecutor and presented to the detainee for signature, accusing him or her of illegally crossing the Soviet border and postulating that “in order to avoid evading investigation and trial,” keeping under guard should be implemented.39 Immediately after this, the people, who had just escaped from the Nazis, were taken to Prison No. 1 in Lvov. Even the reference to membership in the Commu‑ nist Party of Poland did not save the newly arrested from being sent there. Szymon Solnik, an active communist punished by the prewar Polish authorities, stated dur‑ ing his interrogation in May 1940 that “there are many [Polish] communists ar‑ rested at the border, whom I personally saw in the prisons of Przemyśl and Lvov.”40 Moreover, official Soviet permissions to enter the USSR were not a panacea for possible imprisonment. Alfred Engel, who, after being expelled by the Germans from the Polish borderlands, was officially allowed to settle in the Ukrainian city of Buchach, lost his freedom as “border trespasser” in July 1940. He “imprudently” asked to return to the German‑held territory and thereby aroused the NKVD suspi‑ cion as a possible German spy.41 What followed for Engel, Solnik and other Jewish detainees was a series of two‑to‑three‑hour interrogations, sometimes separated from each other for weeks and even months, and performed, as a rule, in the late evenings or nights. The inter‑ rogees were pressed not only to fully admit their alleged guilt in the illegal crossing of the Soviet border but also to confess that they were recruited as spies and sent to the USSR by foreign intelligence. “The investigation knows that you came to spy for the Germans!,” declared the NKVD interrogator to 18‑year‑old Mozesz Eder.42 The detained Polish‑Jewish communists were especially suspected of rescuing themselves from German‑held Polish territory in exchange for undertaking espio‑ nage assignments. So, they were subjected to the longest interrogations and the strongest psychological pressure. The interrogator of Szymon Solnik had recorded his phrase full of despair: “If I had known in advance that I would be imprisoned here, in the USSR, I would not have come here at all… I am being punished despite my complete innocence!”43

36  Yaacov Falkov After such treatment, most of the terrified and exhausted refugees stopped deny‑ ing the accusations of border trespassing. Satisfied NKVD officers filled out all the necessary paperwork, stating that the detainee’s guilt was “sufficiently established” and he or she is ready to stand trial in accordance with the USSR Criminal Code.44 They then delivered their victims to yet another NKVD prison in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnipro), for the final stage of interrogation and the consequent prosecution. Recording Nazi Crimes in the NKVD Interrogation Cells While preparing their Jewish captives for punishment for “violating the Soviet law,” Soviet security personnel knew full well that these people were trying to escape from mortal danger. “I have crossed the Soviet border from Germany only because after the occupation of Kraków by the Germans, anti‑Jewish pogroms and atrocities swept through the city,” explained to the NKVD interrogators a 26‑year‑old shoemaker Efroim Ksenski.45 Multiple others spoke of the German effort to squeeze as many Polish Jews into the USSR as possible46; described the German practices of sending Jews to forced labor, marking them by special badges, beating and depriving them of food, expel‑ ling them from certain cities, plundering them by taking hostages for ransom, and confiscating their businesses.47 There were even interrogees who identified Nazi cites in Poland, such as the Lamsdorf camp in Silesia, which served to concentrate Jews already in the early stages of the occupation.48 From the NKVD interrogation protocols and other related documents, it is clear that their authors did not question the credibility of such testimonies. In some pro‑ tocols, descriptions of the persecution of Polish Jews by the Germans were even underlined by someone’s hand, which may indicate a special NKVD interest in this certain matter.49 Moreover, the stories of German anti‑Jewish persecution very often found their way into the criminal indictments (obvinitel’noe zakliuchenie) that NKVD interrogators drew up at the end of the interrogation processes. “The living conditions of the Jews in Germany [i.e., in occupied Poland] turned out to be very difficult,” sounded one such document written in the NKVD Dnepropetrovsk prison in June 1940. It was approved by both the deputy head of the NKVD of the Dnepropetrovsk region and the region’s prosecutor.50 This, and thousands of similar approvals attached to interrogation files, indi‑ cates that by the summer of 1940, the developing Jewish tragedy in the German‑ occupied part of Poland had become common knowledge in the upper echelons of the Ukrainian NKVD and other relevant Soviet official institutions. Unfortunately, this development did not save the Polish‑Jewish inmates of the Dnepropetrovsk and other prisons from being swallowed by the vast Gulag system. Guilty of Trying to Survive: Sending the Polish‑Jewish Refugees to a Deadly “Correction” According to the special NKVD Order No. 0233, detainees accused of illegally crossing the Soviet border were to be court‑martialed in absentia by a body called

“I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”  37 “Special Session” (Osoboe Soveshchanie or OSO). Attached since  1934 to the NKVD Moscow headquarters and consisting of a senior NKVD officer, a prosecu‑ tor and a Communist party official, OSO served to quickly pronounce sentences of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens and foreigners accused of violating Soviet laws. Interrogation files of the Polish‑Jewish “border trespassers” were drily sum‑ marized in a document called “Agenda to the Special Session’s meeting” (Povestka k zasedaniiu osobogo soveshchaniia), which, after being labeled “strictly secret,” was sent to the Soviet capital.51 Yet, the OSO acted slowly, and therefore there could be long gaps between its meetings. In the interim, in the NKVD Dnepropetrovsk prison its Sanitary unit con‑ ducted “medical examinations” of the prisoners awaiting the decision about their fate. The absolute majority, including persons with various health problems and youngsters under 18, were considered “capable of physical labor”;52 and only those “lucky enough” to be declared seriously ill  –  like Boroch Degen, who suffered from “anemia, cardiac neurosis, and general physical insufficiency,”  – ­received verdicts sounding “partly capable of doing physical work.”53 The prison authorities knew very well what the OSO’s decision would be and acted to prepare the future Gulag prisoners for immediate transfer to their destinations through the Soviet sys‑ tem of slave labor. When the OSO members finally gathered, many hundreds of accused Polish‑­ Jewish refugees became at once the property of the Gulag, deprived of basic human rights. But there was still a fundamental difference between two groups of ac‑ cused: persons whom their NKVD interrogators considered “workers” and “peas‑ ants” were usually sentenced to “only” three years in the “corrective labor camps,” while their brothers and sisters in misfortune, who in the eyes of the NKVD officers belonged to the higher social strata, received five.54 No mercy was shown to com‑ munists like Szymon Solnik55 but also to the relatives of good Soviet citizens who, trying to rescue their loved ones from the NKVD clutches, wrote desperate appeals to different Soviet authorities.56 Many Polish‑Jewish refugees sent to the Gulag “corrective labor camps” died there, often quite soon, deliberately murdered or worked to death by the Soviets. Among them was 19‑year‑old Szlama Mandelbaum from Falenica, who, upon his arrival in the Cheliabinsk region of Russia, was ruined by tuberculosis.57 Others were lucky enough to survive until August 1941 when, under its new treaty with the Polish Government‑in‑Exile, the Soviet Union released Polish citizens held in its camps and jails.58 Among them was Shmul Mazurok, the already mentioned veteran of the Polish campaign. He became a free man in September 1941, after spending long 17 months in Soviet captivity, including a full year in the dreadful Pechora corrective labor camp (Pechorlag) in north‑western Russia.59 Conclusion: Inadvertent Confession of NKVD Bureaucrats This chapter has made the first attempt to examine the attitude of Soviet security and intelligence service toward Jewish refugees who tried to escape the rapidly developing persecution policy in the German‑occupied part of Poland. The exami‑ nation made use of only one documentary collection – that of the Lvov branch of

38  Yaacov Falkov the Ukrainian NKVD – and there is no doubt that for recovering the full histori‑ cal picture of the phenomenon in question, it is necessary to study similar collec‑ tions in other Ukrainian border towns, as well as in Belarus and Lithuania, where in 1939–1941 local NKVD authorities also coped with the flow of Polish‑Jewish refugees. However, it is already clear that the NKVD bureaucrats in Lvov, who stored tons of their organization’s files and in the summer of 1941  managed to rescue them from the rapidly advancing German Wehrmacht, left us invaluable historical evidence. Apparently, the NKVD interrogation machinery in the city and nearby border areas, and through them also the organization’s headquarters in Dnepro‑ petrovsk and Moscow, as well as the relevant Soviet prosecutors’ offices, knew full well about the suffering of Polish Jews under the Nazis and, therefore, about the reason for their coming to the USSR. And yet, instead of welcoming and helping all the poor Jewish refugees, the said institutions preferred to punish thousands of those who “illegally” crossed the Soviet border by turning them into Gulag slaves, regardless of their gender, age, health and even their prewar communist background. Many Polish Jews, who were subjected to such cruel treatment, paid for it with their lives. Ironically, even before their relatives back home perished in the Holocaust. Notes 1 Polish Lwów occupied by the Soviets; now Lviv in Western Ukraine. 2 Detention decision, November 3, 1939, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), R‑3258_00_2687_0004. 3 Interrogation protocol (hereinafter referred to as IP), December 14, 1939, USHMM, 0013‑15. 4 Extract from the minutes of the NKVD Special Session (OSO) (hereinafter referred to as EFM OSO), August 26, 1940, USHMM, 0050. 5 Adler, 2020: 3; Edele, Fitzpatrick, Goldlust and Grossmann, 2017: 1–4, 15; Goldlust, 2017: 36; Levin, 2020: 44–47. There is still no consensus among scholars about the ex‑ act numbers of Polish‑Jewish refugees and deportees in the USSR. The number of Jews arrested by the Soviets as “border trespassers” is not known, but it is estimated that they made up a significant proportion of the 107,000 foreigners detained at the Soviet border between September 1939 and May 1941 (including 35,000 Polish citizens detained until the end of 1940). See: Boćkowski, 2006: 89; Levin, 2020: 34. 6 Adler, 2020: 7. See detailed source descriptions for research in the field: Adler, 2020: 1–6; Goldlust, 2017: 80–82; as well as one of the latest examples of the use of bio‑ graphical sketches for the analysis of the Jewish escape effort: Nesselrodt, 2021. 7 See examples of the rare and limited use of Soviet Communist party and NKVD files in the discussed context: Adler, 2020: 84–85, 107, 111; Belous and Radchenko, 2020; Boćkowski, 2006. 8 The author would like to thank Mr. Andriy Kohut, the Director of the DA SBU, for his kind and very helpful assistance to the writing of this chapter. 9 For example, see: IP, December 4, 1940, USHMM, R‑3258_00_3090_0027. 10 The existing historiography guesses that the young and single male refugees were less burdened by work and family obligations. See: Goldlust, 2017: 36. 11 On the demarcation matter, see: Wieliczko, 1998: 35–55; on the free movement until mid‑October 1939 into the eastern Polish territories, see: Levin, 2020: 34.

“I’m Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”  39 12 IP, June 14, 1940, USHMM, R‑3258_00_16490_0017‑20. 13 Testimony of a detainee (hereinafter referred to as ToD), April 14, 1940, ibid., 2764_0030‑31. 14 IP, July 3, 1940, DA SBU, f. 6, spr. 76404, ark. 10–11. 15 Protocol of detention and debriefing (hereinafter referred to as PoDD), March 4, 1940, USHMM, R‑3258_00_2659_0012. 16 Additional interrogation protocol (hereinafter referred to as AIP), February 27, 1940, USHMM, 3370_0017‑21. 17 IP, October 12, 1940, USHMM, 3075_0023‑24. 18 IP, May 21, 1940, USHMM, 2699_0032‑35. 19 IP, May 16, 1940, USHMM, 2715_0041‑45. 20 IP, May 27, 1940, USHMM, 2715_0046‑51. 21 IP, May 10, 1940, USHMM, 2687_0038‑41. 22 IP, June 20, 1940, USHMM, 2701_0035‑38. 23 IP, December 11, 1939, USHMM, 2707_0011‑12. 24 AIP, December 11, 1939, USHMM, 2699_0018‑20. 25 IP, March 4, 1941, USHMM, 3073_0076‑79. 26 IP, June 10, 1940, USHMM, 2700_0036‑39. 27 AIP, December 11, 1939, USHMM, 2699_0018‑20. 28 IP, December 4, 1939, USHMM, 2907_0018‑20. 29 IP, March 4, 1941, USHMM, 3073_0076‑79. 30 IP, June 1, 1942, USHMM, 0044‑45. 31 IP, December 14, 1939, USHMM, 2687_0014. 32 AIP, December 11, 1939, USHMM, 2699_0018‑20. 33 PoDD, March 4, 1940, USHMM, 2659_0012‑13. 34 IP, August 24, 1940, DA SBU, f. 6, spr. 67165, ark. 8‑10. 35 IP, June 14, 1940, USHMM, R‑3258_00_2948_0030‑37. 36 PoDD, March 4, 1940, USHMM, 2659_0012‑13. 37 IP, October 26, 1939, USHMM, 2687_013. 38 IP, October 26, 1939, USHMM, 2687_013. 39 Decree, October 28, 1939, USHMM, 2694_0009. 40 ToD, May 17, 1940, USHMM, 2717_0041‑47. 41 IP, July 3, 1940, DA SBU, f. 6, spr. 76404, ark. 10–11. 42 IP, October 28, 1939, USHMM, R‑3258_00_2694_0016. 43 ToD, September 20, 1940, USHMM, 2717_0052‑62. 44 In the discussed period, illegal crossing of the border was punishable in the USSR by imprisonment for up to five years in “corrective labor camps.” See: Skobina, 2018: 33–36. DOI: 10.25513/1990‑5173.2018.2.33‑36. 45 IP, May 28, 1940, USHMM, 2878_0028‑34. 46 IP, April 23, 1940, USHMM, 2753_0031‑6. 47 IP, June 20, 1940, ibid., 2701_0035‑39; IP, May 10, 1940, USHMM, 2711_0023‑27; IP, January 25, 1940, USHMM, 17061_0029‑32. 48 IP, May 16, 1940, USHMM, 2715_0041‑45. 49 Testimony of an accused, May 10, 1940, USHMM, 2711_0025‑27. 50 Criminal indictment, June 25, 1940, USHMM, 2700_0041‑2. 51 Agenda to the OSO meeting, Undated, USHMM, 2659_0038‑39. 52 Medical certificate, April 10, 1940, USHMM, 2659_0029. 53 Medical certificate, February 17, 1940, USHMM, 2713_0020. 54 See the three‑year sentence of Jakub Bernfeld, defined by the NKVD as “a worker”: EFM OSO, July 22, 1940, USHMM, 2699_0044; and the five‑year sentence of Natan Plaisner, whose social background was defined as “from merchants”: EFM OSO, Octo‑ ber 11, 1940, USHMM, 16490_0028. 55 EFM OSO, February 10, 1941, R‑3258_00_2717_0068.

40  Yaacov Falkov 56 See the failed attempt of Lazar Gleich to rescue his daughter Rozalja: EFM OSO, Au‑ gust 10, 1940, USHMM, 2961_0058; L. Gleich to I. Stalin, March 15, 1940, USHMM, 0068‑69. 57 Untitled death announcement, September 9, 1942, USHMM, 3073_0106. 58 Goldlust, 2017: 5. 59 Certificate, September 20, 1941, USHMM, R‑3258_00_2659_0063.

Bibliography Adler, Eliyana, 2020. Survival on the Margins. Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union, Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard UP. Belous, Viktor and Radchenko, Ol’ga, 2020. “‘My zhiviom v strashnoe vremia’. Sud’ba sem’i Igel’nik po materialam lichnoi perepiski i sudebno‑sledstvennogo dela NKVD”, in: Zeev Levin (ed.), Evreiskie bezhentsy i evakuirovannye v SSSR 1939–1946, Jerusalem: Chazit Hakavod Association and The Union of Immigrant Scholars of Israel: 125–136. Boćkowski, Daniel, 2006. “Losy żydowskich uchodźców z centralnej i zachodniej Polski (bieżeńców) przebywających na terenie obwodu białostockiego w latach 1939–1941”, Studia Podlaskie 16: 85–126. Edele, Mark, Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Goldlust, John and Grossmann, Atina, 2017. “Introduc‑ tion”, in: Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick and Atina Grossmann (eds.), Shelter from the Holocaust. Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, Detroit: Wayne State UP: 1–27. Goldlust, John, 2017. “A Different Silence. The Survival of More than 200,000 Polish Jews in the Soviet Union during World War II as a Case Study in Cultural Amnesia”, in: Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick and Atina Grossmann (eds.), Shelter from the Holocaust. Re‑ thinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, Detroit: Wayne State UP: 29–94. Levin, Zeev, 2020. “Evreiskoe naselenie SSSR nakanune natsistskogo vtorzheniia: depor‑ tatsii i nachalo evakuatsii”, in: Zeev Levin (ed.), Evreiskie bezhentsy i evakuirovannye v SSSR 1939–1946, Jerusalem: Chazit Hakavod Association and The Union of Immigrant Scholars of Israel: 23–52. Nesselrodt, Markus, 2021. “1 Who, When, and Why? Escaping German Occupation in 1939 versus 1941”, in: Katharina Friedla and Markus Nesselrodt (eds.), Polish Jews in the Soviet Union (1939–1959): History and Memory of Deportation, Exile, and Survival, Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press: 2–29. Skobina, Elena, 2018. “Criminal Liability for the Illegal Crossing of the State Border in the History of Domestic Criminal Legislation”, Vestnik Omskogo Universiteta 2, no. 55: 33–36. DOI: 10.25513/1990‑5173.2018.2.33‑36 Wieliczko, Mieczysław, 1998. “‘Granica’ niemiecko‑radziecka pomiędzy Bugiem i Niem‑ nem w latach 1939–1941,” Studia Podlaskie 8: 35–55.

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“Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better” – Letters from Włodawa County during the Holocaust Eliyahu Klein

At least 40% of Polish Jews on the eve of World War II lived in towns and small communities in the countryside.1 Despite this, until recently, the main focus of re‑ search on the Holocaust of Polish Jews was concentrated in the communities of big cities such as Warsaw and Lodz. It was only in the first half of the first decade of the 2000s that a distinct change in the historiography can be identified when research‑ ers began to deal with the Holocaust in the rural area of occupied Poland in a fo‑ cused, extensive and systematic manner.2 One of the challenges facing researchers who wish to study the countryside is that outside of the big cities, almost no diaries of Jews of the time were written or preserved. At the same time, one can find quite a few letters written at that time. Although these do not constitute an orderly and systematic source of information like the diaries, insights of important historical value can be derived from them.3 In this chapter, I would like to demonstrate how the letters reflect the conscious‑ ness of the events under the German occupation in the countryside. For this pur‑ pose, I chose five letters from different periods of the war, written by different people in Włodawa county. This chapter does not pretend to systematically analyze the Holocaust in Włodawa county, but mainly to bring the voices of the writers themselves with the addition of my comments that may shed some light on the general context and key aspects that can be deduced from the letters. In addition, due to the brevity of the canvas, the letters express only a small part of the wide variety of the population that lived in the district before and during the war. The selected letters reflect a changing consciousness that I divided into three periods: adaptation, struggle and acceptance of fate. The Jews of Włodawa before and during the War Located in the eastern Lublin district, Włodawa county is largely a geographical and cultural microcosm of the non‑urban existence throughout pre–World War II Poland. The county had 13 communities of villages (gminy) and three towns: Włodawa, Parczew and Ostrów Lubelski. About 43% of the county’s total area was agricultural land and 14.5% more was covered in forests.4 According to the census conducted in Poland in 1931, the diverse ethnic population of the county included a majority of 57,939 Catholic Poles (51%), a large Ukrainian minority that numbered DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-7

42  Eliyahu Klein 33,382 souls (29.4%) and a minority of 18,188 Jews (16%).5 Under the German oc‑ cupation during World War II, a new administrative division made by the Germans and Włodawa county was dismantled and merged into the neighboring counties within the General Government.6 In the first weeks of the German occupation and until the border was closed at the beginning of winter, hundreds of Jews crossed the Bug River into the territories of the Soviet Union.7 In the opposite direction, during the war, thousands of refugees arrived or were deported to the county from the ter‑ ritories of Poland annexed to the Reich, the regions of the General government and even from Vienna and Slovakia.8 Under German rule, the Jews had to adapt to occasional violence and the admin‑ istration of draconian punishment for non‑compliance. The Jewish residences were limited to the streets of the town centers in a kind of open ghetto that also led to out‑ breaks of diseases and epidemics. The Judenrats in the various towns had to supply forced laborers to labor camps that were all over the area. In a series of orders, the Jews were first required to pay ransom payments and later also items of clothing and jewelry. The business relationship with the local population, on which the main livelihood of the Jews was based, was completely terminated. The Germans con‑ fiscated workshops, shops and factories of Jews. As a result of all this, the majority of the towns’ Jews were left without a livelihood. With no choice, the Jews were forced to sell the rest of their property to Poles and Ukrainians and trade on the black market. Beginning in May 1942, throughout a series of Aktions that lasted almost a year, all the Jews of the county were murdered or sent to their deaths in the extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka. The labor camp in Adampol, the last place where Jews lived openly in the county, was liquidated in August 1943.9 Adaption Beata Unterweiser, a 26‑year‑old Jew, was deported along with her parents and two brothers in a transport that left the city of Poznań on December 13, 1939, and arrived in Ostrów Lubelski a few days later.10 She lived in Ostrów Lubelski for at least the next two years. During this time, she corresponded with Kazimierz and Zofia Stoczynski, Polish friends who lived in Warsaw. Two of these letters were preserved and are today in the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute in War‑ saw. An important aspect of this pair of letters is that they were written a year apart from each other, which makes it possible to discern the transformations that took place in Unterwieser’s consciousness and the conditions of existence in Ostrów Lubelski. The first letter was sent on September 2, 1940, to Zofia Stoczynski: Dear Zosiu! knowing that you have my address and news about me, I ex‑ pected “someday” some letter from you. I waited and waited. You can’t im‑ agine at all how madly happy I was. Your letter reminds me that there was once a very long time ago, some nice world, life and people of value. Unfor‑ tunately, it has ended and at least nice memories remain. We often remember your stay in Poznan. Parents praise you highly! Now I’ll tell you our present life: since 16.12.39 we find ourselves, as you probably know in this beautiful

“Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better”  43 place. Dream locality. Dirt, crap, mess. You understand all that now. People like dogs. Interests in the first place. Hygiene, love for the other, cordiality and other “stupid emotions” are unknown. Education, please look, because once again, there is no in this godly world. These are more or less the out‑ lines. This subject is so huge, that I could write entire books, without ex‑ hausting this source [of the situation] in which we all find ourselves. We feel NATURALLY EXQUISITE. Already better a bullet in the head (or some‑ where else) than life. Besides, so far, I had classes in the school plus payment. Now the last one has fallen off, as there is no money. From time to time I go to the labor force. How’s it with you on this subject? This week I picked hops diligently, not having any idea beforehand what it looks like at all… Here is one older guest who likes me a lot and where I at least eat “cool” things. Eating has become the essence of life… Summer was nice here. I bathed, went to the forest, and sunbathed. So I am afraid of winter. I have no slippers, no money. I don’t see myself having it someday. Anyway, I’ll get used little by little to the idea that we won’t survive this winter. It probably makes you uncomfortable, recalling this crazy from Poznan. You are wrong. I still have good humor. I just like to take a sober look at what surrounds me and at the future, which for us is not dressed in bright and nice colors.11 The most striking aspect of this letter, on which I would like to focus, is the writer’s experience as a refugee. This phenomenon characterizes the events of the Holo‑ caust in a wide‑ranging way. By the spring of 1942, thousands of refugees from Poland, Slovakia and Austria had arrived in Włodawa county. Although much has been written about the phenomenon of refugees, from the quoted letter an issue emerges that may not have been sufficiently considered and is mainly relevant to the refugees who arrived in the countryside areas: refugees who arrived in the ghettos in the big cities suffered in many cases from two circles of foreignness: landing in an unfamiliar space and sometimes also cultural differences. Besides the loneliness and the difficulties of adapting to the place where she was forced to be, Unterweiser’s letter brings up another circle of foreignness, which is the transition from the big city to a small town on the outskirts. The differences between these forms of existence were huge and they are prominently reflected in the complaints the writer has about the new place she arrived at. On November 13, 1941, Beata Unterweiser sent another letter to the Stoczynskis: My dear all! I have been longingly waiting for the return of my friend from Warsaw. I was curious and whether you are still there whether the friend will find you. How happy I was, as I even received a letter from you! It made me cry, after all, for me it is a piece of another good world. I lie now (brother, too) already 11 days in bed. Soon I will get up and take the first steps again like a baby. So far I am very weak and write indistinctly. Kazek! How long were you outside of Warsaw and where? Why did you not go deep? Did you also work there? But I’m glad to know that you will manage here as well. You see, Kaziu, how much has happened that I could not even come to you!

44  Eliyahu Klein At most people like my friend [can do it], who will be helped by their Aryan appearance! I suffer madly under these conditions. Here I have only, when I am healthy, 3 hours a day [to teach] at school. Math and gymnastics. But it neither gives earnings nor satisfaction. The worst thing is that I do not have a man with whom I would talk about everything. here I met Poznani elder (special luck!). He was a man formerly insanely rich. In addition, an honest soul who had no one. Witty, extremely intelligent, etc. We fell in love, mutu‑ ally. But with me, happiness cannot last long. He fell ill. I nursed him day and night but he died. And now I still think about him, as I do something. But why talk about such grim things? In Bedzin there is an honest guy, who has been waiting for me for two years of war. Of stupidity, I did not go im‑ mediately in the first days of our stay here to him. I would have at least had something to live for and someone to live for. I don’t know what we will be alive in like a month or two. And I so want to still live!!! Our Poznans dying one by one. It is so terrible here. The people here, it seems, for even worse than the Warsaw people. My friend is lucky. She at least can go to the city from time to time. And I miss the city. Only one wish I have: not to die here in this nest… Now you have a “beautiful” letter. I would be happy if you wrote me back right away and a lot, because for me the mail is the most important event of the day. I kiss you all warmly.12 The time difference between the two letters sent by Unterweiser allows us to con‑ firm the deterioration in the young refugee’s condition. The strangeness of living in a small town and the longing for the big city did not subside but intensified. But the conditions of existence themselves were also greatly aggravated. In the winter of 1941, the typhus epidemic spread in the county, which led to casualties mainly among the refugees who suffered from difficult living conditions and lack of hy‑ giene. Death began to be more present and tangible. At the same time, the situation in the countryside of Włodawa was far from reminiscent of the horrors in the large ghettos such as Warsaw and Łódź. A young Jewish man who used to travel regu‑ larly from Parczew to the Warsaw ghetto to trade and smuggle food, remembered the pictures of the dead from starvation lying in the streets of the ghetto that were unlike those in Parczew.13 In general, even though there was a severe shortage of food and people suffered from hunger, the phenomenon of mass death did not develop as a result. The typhus epidemic that spread in the region did not become very deadly either. Finally, consideration must be given to the change of consciousness reflected in Unterweiser’s writing in both letters. While the first letter is a letter that has a realistic fear of the future alongside pleasant experiences from the past summer, the second letter has a heavy cloud of gloom and despair without trying to sweeten it with humor. The first letter reflects a picture of life. The second letter reflects an image of death. In the period between the two letters written by Unterweiser, 44 of Parczew’s Jewish residents signed a letter of complaint against the Judenrat that was sent to the civil administration in Lublin:

“Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better”  45 The undersigned, in the name of the Jewish population of the city of Parczew, appeal to you to listen to our complaints and help us in the following matter: The local Jewish Council is very brutal in every aspect. This Jewish Council stands only to serve its own interests, to fill its own pockets, but to be exempt from all social obligations. The members of the Judenrat take the last Groszy from the poor, starving working masses, they have already brought it so far that the general public suffers from hunger. They have also already some criminal acts on their conscience: 1 Without having a right to do so, they impose taxes and other charges and put them into their own pockets. 2 The Jewish Council is not controlled by anyone, but also does not allow anyone to control it. 3 On August 3, 1940, they committed the following fraud: they approached several hundred inhabitants and threatened them that they would be sent to forced labor if they did not pay 25 zloty per person. In this way, they extorted from the population the amount of 4,500 zloty. 4 In October 1940, at the time when the Jews working in labor camps were supposed to be released, the Jewish Council addressed the relatives of the workers with the threat that if they did not pay 200 zloty per person, the Jews in the labor camps would not be released. In this way the members of the Jewish Council again collected an amount of 100 persons 200 zloty each. 5 Money and food parcels were taken for the Jews working in labor camps. But none of the workers received anything. 6 The Jewish Council has collected the amount of 650 zloty to establish a cooperative for the local population. However, the cooperative was not founded, the collected money was appropriated by the Jewish Council and it does not want to return the paid amount to any of the people who have paid something. All of the above‑mentioned sums have not been registered in the municipal records. Referring to this we politely ask you to show interest in the aforementioned and send 1 a suitable official who will check the whole matter on the spot and who will also interrogate the undersigned. The authorities here are not to be trusted. 2 to dismiss the members of the municipal administration and to fix new elections. Suitable persons should be called for municipal work. In ex‑ pectation of an early execution of our request, we sign.14 As for the content of the letter, it should be noted briefly that, without referring di‑ rectly to the Judenrat in Parczew, complaints such as these about the Judenrat were not unusual. To a large extent, the Judenrat was placed between a rock and a hard place, between the demands of the Germans and the representation of the interests of the Jews. Ordinary Jews did not always have the opportunity to understand this complex dynamic in real‑time, while the Germans who were aware of it sometimes

46  Eliyahu Klein took advantage of it on purpose so that the Judenrat would serve as a lightning rod between them and the Jewish population.15 I would like to pay more attention to the addressee of the letter: a foreigner who would read the quoted letter might think that the German government is a kind of neutral party or even the “responsible adult” who is called to mediate and maintain order in a local conflict, to the extent that the signatories request that the Germans send representatives to talk with them and keep a close eye on the situa‑ tion. In April 1941, it was already a year‑and‑a‑half after the German occupation of Włodawa county. Along with the difficult routine of life under the German racial policy and oppression that had already begun to take hold, the residents of the county and the Jews in particular had several notable opportunities to be aware of the violent and murderous nature of the Germans: on November 23, 1939, police‑ men from Battalion 102 rioted against the Jews of Parczew. They destroyed and looted Jewish shops and violently harmed the Jews.16 In the winter of 1940, hun‑ dreds of Jewish prisoners of war of the Polish army were shot in Włodawa county, in the Sobibor forest and Parczew. These events left a depressing impression on the Jews of the area.17 In light of this, one could wonder how the above‑cited appeal of the Parczew Jews coincides with the murderous reality of the German occupation. Did they ex‑ pect to find a listening ear for their plight in the German government? It seems that the letter may teach about the great gap between the consciousness of a systematic murder, which is mainly characterized by a retroactive understanding of the events, and the consciousness in real‑time. The Jews of Parczew experienced firsthand the horrors of the German occupation and witnessed its murderousness, but at this stage, it was impossible to imagine the systematic murder that would begin a little over a year later. The Germans themselves, at this time, had not yet planned the “Fi‑ nal Solution.” In such a perspective, it can be understood that the Jews of Parczew also believed that internal matters of social order and certainly corruption might be important for the German government and that they would have an interest in taking care of them. It turns out that this thought was not completely unfounded: following the letter, the Gendarmerie in Radzin asked for explanations from the Judenrat in Parczew and even contacted the signatories of the letter, who all denied involvement in sending the letter. In light of this, the complaint was rejected.18 Struggle If during the first years of the occupation the Jews of Włodawa still tried to adapt to their rapidly deteriorating living conditions, then the “Final Solution” and the Ak‑ tions in the town, beginning in May 1942, led to a completely different reality. At the beginning of June 1942, the following letter was sent to the Warsaw ghetto by an anonymous person. The letter was copied and kept in the Oneg Shabbat archive: We are, thank God, healthy. We don’t know what to do regarding going to the doctor. We can’t decide ourselves, although we had already decided to be by the doctor. Since Uncle wants God forbid to have his children’s party

“Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better”  47 by you God Forbid, because he’s renting an apartment near you, very near to you. Perhaps you don’t even know this. Therefore, I am writing to you now and we are sending you this information specially, so you should know. It is true that you, too, shall rent apartments out of town for all our brothers the House of Israel. He has already prepared a new apartment for everyone – the same one he had near us. In case you perhaps don’t know of this, I am writing especially so you’ll know because uncle wants And He Expelled Man, and then you will be together with Shlomo Velvel of blessed memory. We know this with certainty and Uncle will soon complete the apartment by you. You should know. Perhaps you can figure something out. It should be generally known that Uncle wants God Forbid to have a wedding reception soon by you and the apartment is already prepared very near to you. Remember, be in your apartments at all costs, so that you won’t be with Shlomo Velvel of blessed memory, and for sleeping the only good fortune is that of He who sits secretly. Remember well that we are holy and that which is left for morning, etc.19 Although the identity of the writer is unknown, it is clear that he intended to warn the recipient in the Warsaw ghetto about the systematic murder of the Jews that was expected to reach them as well. It is not clear how the sender knew about the extermination camp Treblinka which was built at the time not far from Warsaw. In any case, about a week and a half earlier, the first Aktion was held in Włodawa, as part of which more than 1,500 Jews were sent to the Sobibor extermination camp near the town. The writer seems to have correctly assessed the overall German policy. The doctor and the uncle in the letter represent the Germans and the apart‑ ments and parties represent the extermination camps. In addition to this, the letter is interspersed with clear allusions to what is happening and ends with the words of the verse “and that which is left for morning, etc.” The recipient must have known that the sequel is “Should be burned by fire (Exodus 12:10).”20 This letter may show that the common attitude regarding the passivity of the Jews in the face of systematic extermination is completely wrong. The opposite is true. In the face of the coming Aktions, many of the Jews of the county engaged in an active struggle for survival. The writer of the above letter was not satisfied with hiding himself but actively worked to warn Jews in Warsaw so that they could also save themselves. The first Aktion in Włodawa slapped the cruel reality in the faces of the Jews and rumors about what was happening soon spread in the nearby towns as well. In the following Aktions in the area, many Jews refused to go voluntarily to the gathering places and even built bunkers and hiding places ahead of time and rushed to enter them at the moment of truth. The Germans had to meticulously search the Jewish apartments, but even then, they were unable to locate many of the people hiding.21 However, this did not save those in hiding, but only to delay their death. For this, an additional pattern of survival was required: according to the estimates of various researchers in Poland, over 10% of the Jews who lived in the General‑ gouvernement fled the ghettos, labor camps or trains that were on their way to the extermination camps and tried to find refuge in the countryside and forests.22

48  Eliyahu Klein In Włodawa county itself, apart from the dozens of Jews who tried to find refuge in the countryside in hiding places or under false identities, thousands fled to the thick forests in the area. In the Parczew forest, there was a Jewish family camp. Other Jews chose to hide in smaller groups and young people who were able to obtain weapons joined the partisans who operated in the area. Two groups of Jew‑ ish partisans led by local Jews, Chil Grynszpan and Moshe Lichtenberg, operated in Włodawa county.23 Acceptance of Fate Despite the determined struggle for survival of many of the Jews of Włodawa county, only a few of them succeeded. In the end, as the hunting mechanisms of the Germans closed in on the Jews and after years of oppression and persecution, the acceptance of the expected fate was inevitable. This was even as the desire to live and to continue to fight for survival still existed. This divided consciousness was expressed in a letter written by Mania Socheczewski to her sister Czeslawa. This letter ultimately reflects the fate of an absolute majority of Włodawa Jews and therefore I have chosen to end the chapter with it. The Socheczewski family was originally from Krakow. In the 1930s, Czeslawa married a Pole and converted to Christianity. During the war Mania, together with her father and sisters Regina and Stella arrived in Parczew. During all this time, as can be learned from the letter, they hoped that Czeslawa, who lived under an Aryan identity could help them ob‑ tain false papers. The efforts were unsuccessful. A few minutes before she was sent in a transport from Parczew to the Treblinka extermination camp in the summer of 1942, Mania wrote the following letter to Czeslawa: Beloved Cesia! Before our lives end, I hurry to write a couple of words to you. We are being forced to obey and are going on the last transport to the execution. Stella, Regina and our poor father, after whom we looked until the last moment, ended up dead. Toluś, smart and handsome, has long been an orphan. I wouldn’t have written to you, but I didn’t want you to write to some strangers who read other people’s letters. Until the last moment, we were hoping that we might stay alive, but there will be no exceptions. We all look like corpses. I wish we would have gotten the papers last summer, but it’s too late now. Maybe if I would have told you something you might have helped us, but neither of us wanted to put you at risk. Even though we suffer so much now, we’d rather be alive. What can you do, such is our fate. Maybe the after‑ life will be better, our life had been an endless misery anyway. Please, don’t worry about us, don’t be afraid, because it’s too late. Both of us were always honest with you. I know that if you had wanted, you might have saved us. Maybe you would have been better off as well. I would pay anything for us to stay alive. We leave behind a lot of belongings. We would readily leave it for you with someone, but nobody wants to accept it. I conclude this letter, may you all be healthy and happy.24

“Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better”  49 Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Kassow, 2010. Krupa, 2017: 377–387. For more on this topic, see Bacharach, 2004: 7–16. Wawryniuk, 2010: 11–17. Sztrum de Sztrem, 1938: 32. Skwirowski, 2014: 117. Skwirowski, 2014: 116; Crago, 2012a: 691. Silberklang, 2013: 74–86, 172–184, 290–306. Skwirowski, 2014: 118–134; Crago, 2012a: 691–692; Crago, 2012b: 693–694. List of deportees from the Posen area to Ostrow Lubelski, 2o.5.1940, M.7/1181, Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem. Letter from Beata Unterweiser to Zofia Stoczynski, 2.9.1940, 221/46, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny Archive, Warsaw. The translation is mine. Letter from Beata Unterweiser to Kazimierz and Zofia Stoczynski, 13.11.1941, 221/46, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny Archive, Warsaw. The translation is mine. Testimony of Isadore Farbstein, 17.3.1996, 13,378, USC Shoah Foundation‑Visual His‑ tory Archive (VHA), Los Angeles. A letter of complaint about Parczew’s Judenrat, 22.4.1941, O.6/393, Yad Vashem Ar‑ chive, Jerusalem. The translation is mine. Browning, 2004: 166. Curilla, 2011: 815. Silberklang, 2013: 90–91. Report of Radzyn Gendarmerie, 31.5.1941, O.6/393, Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem; Silberklang, 2013: 60–61. This letter has been translated several times. David Silberklang’s translation is quoted here, Silberklang, 2013: 344. Silberklang, 2013: 343–345. Skwirowski, 2014: 132; Crago, 2012a: 692; Crago, 2012b: 694. Grabowski, 2013: 2. Krakowski, 1984: 25–59. The letter (including the translation to English) and the background of the family were published online by Żydowski Instytut Historyczny: https://www.jhi.pl/en/articles/ before‑our‑lives‑end‑parczew‑1942,682.

Bibliography Bacharach, Zwi, 2004. Last Letters from the Shoah, Jerusalem: Devora Publishing Company and Yad Vashem. Browning, Christopher, 2004. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jew‑ ish Policy, September 1939–March 1942, Lincoln and Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem. Crago, Laura, 2012a. “Ostrów”, in: Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Vol 2 (A), Bloomington: Indiana University Press and the United States Holo‑ caust Memorial Museum: 690–691. Crago, Laura, 2012b. “Parczew”, in: Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Vol 2 (A), Bloomington: Indiana University Press and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 692–695. Curilla, Wolfgang, 2011. Der Judenmord in Polen und die Deutsche Ordnungpolizei 1939–1945, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh.

50  Eliyahu Klein Grabowski, Jan, 2013. Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German Occupied Po‑ land, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kassow, Samuel, 2010. “Shtetl”, in: YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https:// yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Shtetl Krakowski, Shmuel, 1984. The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942–1944, New York: Holmes & Meier. Krupa, Bartłomiej, 2017. “Critical History and Its ‘Shadow Cabinet’. Polish Historiography and the Holocaust during 2003–2013”, Holocaust Studies and Materials 4: 350–398. Silberklang, David, 2013. Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. Skwirowski, Krzysztof, 2014. Świat zapomniany: Historia Żydów włodawskich 1918–1945, Włodawa: Muzeum Pojezierza Łęczyńsko‑Włodawskiego. Sztrum de Sztrem, Edward (ed.), 1938. Główny Urząd Statystyczny Rzeczypospolitej Polsk‑ iej, Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności z dn. 9.XII 1931 r.: Województwo Lubelskie, War‑ szawa: Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego. Wawryniuk, Andrzej, 2010. Powiat Włodawski, Historia, Geografia, Gospodarka, Polityka: Monografia Miejscowości, Chełm: Starostwo Powiatowe we Włodawie.

5

Jews from Markowa Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive Kamil Kopera

First Decades In the 14th century, at the crossroads of Łańcut  –  Kańczuga, Albigowa – ­ rzeworsk, the then owner built an inn and commissioned it to a Jew, whom P he gave the last name Markenhoff, and his first name was Marek. His wife was selling drinks. Peasants […] would arrange to meet at the inn where Marek Markenhoff’s wife ran a tavern. The words ‘Let’s meet at Marek’s’ wife [u Markowy] were heard. Hence the name of the village Markowa, stated the local legend.1 Its popularity among people living there at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries proves how deeply the past of the village seemed to be con‑ nected with its Jewish inhabitants. This myth is partially true – Markowa was established in the 14th century but by the German colonists and the first Jews in the village arrived at the beginning of the 18th century. They were probably exiles from the town of Łańcut, located a few kilometres north of the settlement. When, after the outbreak of the plague in 1706, many of the properties there were deemed abandoned, they were taken over by Jewish lenders. As a result, the number of Jewish inhabitants in the town increased. The importance of the Jewish community in Łańcut is evidenced by the convening of the Council of Four Lands (Va’ad Arba’ Aratzot) in this town a year later. However, a conflict between the Jews of Łańcut and the town’s owner, Franciszek Druzus Lubomirski, was growing there.2 The latter, probably wanting to limit the influx of the Jewish population and their takeover of real estate, was to issue a decree against usury and to expel Jews from the town. Although the sources of local law of that time have not been preserved,3 this action seems to be indirectly evidenced by the account of Filip Orlik. He arrived in Łańcut in 1721 and wrote about the owner of Łańcut and his suicide: there are many empty spaces in the town, because this freak, crazy with his tyranny, scattered people. However, we heard that before that, he was ex‑ tremely kind to the poor, merciful, and very pious, but the Jews cast a spell on him for driving them out of their possessions to such an extent that he was plagued with melancholy for several years (…) and then, he killed himself.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-8

52  Kamil Kopera The expulsion of the Jews from Łańcut made them migrate to neighbouring ham‑ lets, including Markowa, which at the beginning of the 18th century “was ruined by the passing of troops, locusts, and hail.”5 The local population at the beginning of the century was merely 2,000 people who were served by three Christian taverns. But in 1719, there were four Jewish taverns leased by the Jews from their previ‑ ous owners.6 Markowa’s inns belonging to Jews are an element of the history of the village which has grown into the local memory so much that it turned into the above quoted legend. With the first partition of Poland in 1772, Markowa found itself in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, occupied by the Austrian Habsburg Empire. In 1787, about 20 Jews lived in Markowa, whereas the total population was 2,200. In 1800, the Jewish community consisted of eight families (about 30 people), and in 1845, there were 42 Jews in the village with over 2,300 inhabitants. Legal regulations did not allow them to buy land, so in 1849, they owned only 0.45 hectares. However, in 1883, Markowa’s 42 Jews owned over 35 hectares (1.21% of the area of the vil‑ lage).7 According to the data gathered by the Catholic Church, at the end of the 19th century, the number of Jews in the village approached 100, and in 1910, it reached its historical maximum – 174 Jews living among 4,480 Catholics.8 It is worth men‑ tioning that 34% of Jews (2,363 people) lived in the villages of the Łańcut county (Pol. powiat) in 1880, in 1900 – 40% (2,856) and in 1921 – 36% (2,382).9 More detailed information is provided by church data, but the area of deaneries (ad‑ ministrative areas with handful of parishes) did not exactly match the borders of the county. According to these data, every village in the Przeworsk deanery at the beginning of the 20th century was inhabited by Jews. In 1910, 102,044 Catholics and 5,933 Jews lived in both deaneries at that time, most of whom lived in towns (Łańcut, Przeworsk and Kańczuga). There were 1,494 village Jews, who at that time constituted 25% of the Jewish population in the area.10 The Jewish community of Markowa was linked with two nearby urban centres and their synagogues – Kańczuga in the south and Łańcut in the north. In the vil‑ lage itself, there were probably three places of prayer in private houses. One be‑ longed to the Rubenfeld family (later: Riesenbach’s), the second one was the house of Binem Müller (in a place called “Byniówka”) in Kazimierz, and the third one was a house in the very centre of the village, at the so‑called Crossroads. The last one belonged to the largest family in Markowa – the Goldmans, a family that ran a famous inn until around 1910s. When village was temporarily occupied by the Russian army during the World War I, the Sefer Torah from this house of prayer was taken care of by the non‑Jewish Szylar family.11 The Galician period was a time of emigration – to other villages in the area as well as to larger urban centres and across the ocean to the United States. Some‑ times the paths of emigration were very complicated and dictated by the turmoil of war. This was the case with Moses Rubenfeld born in 1891 in Markowa. He fell into the hands of the Russians in September 1914 as a soldier in the ranks of the Austrian 90th Infantry Regiment. As a prisoner of war, he found himself in Ussuri‑ ysk (then Nikolsk). Only in 1920 did he get out of the far east of Russia through Vladivostok.12

Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive  53 In the Second Polish Republic The records that have been preserved from the interwar period allow us to recon‑ struct some elements of the world in which Jews from Markowa lived. Thanks to them, we know that this community did not create one cluster, but that Jews lived in small houses scattered around the village. Larger buildings were owned by the aforementioned Rubenfeld family (later, a related Riesenbach family lived there) as well as Beniamin Müller and his heirs. His house was impressive, set on a high foundation, on which there was a cowshed. Müller was a bachelor. His farm belonged to the entire field stretch‑ ing in a narrow strip from the Markówka River to the border with the Lipnik forest […] Müller kept four horses, about five or six cows, and worked in the field himself, but with such a large area he also had to employ workers.13 He lived in a street called Kazimierz, the name of which resulted from the similar‑ ity to Krakow’s Kazimierz – a district particularly populated by Jews. Kazimierz in Markowa was also inhabited by relatively more Jewish families than other parts of the village. The houses were occupied by multi‑generational families with many children, as was the case with their non‑Jewish neighbours. Edward Szpytma, who lived in Kazimierz in the 1930s, wrote about Jewish houses: One room had to provide for all the needs. Dividing walls were not used […]. Shades or curtains were used to create separate rooms when neces‑ sary. Therefore, neighbours were rarely invited to the house […] If they were business meetings, these matters were dealt with outside. The exception was visiting the sick.14 Catholic neighbours rarely used the surnames of their Jewish co‑inhabitants. More often they used their nicknames, often derived from the name of the senior member of the family. For example, family living in Binem Müller’s house was known as “Bynie” (deriving from their nickname, the name of the place “Byniówka” is still in use in Markowa). “Burkas”  –  the family of the innkeeper Boruch Goldman, “Zeligs” – the family of Zelig Neuberg, “Tochyms” – family of Tanchum Grun‑ baum etc.15 A school in Markowa was a common space for Catholics and Jews. In 1926, 33 Jewish children were obliged to attend school in the village. The list of children and their guardians shows the living conditions and family relations of local popu‑ lation. For example, in the house of the “Tochyms” lived two boys both named Izrael, both born in 1918. One of them was the son of Sara Dachs, the other one was the son of Pesa Trynczer. Both women were daughters of Golda Trynczer and Tanchum Grunbaum; Sara’s daughter, Laja, born in 1921, also lived with them. Another house was inhabited by three families: Natan Sauerhaft who was raising his sisters Chana (born 1920) and Ryfka (born 1921), Asher Weitzman with his son Moses (born 1913) and Samuel Nadel with his peer – Dawid. In yet another house

54  Kamil Kopera Mendel Rips and Małka Neuberg raised 13 children – the oldest Elias was born in 1896, and the youngest Moses in 1923.16 When the youngest children were born, the older ones started their independent lives outside of the village. Above‑mentioned Edward Szpytma remembered that during the 1938/1939 school year, four Jewish boys attended class. They all sat in the front row in the classroom, and their “bench was called the Ghetto.” According to Szpytma, they were good at math and humanities, and they knew Hebrew. One of them was a vic‑ tim of antisemitic attack organized by other students – he was dragged to the room of Catholic Youth Association where a kid “painted his beard, moustache and payes with paint.” The victim left for home and soon came back with his father. The principal of the school ordered that the perpetrator’s grade should be lowered and “he would receive 15 strokes with cane. […] in front of the whole class.” Szpytma ends: “This antisemitic incident on the school premises was discussed in Markowa for some time, not only in the school.”17 For Józef Riesenbach, one of the Jewish students, school was a place of occa‑ sional jabs and insults from Catholic children who sometimes accosted Jewish stu‑ dents who fell victim to insults directed at them. Christian children were probably also jealous because education of the Jewish kids did not end with leaving school. They knew Yiddish, basic Hebrew and some aspects of Jewish culture which were taught by a teacher hired for this purpose.18 During the interwar period, Markowa experienced one sensationalist event re‑ lated to Jewish community: a few children from the large Rips family converted to Catholicism. Sometimes it took place in dramatic circumstances  –  in 1928, a Catholic mob kidnapped Chaja Gitla Rips from her family home. This action, pos‑ sibly in concert with her, enabled her to convert.19 Overpopulation and poverty prevailing in the village forced people to look for new sources of income. Marmowa’s Jews worked as labourers, some cultivated land, others dealt in trade – also on a supra‑local scale. For example, Jakub Jankiel Riesenbach bought and rented gardens; he also exported the harvested fruit outside Poland.20 Another solution was emigration. In the 1920s and 1930s, Jews from Markowa moved to Vienna, Berlin, Italy and even to Argentina.21 War and the Holocaust In the last year of peace, 1938, 107 Jews and 4,561 Catholics lived in Markowa. A total of 96,554 Catholics and 5,791 Jews lived in the deaneries of Łańcut and Przeworsk, 957 of them were rural Jews (16.5% of the total Jewish population of the area).22 The first victims of Nazi Germany from Markowa were Jews who emigrated there. This was the case with Markus Rosengarten (Goldman), born in 1889, ar‑ rested in Vienna, and murdered in the Dachau camp at the beginning of 1939, and Hersch Meilech Landau (born in 1886), living in Berlin, who died in Sachsen‑ hausen in the autumn of 1939.23 After the outbreak of war, more than a week of fighting in Poland, the Germans reached the area of Łańcut and Markowa. On September 9, the town was taken, and

Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive  55 more than a week later, a nearby city of Jarosław became the centre of operation of the Einsatzkommando 3/I. Germans started searches of Jewish houses, taking valuables, furniture, clothes, bedding, etc. On September 22, at 10 a.m., an ordinance was published that all Jews had to leave the city [Łańcut] by 3 o’clock on the same day and go across San river to Jarosław […] The Jews rented wagons and were forced to leave the city.24 Later this decree was revoked in Łańcut, but around 18,000 Jews were expelled from the Sandomierz‑Jarosław section of the border between areas occupied by Germans and USSR.25 Jews from Markowa and the surrounding area were among them – i.e. Berish Einhorn ended up in Lviv, where in 1941, his daughter Rozia was born. Berish perished in Lviv with his wife; but thanks to the help of unknown Poles, Rozia managed to survive.26 Lejb (Leon) Borgen (born in 1906) fled east from the neighbouring village of Husów. Just like Berish, he ended up in Lviv, but the Soviets considered him a threat and deported him to Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), and later to the area of Uzbekistan. After the war, he went directly to Germany and from there to Israel. He never returned to Poland, where “there was no one left close to him.”27 For those who stayed in the village, a period of increasing persecution and ter‑ ror began. Markowa and neighbouring Łańcut found themselves in the area of the Jarosław county (Ger. Kreis Jaroslau). A navy‑blue police station was established in Markowa, subordinated to the German gendarmerie post in Łańcut. The Ger‑ mans established the Kańczuga‑Wieś (Rural Kańczuga) Jewish Council with its seat in Żuklin. It was supposed to deal with the matters of 11 villages located around Kańczuga (probably including Markowa). On January 12, 1941, the presi‑ dent of this Council wrote that in his area live around 300 Jews. He stated that Jewish farmers lost already sown fields to non‑Jews and lost their cattle as well, so they found themselves in poverty.28 On October 15, 1941, another regulation on restrictions about remaining in the General Government was introduced – Jews leaving their assigned district were to be punished by death, as well as Poles who knowingly gave them shelter. As part of the local introduction of this law, on December 18, 1941, the German leader of the Jarosław county, Dr. Georg Eisenlohr, specified that as a residential district (…) he designates for Jews and Jewesses of the Jarosław county their present place of residence (…) A place of residence is considered to be a town, village commune or a village in which a Jew, on the date on which this regulation comes into force, has his own apartment or, failing that, a shelter. The ordinance entered into force on January 1, 1942.29 From that moment on, for the Jews in Markowa, their own village became a “ghetto” – this also destroyed their last possibility of earning money – petty trade. On the last day of July 1942, trilingual (German‑Ukrainian‑Polish) announce‑ ments were posted informing that “on Saturday, August 1, 1942, the resettlement

56  Kamil Kopera of Jews in the Jarosław area begins.” It was further warned that “every Pole or Ukrainian who tries to hide a Jew, or is helpful in doing so, will be shot.”30 After the action against Jews in the Rzeszów ghetto at the beginning of July 1942, people in Markowa were already alerted and suspected what was about to happen. Edward Szpytma recalled: All Jews were informed about the obligation to leave their homes and report to the lower part of Markowa (Crossroads) to go to the camp. They could only take luggage in hand with them. The carts appointed by the village mayor were already waiting. They got on two carts because only 8 people showed up on that day.31 This group was sent to the assembly point in Łańcut, then to the transit camp in Wólka Pełkinska (Pełkinie), and then to the extermination camp in Bełżec. At least one family had been warned by navy‑blue policemen in Markowa and had a chance to arrange shelter with non‑Jewish friends.32 The majority of Jews stayed in their village. It probably took the Germans only hours to realize that they had not fully complied with the obligation to leave. The gendarmerie reacted: Jews who were found during the search of the village were shot and buried near the house of Binem Muller.33 This event caused other Jews to flee. Kreidla Frieder, a survivor from the village of Sietesz, adjacent to Markowa, testified about this period “on August 3, 1942 […] when the action by the Germans against the Jews began, I ran away with my family […] into the field and hid there in the rapeseed [ …].” At the same time, actions to catch people in hiding began with the participation of local Poles. In many cases it was difficult to determine to what extent these activities were forced and organized by the Germans. Kreidla Frieder: “Just in the first week of the ’ac‑ tion’, Teofil Ryznar, the mayor of Sietesz, in the company of people unknown to me, organized a raid in the forest on a bright day.”34 In Markowa, the place of their temporary shelter and the area for hiding Jews were the ravines in the area around the village – the so‑called streams (Potoki). Shelters were built there with the help of some Christians. But those who wanted to help Jews were often deterred by fear of consequences. In Łańcut, the first person murdered for sheltering Jews, Aniela Nizioł, was killed already in mid‑August 1942.35 The punishment for helping Jews was even reminded by priests during sermons – sometimes this resulted in the ex‑ pulsion of people who previously had been helped.36 Some people benefited from cooperation with the Germans against Jews in hid‑ ing (and sometimes also against Poles helping them). Stanisław Hawro testified: In Markowa, the mayor […] gave an order to the village districts officials to call all the inhabitants of Markowa to take part in [search for] Jews who were hiding. At this command, I mounted my horse and rode out into the field. At some point, I noticed a group of people running across the field towards Potoki […] . The group approached the bank of the stream and Franciszek H. showed the rest of the people where the Jews were hiding. These Jews, that is three women and one child, were hiding in a pit dug in the bank, which was covered

Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive  57 with a plank from the outside and covered with turf or grass. Franciszek H. and that group of people took [them] out and led towards Markowa.37 Those who were caught were locked up in the so‑called custody in the centre of the village. Hawro’s account probably refers to the action of December 12, 1942, which was preceded by actions aimed at local Poles – on November 30, the Germans arrested and murdered two people in the centre of the village, and two more were taken away on December 1 and shot on the road near Łańcut.38 Actions against Jews with the, probably, forced participation of local Poles spread around the area a few days later – a similar scheme was used in Husów and Sietesz. Jews caught by Christians after a few hours in custody were murdered by German gendarmes from Łańcut. The executions in Markowa took place on the so‑called Pit (okopisko) which was located on a hill, just hundred metres away from the village buildings, Germans murdered there several dozen Jews captured during the occupation. The sounds of shots carried around the area and the inhabitants of the village knew perfectly well that their Jewish neighbours were dying there.39 These executions were also mentioned by Mosze “Moniek” Weltz, hidden not far from their place, who estimated the total number of murdered at 200 and gave the exact number of Jews caught in Markowa in December: 28.40 Many people tried to find refuge with Christian friends; some of them were oc‑ casionally hidden in Markowa, others stayed in hideouts for nearly two years. The Riesenbach and Lorbenfeld families survived in hiding with two families named Bar. The Weltz family was hiding with the Szylar family. Jakub Einhorn and un‑ known Jewish couple, survived with the Przybylak family. Abraham Segal sur‑ vived claiming to be a Polish child.41 Itta Goldman from Markowa survived in the neighbouring hamlets, after she was caught and locked in a custody in the centre of Markowa, from which she escaped.42 Over 20 Jews survived German occupation here receiving help from an incalculable number of Christians. Józef Ulma (born in 1900), a well‑known farmer and photographer associated with the Peasant Movement, sheltered eight Jews. He lived in a small, one‑room house on the outskirts, a few hundred metres from the aforementioned Pit. In 1944, together with his wife, Wiktoria (born in 1912), he was raising six small children. In 1942, he helped to create hiding places for Jews in Potoki, and then he hid two daughters of his pre‑war neighbour  –  Chaim Hersch Goldman: Leja Dydner (born 1907) and Golda Greinfeld (born 1912) and the daughter of one of them – Reszla.43 Women’s parents, numerous siblings and spouses were killed in 1942. At some point, Saul Goldman and his sons joined those in hiding. In the mythologized post‑war memory, Saul was considered a stranger with the nickname “Szall,” known only for being a cattle trader from Łańcut. However, his story was closely related to Markowa. Saul was born in 1883 in nearby village of Hadle Kańczuckie. He was a child of Etla Rosengarten and Mechel – the son of Boruch Goldman, an innkeeper from Markowa.44 In the early 1900s, Saul lived in his father’s home village, and then moved to Łańcut. He married Golda Sauer and raised four sons: Boruch (born 1911), Mechel (1914), Joachim (1919) and Mojżesz Fejwel (1921).45 The first victim of extermination from their family was Saul’s brother – above‑mentioned Markus. In August 1942, Golda was killed in Łańcut.46

58  Kamil Kopera Saul fled with his sons to Markowa where his aunt, Miriam Weltz, lived. Her family hid with the Szylars, and Saul with his children went to hiding place in the attic of the Ulma’s house. The news of the latter hiding place was delivered from Markowa to a navy‑blue policeman from Łańcut – Włodzimierz Leś. According to the most shared version of events, he was to inform the Germans about this. At dawn on March 24, 1944, navy‑blue policemen and gendarmes from Łańcut, including Józef Kokot who in 1942 killed Saul’s wife and Aniela Nizioł, arrived in Markowa. On the orders of the gendarmerie’s commander, Lieutenant Eilert Dieken, the Ger‑ mans shot 16 people – Jews in hiding and the entire Ulma family – including Jozef Ulma’s wife in advanced pregnancy.47 These events caused dread in region. One of the many wartime reports about Markowa and its vicinity, left by Jehuda Ehrlich, even says that after the execution, the peasants who had previously helped the Jews, decided to murder them.48 There is no doubt that the people who survived in Markowa did not meet with the sympathy of their Christian neighbours after the war and had to move to larger urban centres.49 There were also murders of survivors after the end of the German occupation in the vicinity of Markowa – it was only by chance that Ehrlich himself did not fall victim to one of them.50 Most of events from these dark times are now recalled not only by the exhibition in the Ulma Family Museum, but also by the creation of local Holocaust Memory Trail. It leads to places like the Pit, and ends in Jagiełła‑Niechciałka where Jewish victims of the Holocaust and post war violence in the region are buried.51 Notes

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Szpytma, n.d.: 1. Opas, 1997: 63–66. Nitkiewicz, 1986: VII. Nieć, 1938: 26. Budzyński et al., 2005: 224. Borcz, 2005: 137. Styś, 1934: 178–179. Schematismus Universi Venerabilis Cleri Saecularis et Regularis Dioeceseos Ritus Lat‑ ini Premisliensis pro Anno Domini 1911, 1910: 195. Wasiutyński, 1930: 147. Schematismus…, 1910. Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), M.31.2/5131, Interview with Aaron Weltz, November 24, 1991 by Dr. Mordecai Paldiel. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Prisoners of War in Siberia Cards, 1920, Moses Rubinfeld. Szpytma, n.d.: 3. Szpytma, n.d.: 4. Urząd Stanu Cywilnego w Kańczudze, “Księga Urodzeń Urzędu Metrykalnego Iz‑ raelickiego w Kańczudze 1918–1938”. Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu (State Archive in Przemyśl; AP Przemyśl), 1524/39, Rada Szkolna Powiatowa w Przeworsku, Sprawozdawczość i statystyka: Spis dzieci rocznika 1913–1925, 1918–1931 (arkusze spisowe). Markowa.

Jews from Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive  59 17 Szpytma, n.d.: 4. 18 Joseph Riesenbach testimony, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, Visual History Archive (USC, VHA), 26901. 19 “Porwanie dziewczyny żyd. przez wójta z Markowej i towarzyszy”, Nowy Dziennik, February 23, 1928, 7. 20 Jakub Riesenbach testimony, http://sites.google.com/riesenbach.com/riesenbach‑new (accessed February 17, 2023). 21 The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II (UFM), correspond‑ ence with Anmuth family. 22 Rocznik Diecezji Przemyskiej Obrządku Łacinskiego, 1938: 113. 23 Arolsen Archives (AA): 1.1.6.2, Individuelle Unterlagen von Häftlingen des KL Dachau 1934–1945: Markus Rosengarten; 1.1.38 Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, 4122444 – Hersch Meilech Landau. 24 Dina Grunbaum testimony, Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw (AŻIH), 301/1501. 25 Böhler, Mallmann, and Matthäus, 2009: 52, 247. 26 UFM, correspondence with Einhorn family. 27 Arolsen Archives (AA), 3.2.1 IRO “Care and Maintenance” Programm: Leon Borgen. 28 Korespondencja Prezydium Ż.S.S z Radą Żydowską z Kańczugi – Wieś (z siedzibą w Żuklinie), AŻIH, 211/524, k. 12. 29 Muzeum w Jarosławiu Kamienica Orsettich (MJKO), Zbiór obwieszczeń, Obwieszc‑ zenie z 18 grudnia 1941 r. 30 (MJKO), Obwieszczenie z 31 lipca 1942 r. 31 E. Szpytma, n.d.: 5. 32 Joseph Riesenbach testimony, USC, VHA, 26901, 33 Archiwum Polskiego Czerwonego Krzyża w Warszawie (APCK), Protokoły ekshu‑ macyjne – powiat Przeworsk, sygn. 16441, k. 38. 34 The Branch Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Rzeszów (AIPN Rz), 353/114, Testimony of Kreindel Frieder, Przemyśl, 11th August 1949, 92–93. 35 AIPN Rz 107/1608 vol. I, Testimony of Michał Nizioł, Rzeszów, 31st January 1958, 206–207. 36 Frances Nightingale testimony, USC, VHA, 54234. 37 AIPN Rz, 358/80, Testimony of Stanisław H., Przeworsk, 20th December 1949, 92, cf. Szpytma, 2018: 202–244. 38 AIPN Rz, 107/1608 vol. II, Testimonies of: Jan Kielar, Rzeszów 14th April 1958, 110; Antoni Szpytma, Rzeszów, 15th April 1958, 125–126. 39 UFM, Testimonies of Helena Kramer and Wiesław Grad, 2017. 40 YVA, Testimony of Mosze Welcz, M.1.E/1369, 1947. 41 For further information about helping Jews in Markowa, see: Szpytma, 2015. 42 UFM, correspondence with Itta Goldman family; UFM, F. Domka W czasie wojny w Nowosielcach…. 43 Urząd Stanu Cywilnego w Kańczudze; AP Przemyśl, 1731/0/1/5. 44 AP Rzeszów, Gmina Wyznaniowa Żydowska w Tyczynie, 59/884/0/‑/4. 45 Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna w Łańcucie, 271/IV, Statystyka. “Dane dotyczące Łańcuta na podstawie prowadzonej niegdyś ewidencji ludności przez Stanisława Kudłę”. 46 AIPN Rz 107/1608, Testimony of Walenty Woś, 15th February 1957, Rzeszów, 95. 47 cf. Szpytma, 2015, cf. AIPN Rz 107/1608 vol. II, III. 48 YVA, M.31.2/2340. 49 Joseph Riesenbach testimony, USC, VHA, 26901. 50 Frances Nightingale testimony, USC, VHA, 54234; AIPN Rz 180/341 J. 51 https://muzeumulmow.pl/en/projects/trail/ (accessed January 12, 2023).

60  Kamil Kopera Bibliography Böhler, Jochen, Mallmann, Klaus‑Michael and Matthäus, Jürgen, 2009. Einsatzgruppen w Polsce, Warszawa: Bellona. Borcz, Henryk, 2005. “Parafia Markowa w okresie staropolskim i do schyłku XIX stulecia”, in: Wojciech Blajer and Jacek Tejchma (eds.), Markowa – sześć wieków tradycji: z dzie‑ jów społeczeństwa i kultury, Markowa: Urząd Gminy: 72–189. Budzyński, Zdzisław, Kelman, Jerzy, 2005. „Ludność Markowej w epoce nowożytnej. Dy‑ namika i specyfika rozwoju społeczności lokalnej do 1914 r.” in: Wojciech Blajer and Ja‑ cek Tejchma (eds.), Markowa – sześć wieków tradycji: z dziejów społeczeństwa i kultury, Markowa: Urząd Gminy: 224. Nieć, Julian, 1938. Rzeszowskie Za Sasów: Szkic Historyczny, Rzeszów: Drukarnia Udziałowa. Nitkiewicz, Maria (ed.), 1986. Kopiariusz Przywilejów Miasta Łańcuta, Łańcut: Muzeum Zamek. Opas, Tomasz, 1997. “Miasto w latach 1655–1772”, in: Włodzimierz Bonusiak (ed.), Łańcut: studia i szkice z dziejów miasta, Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Peda‑ gogicznej: 51–96. Rocznik Diecezji Przemyskiej Obrządku Łacinskiego. 1938. Przemyśl: Kuria Biskupia. Schematismus Universi Venerabilis Cleri Saecularis et Regularis Dioeceseos Ritus Latini Premisliensis pro Anno Domini 1911. 1910. Przemyśl: Kuria Biskupia. Styś, Wincenty, 1934. Rozdrabnianie gruntów chłopskich w byłym zaborze austrjackim, od roku 1787 do 1931, Lwów: Towarzystwo Naukowe. Szpytma, Edward, n.d. Żydzi w Markowej, manuscript, From the collection of Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II. Szpytma, Mateusz, 2015. Sprawiedliwi i ich świat: Markowa w fotografii Józefa Ulmy, Kraków: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Szpytma, Mateusz, 2018. “Crimes against the Jewish Population at Markowa in 1942 in the Context of 1949–1954 Criminal Proceedings”, in: Martyna Grądzka‑Rejak and Adam Sitarek (eds.), The Holocaust and Polish‑Jewish Relations: Selected Issues, Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej: 202–244. Wasiutyński, Bohdan, 1930. Ludność zydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX; studjum statystyczne, Warszawa: Wydawn. Kasy im. Mianowskiego.

6

Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków Krzysztof Czubaszek

A lot of memories, accounts, and documents concerning the Holocaust in Łuków, a county town in the Lublin Voivodeship, mention Josef Bürger,1 a merciless Ger‑ man sadist whose name arose fear and disgust. He was the absolute master of life and death of the local Jews, killing them with pleasure and for no apparent reason. Although the ghastly role that Bürger played in Łuków is generally known, al‑ most nothing is known about this criminal. Where did he come from? Who was he in civilian life? What formation did he serve in? And above all, what happened to him after the end of the war? Did he receive a deserved punishment for his actions, or did he, like many Nazi torturers, escape justice? The answers to these questions are in the German archives.2 More than a dozen years ago widely unknown materials were published that allow us to trace the life of Josef Bürger.3 From a Locksmith’s Assistant to an SS Man Josef Bürger was born on November 25, 1908, in Buttenwiesen (Wertingen dis‑ trict, Bavaria), as the son of Georg Bürger and Kreszetia née Ber. His parents ran a rented restaurant. They had five children, of whom Josef was the second. At the end of 1911, the Bürgers moved to Augsburg, where between 1914 and 1922 Josef attended elementary school. During 1922–1926, he was apprenticed as a locksmith at the Weil mechanical engineering factory in Augsburg. During this period, he attended a vocational school for two years. After completing his studies in 1926–1928, he worked in Weil’s company as a locksmith’s assistant. On October 1, 1928, he joined the Bavarian Schutzpolizei (Preventive, literally: Protective, Police) in Augsburg as a volunteer and worked there until August 1935. He was sent to Bamberg for a short time. In 1934, he attended a police school. From August 1935 to August 1936, he served in Kaiserslautern, and then, until the end of 1938, he was again employed in the riot police in Augsburg. On the advice of his superiors, in 1938, he applied for a transfer to the Criminal Police. He was promised a positive consideration of the application, but first he was to serve in the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo; Secret Police) for some time. He joined the Augsburg branch of the Gestapo in January 1939. In the Riot Police he had the rank of Revierobermeister (Senior Police Sergeant), and in the Gestapo he received the DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-9

62  Krzysztof Czubaszek rank of Kriminalassistent a.P. (Non‑Regulatory Sergeant). He was assigned to the counterintelligence department, and later he was responsible for issuing permits to enter the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On May 1, 1937, he joined the NS‑ DAP (Nazi Party) and received membership number 4,964,719. On June 15, 1938, he was admitted to the SS.4 Although he came from a respected Catholic family, on June 15, 1939, persuaded by his party supervisor, he left the Catholic Church, which was supposed to help him in his career. He was also a member of the NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – National Socialist People’s Welfare). On August 19, 1939, Josef Bürger was summoned to appear in Vienna. The Gestapo men from all over Germany were concentrated there in preparation for the war with Poland. They were quartered in the SS barracks and given grey SS uniforms. Josef Bürger, as Kriminalassistent a.P., received the similar rank of SS‑Oberscharführer (SS Senior Sergeant). He wore green police epaulettes with a white border and a star over his SS feldgrau (field grey) uniform, and an SS‑ Totenkopf (skull) on his cap. Like other SS men, he was equipped with a rifle, a Walther PPK 7.65  mm pistol and a travel case. His superior was a former gov‑ ernment adviser and then SS‑Sturmbannführer (SS Major) Dr.  Hasselberg. On September 1, 1939, he informed his subordinates that Germany was at war and had tasks to perform in the zone of military operations. On that day, Einsatzkom‑ mando (Special Task Unit) I 3, to which Josef Bürger belonged, consisting of about 120 men, was transported by cars through Ostrava toward the Tatra Mountains. The unit was divided into groups of five. One of them consisted of Josef Bürger and his four comrades from Augsburg. The task of the Einsatzkommando was to secure the rear of the front. For a short time, Josef Bürger was stationed in Zakopane and Jarosław, where his group was tasked with overseeing the surrender of all weapons by the Polish population. At the turn of October and November 1939, Josef Bürger and his unit arrived in Lublin. Then he was sent to the local branch of the Lublin KdS (Office of the Commander of the Security Police and Security Service)5 in Łuków. It consisted of ten people and was led by a certain commissioner Güte. He was stationed in the county administration building (Landratsamt). At the end of May 1940, due to the liquidation of the Łuków county, the KdS post was moved to Radzyń, which from the beginning of 1940 became the seat of the county authorities (Kreishaupt‑ mannschaft). At that time, the KdS unit was no longer managed by Commissioner Güte, due to his illness, and his place was taken by a certain Kriminalobersekretär (Gestapo Lieutenant) W.6 In June 1940, he was replaced by Kriminalobersekretär SS‑Untersturmführer (SS Second Lieutenant) Fischer, who was expelled to Poland after the war and most likely shot there. The KdS branch in Radzyń covered the area of the Radzyń county, which was part of the Lublin district of the General Government. It had about 4,500 square kilometres and 350,000 inhabitants, including 44,000 Jews. Most of them lived in towns and larger villages (Radzyń, Międzyrzec, Łuków, Parczew, Kock, Wohyń, Se‑ rokomla). In total, 516 villages grouped into 42 communes belonged to the Radzyń county.

Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków  63 The Radzyń KdS was responsible for political security in the county. His tasks included, among others: tracking and combating Polish and communist resistance, counteracting economic sabotage and illegal trade, and overseeing Jewish affairs. The latter were initially also subject to the civilian administration of the county (KdS was responsible only for the use of Jewish labour), but over time, they were entirely under the jurisdiction of the police and security services. A Ghetto Overseer and a Criminal Persecution of the Jewish population in Łuków began in the autumn of 1939, dur‑ ing the first days of the German occupation of the town, and worsened in the sec‑ ond half of 1941, after the German attack on the Soviet Union. It was then that a decision was made to physically liquidate the Jews. Before that happened, the Germans had concentrated the Jews in larger towns and closing them in ghettos. One of them was created in Łuków. The living conditions there were catastrophic. Diseases spread, famine reigned, people died en masse. The ghetto was not yet fenced in, but Jews were not allowed to leave it on pain of death. The ghettos in the Radzyń county were managed by the local branch of KdS. The person responsible for the ghetto in Łuków was Josef Bürger. He came there at least once or twice a month to deliver guidelines and orders to the chairman of the Judenrat and the gendarmerie.7 They concerned both forced labor and the requisi‑ tion of various goods. In 1941, just before Christmas, gold, jewellery, and furs were plundered in Łuków. Josef Bürger was personally involved in it and ordered the Judenrat to col‑ lect a certain amount of these goods. A lot of Jews were killed during this action. At the end of March 1942, Operation Reinhardt, the planned liquidation of Jews, began in the Lublin region. The first transports were sent to the extermina‑ tion camps in Bełżec and Sobibór. In June, the extermination camp in Treblinka was opened, where trains with Jews from the Radzyń county were directed. From August 1942, Josef Bürger stayed permanently (day and night) in Łuków, as he was responsible for preparing and carrying out the deportation of the local Jews to Treblinka. He lived in the house of the mayor. The liquidation of the Jewish community in Łuków began on October 5, 1942. It was carried out by officers of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg,8 supported by the Gestapo men from Radzyń, Latvians, Ukrainians and Hiwis.9 In the morning, the ghetto was surrounded and the hunt for Jews began. There were endless murders and atrocities at that time. Some of the Jews avoided deportation because they hid in various hidings. At that time, about 7,000 Jews were trans‑ ported to the Treblinka gas chambers. Some of them managed to jump out of the wagons and return to Łuków. Thanks to them the Jews remaining in the town could find out where the transports with people were going. After the first operation Josef Bürger stayed in Łuków. His task was to draw up a register of goods left by the Jews deported to Treblinka, and to collect valuables in the synagogue and the adjacent building. Bürger was helped by the Jewish security

64  Krzysztof Czubaszek service whose task was also to persuade the Jews in hiding to reveal themselves and take up the job offered by the Germans. In October and November 1942, Josef Bürger was busy bringing the Jews from the surrounding towns to the Łuków ghetto and organizing subsequent transports to Treblinka. On the night of November 6/7, 1942, the Germans brought a column of about 700 Jews from Kock to Łuków. The next day in the morning the second large action of deportations to Treblinka began which lasted for several days. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people were then sent to the gas chambers. Bürger, who was per‑ sonally involved in this action, was helped by numerous SS men and Ukrainians. This time some Jews hid and avoided deportation. On November 9, they were once again called to reveal themselves and collect their worksheets. Anyone detained without such a document was to be shot on the spot. About 500–600 Jews came out of hiding at that time. The next day they were taken to the cemetery near the village of Malcanów and shot there. On November 13 the call for disclosure was renewed. Although it was said by word of mouth that nothing could be gained from this, about 500 more Jews left their hiding places. They were also killed the next day near Malcanów.10 Bürger remained in Łuków almost until Christmas 1942. He collected and se‑ cured property robbed from Jews and sent it to Lublin. He took a leave of absence for Christmas and went to Augsburg. For several months after the large deportations to Treblinka, there were still many Jews in the Łuków ghetto. Despite the fact that there was famine and people died en masse of typhus and other diseases, many people who had managed to es‑ cape returned to the town. This because it was very difficult to survive in the forest during the winter, and the attitude of the Polish population toward the Jews in hid‑ ing was often hostile. The Jews hoped that the liquidation actions would not be re‑ peated and that the chances of surviving in the ghetto would be greater than outside it. But they were wrong. On May 2, 1943, the operation of the final liquidation of the Łuków ghetto began. By May 5, all the town’s Jews had been transported to the extermination camp in Treblinka and many of those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. Josef Bürger also participated in this action. For several months (since returning from his leave at the beginning of 1943), he again resided permanently in Radzyń, and he came to Łuków occasionally. Impunity and Arrest From May to July 1943, Josef Bürger stayed in Radzyń. On July 14, during a clash with partisans, he was seriously shot in the pelvic area. He was taken to hospital in Lubartów where his kidney was removed. Then he was transported to hospital in  Legnica in Silesia. In November 1944, he was declared unfit for further ser‑ vice in the police and army and sent back to Augsburg where the end of the war found him. At the request of the American occupation authorities, he registered as a member of the Gestapo. At the end of May 1945, he was interned in a camp near Ludwigsburg. After two or three months he was sent to the camp in Stuttgart, and after another such period he was transported to Dachau. His fears that he would be

Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków  65 extradited to Poland by the Americans did not come true. He was sent to an intern‑ ment camp in Regensburg where he stayed for six to nine months. His last place of detention was the camp in Langwasser near Nuremberg from where he was released on April 25, 1948. On October 26, 1948, the Trial Chamber (Spruchkammer)11 in Augsburg, under the Christmas amnesty, recognized Josef Bürger only as “co‑follower”,12 including him in one of the least burdensome categories of Nazi functionaries. The criminal could therefore return to his family – his father, because his mother died on May 28, 1943. His sister, married to a certain Mäc., also lived in Augsburg. Josef Bürger maintained good relations with them, which cannot be said about his relations with two other sisters who emigrated to the United States before the outbreak of World War II. Another sister died in 1948 in Augsburg. After returning home, Josef Bürger tried to work for the police again. Initially, due to the Gestapo past, his efforts were unsuccessful, but on December 1, 1953, he was accepted into the ranks of the Augsburg Schutzpolizei. In the same year his father, on whose pension they both lived, died. The job allowed Bürger not only to get back on his feet financially but also brought him a professional promotion – he was appointed Senior Sergeant of the Criminal Police (Kriminalobermeister). Almost 20 years after the war, however, the criminal was brought to justice. Pursuant to the order of the Düsseldorf District Court (Amtsgericht) of September 26, 1963,13 Josef Bürger was arrested on October 1, 1963, and 15 days later, disci‑ plinary proceedings were initiated against him at the place of employment which, however, were suspended pending the completion of the criminal trial. During this time, his current salary was cut in half. On December 1, 1968, due to his 60th birth‑ day, Bürger retired, which gave him the right to 2/3 of his previous earnings. He also received 100 marks of an allowance for war invalids who suffered over 50% damage to their health. Bürger was detained until May 10, 1966, afterward he was released on bail by decision of the Criminal Division 1 of the Düsseldorf Court of Appeals (Oberland‑ esgericht) of May 6, 1966.14 On July 24, 1970, he was re‑detained under an arrest warrant issued by the jury (Schwurgericht) in Düsseldorf, which dealt with his case from April 8, 1970, and held 29 hearings in connection with it.15 Findings of the Court and the Basis of the Accusation The course of Josef Bürger’s war career and the data on his stay in Radzyń and Łuków, as well as information on the deportation of the Jews from Łuków from autumn 1942 to spring 1943, were provided by the accused. The other facts were established by the court on the basis of testimonies of witnesses and various documents. Bürger pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He only confirmed that during his service in Radzyń he was involved in various office jobs and fighting the Polish underground. He testified that he had nothing to do with Jewish matters at all, and only occasionally carried out minor orders from his superior Fischer, e.g. he delivered written instructions to the Judenrat in Łuków. Jewish issues in

66  Krzysztof Czubaszek the county were personally supervised by Fischer who directed his orders directly to Jewish self‑governments. He was supposed to manage the creation of ghettos in Radzyń, Międzyrzec, and Łuków, and supervise them. Bürger only heard about the action of taking furs and gold from the Jews at the end of 1941, but he had noth‑ ing to do with it. This was Fischer’s personal venture, too. According to Bürger’s testimony, not only did he not use violence against Jews, nor did he kill any, but he had not even heard of such a thing taking place. When the liquidation of the ghetto in Radzyń began in June 1942, he was abroad on a business trip. When he returned to the town, the Jews were simply gone. He thought they had been sent to Russia to fix airfields whose destruction was reported daily on the radio. He knew nothing about the extermination of Jews at that time. Stubbornly lying, Bürger claimed that he came into close contact with the Jew‑ ish question only once, from the end of August/September, or maybe even Novem‑ ber/December, to Christmas 1942. Here he pointed out his oblivion. At that time, he was responsible for securing the property left by the Jews in Łuków. The mayor of Łuków came to Fischer, who resided in Radzyń, and informed him that Poles were plundering houses abandoned by the Jews. He went with Bürger to Łuków, ordered him to take care of it, and returned to Radzyń himself. So Bürger stayed in Łuków until Christmas, lived in the mayor’s house, and was involved in saving Jewish properties. No‑one lived in the ghetto at that time. The mayor told him that ten days earlier all the Jews had been escorted out of the town by the soldiers. Only mem‑ bers of the Jewish security service and about 25 Jews assigned to help him by the employment office remained. The size of this group later increased. The Jews, man‑ aged by Bürger, dealt with the transfer of house furnishings from the ghetto area to the synagogue and several nearby buildings. Everything was meticulously written down. To where those Jews, for whom he supposedly cared a lot, later went, Bürger did not know. He did not meet other Jews, neither locals nor outsiders, in Łuków. As for the fate of the Jews from Łuków, he believed, just as in case of the Jews from Radzyń, that they were sent to Russia to repair the local airports. Once, when a Jewish policeman asked him how the Jews would manage without furniture when they returned to the town, he did not know what to answer him. This question proved that even those few Jews who remained in the town knew nothing about the fate of the displaced. Apart from this conversation, Bürger did not contact the Jews remaining in Łuków. He gave them his orders through two or three law enforce‑ ment officers. He also noted that he cared for the Jews very much, provided them with good food and accommodation. Bürger spent Christmas 1942 with his family in Augsburg. He was supposed to return to Radzyń in mid‑January 1943, but about a week after the New Year he slipped on the ice near his house and sprained his leg. He therefore stayed in Augsburg on sick leave. On March 4, 1943, he took part in the baptism of his sis‑ ter’s child. Although he left the Church before the outbreak of the war, he acted as godfather during this ceremony, and was entered as such in the parish registers. He returned to Radzyń in late April or early May 1943. He did not participate in the last liquidation action of the Łuków ghetto, which began on May 2, 1943. He came to this town after its completion. The mayor told him that the Jews from

Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków  67 Kock, who had been resettled in Łuków, had been taken from the town by the Wehrmacht just before Bürger’s arrival. He testified in court that he had not par‑ ticipated in the displacement of the Jews or in any action against them, in Łuków or in any other town. According to Bürger, he could not have committed any of the alleged acts, be‑ cause since the spring of 1940 he had not had a service pistol. The Walther PPK 7.65 mm, which he received in Vienna, was stolen while moving from Łuków to Radzyń. After that he had no service weapons and walked around with an empty holster. He did not report the loss of the pistol because he was afraid of punishment from his superior. The crimes that Jewish witnesses accused him of, Bürger fully denied. He pointed out that it could have been committed by someone similar to him. He stated that the Jews accused him of these acts only for proxy reasons, because they saw that he took part in the operation of securing Jewish property and knew him by name. According to the court’s findings, Josef Bürger was responsible for the Jewish affairs in Łuków at least from the end of May 1940 to July 1942. He not only trave‑ led to this town from time to time, but during 1940–1941 he received the chairman of the Judenrat of Łuków on business almost every day. This was confirmed by Bürger’s colleague from the KdS, a certain Pec., who worked in Radzyń until May 1, 1941. Also, the witness Lan. testified that the ghetto in Radzyń was supervised by Klieber, in Międzyrzec by Guddat (later Ditter), and in Łuków by Bürger. Based on the accounts of German witnesses, the court refuted Bürger’s testi‑ mony that Fischer, the head of the KdS, personally dealt with Jewish matters in the Radzyń county. The area under his control was about 4,500 square kilometres, and the number of Jews living there reached 44,000. It was impossible for one person to cope with this task. In addition, Fischer was the head of the branch, and his duties were primarily to manage it, not to perform individual duties. He delegated them to his subordinates. It was obvious to the court that the Jewish matters in Łuków fell to Bürger, as from August to December 1942 he stayed in the town and supervised the collection of the Jewish property. The testimonies of the Jewish witnesses were of particular importance for the court. However, it was sometimes difficult for the judges to assess their credibility, especially since they were submitted almost 30 years after the events to which they pertained. The judges tried to assess the mental condition of the witnesses, to determine whether they acted out of revenge against the accused, whether they did not omit or exaggerate certain facts. Hours of interrogation showed that these people, although they talked about terrible events, about the death of loved ones, relatives, or friends, were calm, and their statements were credible, without any trace of hatred. Witnesses separated what they experienced themselves from what they knew from the stories of others. There was no indication that the Jewish witnesses had conspired against Bürger, as he claimed in his testimony. On the contrary – in the accounts of people living in Israel  –  the court found some discrepancies that these witnesses could have avoided if they had acted in concert against the accused.

68  Krzysztof Czubaszek The court examined whether Josef Bürger’s personality allowed him to commit the alleged murders of the Jews. It questioned psychologist Dr. G. Ho., relatives of the accused, and many of his associates. From the testimonies emerged the im‑ age of an inconspicuous, quiet, dutiful, and hard‑working man, strongly connected to his parents and siblings. According to the expert and the court, these features did not exclude the possibility of participation in the crimes. The defendant, with whom the expert conducted many conversations and subjected him to psychologi‑ cal tests, was characterized by a simple personality, with strong defence mecha‑ nisms, showing the need to eliminate everything that violated a simple idea of life, and was in conflict with a high sense of duty. The expert stated that under normal circumstances, the accused would not have committed murders, but in certain situ‑ ations, disturbing his schematic and rigid outlook on the world, he might have been capable of it. Judgment and Prison Josef Bürger was charged with a total of 18 criminal acts, of which his responsibil‑ ity for seven of them was proved in the course of court proceedings, and in the case of another 11, according to the court, there was insufficient evidence to attribute them to him, so he was released in this respect from guilt. At the last session, which took place on July 24, 1970, the Jury issued the judgment16 combined with the aforementioned arrest warrant. He sentenced Josef Bürger to life imprisonment and five years of disqualification for committing ten murders. He was found guilty of the deaths of eight people known by name, and two unknown persons, and acquitted of the remaining crimes. The court emphasized that the defendant acted out of racial motives, he behaved as the master of the life and death of the Jews of Łuków, he was driven by hatred towards them, and it was solely up to his will who was killed and who was spared. Josef Bürger served his sentence in the Bavarian town of Straubing. In 1985, he was granted parole from prison. The prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf filed a com‑ plaint against this, but the case did not progress further due to the criminal’s death. He died on April 2, 1986, in the hospital of St. Elizabeth in Straubing. Notes 1 Czubaszek, 2008: 161, 164, 168, 169, 173, 245; Browning, 2019: 160. 2 Files of the trial of Josef Bürger, Landesarchiv Nordrhein‑Westfalen, Abteilung Rhein‑ land in Duisburg, unit 223.03.06: Staatsanwaltschaft Düsseldorf: NS‑­Gewaltverbrechen, ref. Gerichte Rep. 0382, number 1531–1686: Bürger, Josef, Kriminalobermeister a.D., Augsburg, wegen Mordes in zehn Fällen (1960–1986). 3 Justiz und NS‑Verbrechen…, 2005: 420–463. 4 SS (Schutzstaffeln) – literally: Protective Relays. Initially a paramilitary Nazi organiza‑ tion, subordinate to the NSDAP, with its own military‑style ranks. Later, militarised units (Waffen‑SS) were also created. The members of the SS were the most fanatical and staunch supporters of Nazism. The SS formations showed exceptional brutality. The SS men formed the core of the concentration camp crews and played a leading role during the Holocaust. After the war, the SS was considered a criminal organization.

Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków  69 5 KdS (Der Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes) – Office of the Commander of the Security Police and Security Service. Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) included the Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police). 6 In the published judgment and its justification the names of many people are hidden under initials or a few initial letters, and the names are not always given. 7 Gendarmerie – part of the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo), the order police operating in com‑ munes and smaller towns of the General Government. In larger towns its role played another formation included in the Orpo, the aforementioned Schutzpolizei. 8 There is no mention of them in the published judgment and its justification. It was stated there that the liquidation operation was carried out by the SS units from Lublin. 9 Hiwis (an abbreviation from German word Hilfswillige – voluntary helpers) – prisoners of war and volunteers collaborating with the Nazis. 10 A detailed description of the liquidation of the Jewish community in Łuków in October and November 1942 was left by Stanisław Żemis. See: Czubaszek, 2019: 62–71. 11 Trial Chambers – German ad hoc courts in the American occupation zone, consisting of ordinary citizens working under the supervision of the authorities, appointment to carry out denazification processes. 12 Co‑follower (Mitlaufer) – belonging to the fourth of the five categories of members of the national socialist power apparatus, introduced by ad hoc denazification courts (see footnote above): 1. main guilty (Hauptschuldige); 2. burdened (Belastete); 3. less bur‑ dened (Minderbelastete); 4. co‑follower (Mitläufer); 5. acquitted (Entlastete). 13 Ref. 50 II Gs 3898/63. This order was later supplemented by the decision of the inves‑ tigating judge at the District Court (Landgericht) in Düsseldorf of January 4, 1965, ref. UR II 22/65 (in the published judgment and its justification at the end of the reference number of the document from 1965 there is 63, which is probably a mistake, because the number after the slash indicates the year in which the document was produced). 14 Ref. 1 Ws 229/66. 15 Ref. 1 Ws 229/66. 16 Ref. 8 Ks 1/70.

Bibliography Browning, Christopher R., 2019. Zwykli ludzie. 101. Rezerwowy Batalion Policji i “ostatec‑ zne rozwiązanie” w Polsce [Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland], transl. by Piotr Budkiewicz, Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy Rebis. Czubaszek, Krzysztof, 2019. Stanisław Żemis  –  świadek zagłady Żydów w Łukowie/ Stanisław Żemis – Witness of the Holocaust in Łuków, Warszawa: EMKA. Czubaszek, Krzysztof, 2008. Żydzi Łukowa i okolic [The Jews of Łuków and Its Vicinity], Warszawa: Danmar. Justiz und NS‑Verbrechen, 2005. Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialis‑ tischer Tötungsverbrechen, ed. by dr. D.W. de Mildt, prof. dr. C.F. Rüter, vol. XXXIV, Amsterdam/München: Amsterdam University Press/K.G. Saur Verlag.

7

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue by Means of Labor and Jewish Self‑Help in the Face of Aktion Reinhardt Witold Mędykowski

Establishment of the Jewish Social Self‑Help From the first days of World War II, there was a need to create organizations to help those who had lost all their possessions and became refugees. The Jews were very quick to react to the new situation. Most likely, this resulted from both their tradi‑ tion of social assistance and the solidarity of the Jewish community, which allowed Jews to survive unfavorable economic conditions and pauperization during various periods of history. One of those activists who started organizational activities im‑ mediately after the outbreak of the war was Dr. Michael Weichert. On September 2, 1939, he proposed the creation of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Social Organizations in Warsaw, and equivalent of the Social Self‑Help Committee of that City. Since the early days of the war, Warsaw had become the destination of thousands of refugees, but formally, the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Social Organiza‑ tions was established only on September 14, 1939. There were also other organiza‑ tions whose aim was to coordinate matters concerning the Jewish community, such as the Jewish Citizens’ Committee. Moreover, there was an official Jewish commu‑ nity in Warsaw. Initially, the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Social Organiza‑ tions was headed by Leon Neustadt, and Michał Weichert was his deputy. It was only from January 1940 that the Commission was headed by Weichert as its chairman. The Commission cooperated with the Polish Red Cross, receiving funds from foreign aid with its help. As the United States was not at war with Germany un‑ til December 1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC or Joint) legally operated in the General Government until that time. Help from the American Red Cross and the Commission for Polish Relief also reached the territo‑ ries of occupied Poland. These organizations sent money, medicines, food parcels, and clothes by sea. The German Red Cross was also involved in sending foreign aid to occupied Poland. In February 1940, the Central Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza – RGO) was established, which was a Polish charity organization helping war victims.1 Af‑ ter the end of the German‑Polish war in 1939, many in Poland still had no means of subsistence. This was due, among other things, to the fact that many refugees had left their homes and could not return to them. During the German‑Polish war of DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-10

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue  71 1939, about 66,300 Polish soldiers died and about 133,700 were wounded.2 About 420,000 Polish soldiers were taken prisoner and imprisoned in POW camps in Germany, and about 200,000 ended up in POW camps in the Soviet Union. 82,300 Polish soldiers were interned in camps in Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Sweden. Many families of soldiers were deprived not only of their providers but also of their means of livelihood. In addition, from the autumn of 1939, thousands of Poles and Jews from the territories annexed to the German Reich began to be deported to the General Gov‑ ernment, the first group coming from the Wartheland area. By the end of 1939, a total of 87,883 people were deported to the General Government. By the end of 1940, the number of expelled reached 250,000 Jews and Poles. Entire trains of people without means of subsistence reached the General Government and had to be accommodated in the apartments of other families, fed, and provided with clothes and fuel. In a short time, the situation became very difficult due to the very harsh winter of 1939–1940 and the lack of food. Without the help of social welfare organizations, many families were threatened with starvation. Food shortages were also caused by the large number of German soldiers stationed in the General Gov‑ ernment and the numerous German administrations. In the early 1940s the situation became paradoxical. On the one hand, both Poles and Jews were being economically persecuted. In the case of the former, labor duty (Arbeitszwang) was introduced, many social benefits were withdrawn, mandatory food supplies by the peasant were introduced (the so‑called quotas – kontyngenty), food stocks were confiscated, and production plants were dismantled. The Jewish population was even more drastically affected by persecution. Food supplies were plundered in shops and private homes. Soon after the establishment of the General Government, forced labor (Zwangsarbeit) was introduced, ritual slaughter was forbidden, there were restrictions on bank accounts, the amount of cash one could hold was limited, travel restrictions came into effect, and many other laws were introduced. By robbing the Jewish communities’ and social or‑ ganizations’ cash resources, these were immediately deprived of their funds, with economic constraints and the influx of refugees making it impossible to get out of the difficult economic situation. This was also noticed by the German authorities in the General Government, which tried to avoid a social catastrophe at all costs. Lack of food and population density threatened mass starvation and epidemics. Therefore, despite the persecution, the German authorities wanted to keep the situ‑ ation under control. Already from the first months of 1940, talks began with representatives of the municipal authorities of Warsaw and Kraków and Polish social organizations in order to create a social welfare organization. On the German side, this was led by the head of the Department of Population and Welfare (Bevölkerung und ­Fürsorge – BuF), Dr. Fritz Arlt.3 In February 1940, the RGO was established based on the model of the one that had operated during the First World War and shortly after (1916–1921). In February 1940, Adam Ronikier4 became the head of RGO.5 This organization based in Kraków, the capital of the General Government, oper‑ ated with the consent of Governor Dr. Hans Frank. Its activities were supported by

72  Witold Mędykowski representatives of the church, especially Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha. Almost a million people benefited from the help of this organization, which illustrates the difficult financial situation of the population. In the spring of 1940, a Jewish social self‑help organization was created to aid the Jewish population throughout the General Government. On May 29, 1940, the German authorities accepted the establishment of this Jewish Social Self‑Help ­organization  –  (Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna  –  ŻSS or in German Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe – JSS). It was to function within the framework of the Supreme Welfare Council (Naczelna Rada Opiekuńcza – NRO), bringing together three or‑ ganizations: the Polish Central Welfare Council, the Jewish Social Self‑Help, and the Ukrainian Central Council (Ukrainska Rada Główna). The activities of the Jewish Social Self‑Help were financed by funds provided by the Supreme Welfare Council, financial assistance from the Joint, and subsidies from the General Governor. In order to develop social assistance among the Jewish population, Jewish ­Welfare Committees or Committees to Aid Jews were established in every major Jewish community in the General Government. In the cities, they were called ­Jewish Municipal Committees (Żydowski Komitet Opiekuńczy Miejski – ŻKOM), the larg‑ est of which was in Warsaw (Jewish Municipal Welfare Committee in Warsaw). By mid‑1941, 412 such institutions had been established. During this period, the greatest problem of the Jewish population was the shortage of food and medicines. Jewish Social Self‑Help supplied medicine to 112 hospitals, 108 outpatient clinics, and 299 orphanages.6 In order to improve the Jews’ food situation, public kitchens were created to feel the poorest. In total, 343 public kitchens were created. As a result of Operation Barbarossa and the creation of the fifth district of the General Government – the Distrikt Galizien (August 1, 1941), dozens of other towns inhab‑ ited by Jews were added to the area serviced by Jewish Social Self‑Help. Accord‑ ing to a report from August 25, 1942, Jewish Social Self‑Help provided medicine and other necessary materials to 117 hospitals and 123 outpatient clinics. Moreo‑ ver, Jewish Social Self‑Help supported 426 public kitchens.7 Jewish Social Self‑Help received many food parcels from abroad containing goods considered luxuries during the war, having become scarce as Germany was under a naval blockade. To increase available funds, employees of the Jewish So‑ cial Self‑Help would sell goods such as coffee, cocoa, tea, chocolate, cans of sar‑ dines, and canned fish. With the money obtained, they could buy cheaper food products, such as flour, groats, or potatoes, making it possible to feed a much larger number of hungry people. Initiatives to Organize Communities of Jewish Workers Even before the start of Aktion Reinhard, Jewish Social Self‑Help tried to organize a community of Jewish workers. A circular from February 16 [1942] – a month before the liquidation of the ghetto in Lublin, stated: Until now, the Jewish Social Self‑Help Centers, with few exceptions, have limited their activities to providing basic assistance, i.e. food, clothing,

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue  73 medical, and combating or preventing epidemics. This type of help is neces‑ sarily ad hoc in nature. However, any social welfare activity should strive to become redundant after some time. Therefore, we refer our institutions to the need to deal with another form of help, more purposeful and constructive. By this we mean above all help in the field of work.8 As we can observe, such a change in the concept of social assistance was not moti‑ vated by the impending danger of extermination. It went on to explain: Only recently have we managed to interest the central [German] Economic Authorities in the problem of employment of Jewish craftsmen. For larger workshops and craft associations, there are opportunities to receive orders for everyday products and some products of small industry. For this purpose, we must in the coming days present the production capacity of Jewish crafts in particular towns, mainly coopers, tailors, shoemakers, saddlers and haber‑ dashery (like toys).9 In order to obtain an accurate picture of the production capacity in each locality, the presidium of the Jewish Social Self‑Help asked for information about major workshops or associations of employees of the [above] branches of production or what other production possibilities were in each locality, what machines and tools were owned, how large orders could be adopted, and when they could be imple‑ mented. Local Social Welfare Committees were also asked whether and to what extent local labor communities had received orders from German authorities, Ger‑ man institutions, or both Polish and German companies. The Presidium of Jewish Social Self‑Help asked for precise and accurate data, for which local committees or delegations of Jewish Social Self‑Help were responsible. In the same circular, the Presidium of Jewish Social Self‑Help asked to consult on these matters with craftsmen or their associations and demanded that every effort be made to obtain orders on the spot. The Presidium also asked Jewish Social Self‑Help institutions to provide support to craftsmen and their associations, depending on local needs and conditions.10 Necessary permits to establish labor associations were issued by: the Regional Chamber of Crafts (Gruppe Handwerk w der Abteilung der Wirtschaft Gewerbliche Distriktkammer) or district governors [Kreishauptmann], city gover‑ nors [Stadthauptmann], city commissioners [Stadtkommissar], or national com‑ missioners [Landkommissar].11 Communities should be formed regardless of whether contracts have been won or not. According to the experience of the Jewish Social Self‑Help, it was much easier to get an order through already organized communities than for those that had not yet been established. In places where there were no closed residential dis‑ tricts (ghettos), work communities should be established by representatives of Jew‑ ish communities, after approval by the competent authority, outside the Jewish district in order to accept orders from individual customers. The circular of the Presidium of Jewish Social Self‑Help also recommended that when applying for orders, consideration should be given not only to the production of new products

74  Witold Mędykowski from normal raw materials but also to the receipt of materials for repairing, refresh‑ ing, and altering or processing damaged clothing to make it fit for use again, and finally to manufacturing utility items from waste and substitute materials.12 Ac‑ cording to the circular, people who do not have professional qualifications in the field of crafts, in consultation with the competent Employment Office (Arbeitsamt), should be assigned to work in establishments working for the [German] Authori‑ ties and, if necessary, partly assigned to existing communities as auxiliary personnel who, as experience teaches – after a short training, he fulfills the tasks entrusted to him.13 The Labor Assistance Department contacted Jewish Social Self‑Help institutions in the General Government with a plan to use the winter period for preparatory works related to production in the field of gardening and agriculture. First of all, intensive horticultural production, some branches of animal production, and agri‑ cultural processing were at stake. According to the letter of January 5, 1942: “You can also rationally use all, even the smallest scraps of land, which will also facili‑ tate the agricultural training of young people.”14 In cities, where possible, public lectures were to be prepared on local conditions for agricultural and horticultural production, short‑term courses for landowners were organized, written instructions on cultivation of the land were issued, and the like. These included preparing previ‑ ously uncultivated land by converting it into plots, soliciting the allocation of larger plots of land suitable for farming, and finally cooperating with all existing agricul‑ tural work establishments, using them for agricultural training. For all agricultural work, establishments should employ agricultural training candidates or students of agricultural courses.15 In circular no. 50 of January 5, 1942, the Presidium of Jewish Social Self‑Help called on committees and delegations to organize preparatory work related to pro‑ duction in the field of horticulture and agriculture. Local committees of Jewish Social Self‑Help were asked to try to place Jewish workers on local estates for the duration of agricultural work, first and foremost, displaced farmers and young people of both sexes. The Labor Assistance Office of Jewish Social Self‑Help sent a delegate to a number of villages in the Kraków district, who visited commissions and delegations and visited the surrounding mansions, trying to place Jewish farm workers. Thanks to the efforts of Jewish Social Self‑Help institutions, they man‑ aged to place about 2,500 Jews in agricultural work.16 When facing the complete liquidation of smaller ghettos and partial liquidation of larger ghettos, the Presidium of Jewish Social Self‑Help wrote: We know that in the vast majority of cities and towns inhabited by Jews, Jewish production forces are not even approximately used. They have lost their sources of income, are forced to use the social assistance of our insti‑ tutions, which is often limited to a plate of soup a day. Involving a certain

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue  75 part of the charges into the work process would, on the one hand, relieve our institutions [of Jewish Social Self‑Help] to a large extent, and, on the other hand, would provide the working people with employing them in their place of residence.17 […] The matters we have raised should be considered very urgent. The heads of the “Work Aid” Department in the Municipal and District Welfare Committees and members of the Delegatures [Representa‑ tions] should set themselves the immediate goal of drawing in as many Jews as possible as soon as possible to the work process.18 Throughout 1942, Jewish Social Self‑Help was also intensively involved in help‑ ing Jewish workers in labor camps. In contrast to other districts, in the spring and summer of 1942, many new labor camps for Jews were established in the Kraków district and quite a number of others were expanded. The camp in Płaszów ex‑ panded greatly and the number of Jews in the camp increased. The new camps were often built without proper infrastructure and were set up solely for specific work by civilian companies.19 Jewish Social Self‑Help was probably one of the few, if not the only organiza‑ tion that could intervene on behalf of Jewish workers and bring real change. Not only did it have direct access to every labor camp, but it was also in constant con‑ tact with the German authorities, especially with the Main Department of Internal Affairs (Haupabteilung Innere Verwaltung), and the Department of Population and Welfare (Amtsgruppe Bevölkerung und Fürsorge). Jewish Social Self‑Help inter‑ ventions were often quite effective and could bring about a real improvement in the living and working conditions of Jewish workers.20 Although the members of Jewish Social Self‑Help tried to avoid explicit infor‑ mation about the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos, the memo regarding the discus‑ sion with a representative from the Department of Internal Affairs (Haupabteilung Innere Verwaltung), Department of Population and Welfare (BuF) noted: “JSS work. Mr.  Stachow is interested in our activities today, the more so because he knows that a whole number of nearby towns of the Kraków powiat, or other pow‑ iats from the Kraków district, remained without Jews.”21 This was extremely important because the presidium of the Jewish Social Self‑Help became the central Jewish body in the entire GG, which was able not only to negotiate with the German GG administration, but also became the central body initiating and coordinating the creation of new work communities or crafts‑ men during Aktion Reinhardt. Jewish Social Self‑Help as the central social welfare organization in the GG was probably the only Jewish organization that had access to every Jewish ghetto and labor camp, had current, real information about the developments in the field, and had the perspective to see a full and accurate picture of what was happening with the Jews in the GG. As such, Jewish Social Self‑Help tried to avoid the worst, i.e., the destruction of the Jews in the GG, providing its help to every possible Jewish community – communes, ghettos and labor camps, or other Jewish communities. Michał Weichert recalled, there were still attempts to hinder or liquidate the Jewish Social Self‑Help.22

76  Witold Mędykowski Jews Facing Persecution and Extermination Aktion Reinhardt began on the night of March 16/17, 1942, in Lublin. At that time, transports from the ghetto in Lublin to the death camp in Bełżec – the first of the death camps in the General Government – began. The first death camp in occupied Poland was opened on December 8, 1942. It was a complex for mass killing of Jews in Chełmno and Nerem, which was known in German as Kulmhof. This com‑ plex consisted of a mansion, from where trucks, which were also gas chambers, departed for the Rzuchowski Forest, where the corpses were buried. The Bełżec camp was the first of three Aktion Reinhardt death camps. The others were Sobibór, which began functioning in May 1942, and the Treblinka II death camp, which began murdering Jews sent from the Warsaw Ghetto starting from July 22, 1942. Despite the start of Aktion Reinhardt and the systematic deportations of Jews to death camps, Jewish Social Self‑Help tried to continue its activities. Forced labor camps continued to exist, although within a few months many ghettos ceased to exist, while others turned into rest ghettos (Restghettos) or so‑called small ghettos, which were basically places of residence for Jews employed in factories. During this period, Jewish Social Self‑Help tried to help Jewish forced laborers in labor camps. However, it soon turned out that continuing the activities of the Jewish So‑ cial Self‑Help became impossible and the organization was dissolved.23 The Need for a New Jewish Social Self‑Help Organization Despite the duration of Aktion Reinhardt and the mass liquidation of Jews in the three death camps in the General Government, there were still concentrations of numerous working people and in the so‑called residual ghettos or “small ghettos,” ghettos after one or several waves of deportation, in which only able‑bodied Jews were left. Because the mass murder of Jews was kept secret and information leaked slowly to Western countries, aid for Jews continued to arrive from both the Interna‑ tional Red Cross and Jewish organizations through neutral countries. The Germans could not openly admit that they had murdered most of the Jews in the General Government, but at the same time, it was necessary to confirm that the recipients, i.e. aid organizations, received help, and in the case of Jews it was Jewish Social Self‑Help. The activists of the RGO refused to confirm that they had received help on behalf of the Jews, while the Germans were very interested in receiving further help, as it was a way for them to obtain receive scarce goods and medicine.24 Consequently, despite Aktion Reinhardt, the Germans attempted to create a new organization of social assistance for Jews. This happened on October 16, 1942, and this new organization was to be called Jüdische Unterstützungstelle für das ­Generalgouvernement  –  JUS, in Polish Żydowski Ośrodek Wsparcia dla Gener‑ alnego Gubernatorstwa), the Jewish Support Center for the General Government. The initiator of this new organization was Richard Türk25 from the Department of Population and Welfare of the Government of the General Government. The reactivation of the social welfare organization bearing the new name was opposed by the Security Police and the SD. On December 1, 1942, Richard Türk’s order

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue  77 was canceled. Re‑legalization of JUS took place on March 13, 1943, but it was not until May 25 that Richard Türk issued an order regarding the nomination of Michał Weichert as head of JUS. Between May to August 1943, JUS provided aid in the form of food, medicine and clothing to Jews in 44 labor camps, 24 factories and 8 residual ghettos. This aid came from the International Red Cross and was channeled through the German Red Cross. One of the most important camps to which aid was sent was Płaszów. Most of the aid went to labor camps in the Kraków district. As Weichert stated: I was given a new impetus to fight by the message I received from the RGO that the long‑awaited huge transport from the Commission for Polish Re‑ lief had arrived in the country. Our [ie Jewish Social Self‑Help] share in it amounted to nearly fifteen thousand kilograms of simply invaluable medi‑ cines and nutrients, which could not be obtained on the domestic, legal and “black” market, even for any money. They could have saved the lives of many thousands of Jews in the camps. We were all of the opinion that we could not allow these gifts to fall into the hands of the Höher SS und Polizeiführer (Higher SS and Police Leader).26 During Aktion Reinhardt in 1943, almost all ghettos and labor camps in the Warsaw district were liquidated. As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the ghetto was brutally pacified and liquidated. Most of the Jews were transferred to labor camps in Poniatowa and Trawniki in the Lublin district. However, these camps were also liquidated after the revolt in the Sobibór death camp on October 14, 1943, as part of Operation Erntefest (November 3–4, 1943), during which 42,000 Jews were mur‑ dered in two days. The ghettos in the Galizien district were also systematically liq‑ uidated in 1943. In fact, only in the Kraków and Radom districts were large labor camps left. In the district of Radom, these were camps at armament industry plants, such as the HASAG (Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft ­ Metallwarenfabrik) camps in Częstochowa and Skarżysko‑Kamienna, or in the workplaces in Pionki, Radom, Stalowa Wola, and Mielec. JUS continued to provide aid in the form of much‑needed medicine, food, and clothing.27 Especially after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, there was a conflict between Jewish underground organizations and JUS, led by members of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish National Committee (Żydowski Komitet ­Narodowy – ŻKN), such as Antek Cukierman and Adolf Berman. Michał Weichert was accused of collaborating with the Germans and creating false propaganda that there were still Jewish population centers that could be helped. Michał Weichert, in turn, did everything to help those Jews who were still in labor camps, and above all in the camp in Płaszów, which in January 1944 was transformed into a concentra‑ tion camp (Konzentrationslager Plaszow bei Krakau). ***

78  Witold Mędykowski From the beginning of the occupation, Jews in the General Government were sub‑ jected to persecution, plunder, and robbery, but their attitude was never passive, as it is often presented in historiography and sources. The Jews were very active from the beginning of the persecution until the end. Not only did they react to events, but in the face of persecution, they often took the initiative in order to ensure their liv‑ ing conditions and survival. Until the beginning of Aktion Reinhardt in the spring of 1942, the main problem was finding a means of subsistence. In spring of 1942, when Aktion Reinhardt began, economic considerations were irrelevant to the SS, which controlled deportation of Jews to death camps. How‑ ever, in the summer of 1942, when selections and deportations to death camps were already taking place, the Jews realized that the only way to survive was work. The desire of the Jews to obtain opportunities to work for the Germans met with the initiatives of Polish and German entrepreneurs interested in doing business in the General Government. However, in the summer of 1942, until the liquida‑ tion of the large ghettos, the Jewish Councils were either liquidated or lost power. These Jewish Councils were replaced in their economic activities by Jewish Social Self‑Help. The Presidium of the Jewish Social Self‑Help sent a number of circulars asking for data, and urged the establishment of the so‑called Labor Communities in each city. Despite its limited capabilities, Jewish Social Self‑Help made every effort to improve the condition of Jewish workers in labor camps, which was often successful, probably thanks to the support of German officials from the Depart‑ ment of Population and Social Welfare (Amtsgruppe Bevölkerung und Fürsorge). These efforts were important at the local level, but they turned out to be absolutely ineffective when we talk about the possibility of saving Jews from the Holocaust. Notes 1 Kroll, 1985. 2 Szarota and Materski ed., 2009: 19–22. 3 Dr Fritz Arlt (1912–2004). In October 1939, Fritz Arlt became head of the Department of Population and Welfare (Bevölkerungswesen und Fürsorge). 4 Adam Ronikier (1881–1952) in 1918 was a representative of the Regency Council in Berlin. During World War I, and was one of the organizers of the Central Welfare Coun‑ cil and its chairman in 1916–1918. He was also the first president of the Central Welfare Council during World War II in 1940–1943. 5 Ronikier, 2001. 6 Michał Weichert, Działalność moja od 1 września 1939 r. [protokól zeznania złożonego w dniu 8 marca 1945 r w Wojewódzikim Urzędzie Bezpieczeństwa w Krakowie] (My activities since September 1, 1939 [protocol of the testimony given on March 8, 1945, at the Provincial Security Office in Kraków]), Instytut Pamięci Narodowej w Krakowie (Institut of National Remembrance – IPN Kraków, Poland) 010/6582, t. 2, k. 14–15, cit. Acc. to Węgrzyniak, 2017: 210. 7 Weichert, IPN Kraków 010/6582, t. 2, k. 14–15. 22, cit. Acc. to Węgrzyniak, 2017: 210–211. 8 Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem (YVA), JM.1581, Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna (Jewish Social Self‑Help  –  ŻSS), Okólnik (Circular) nr 55, Kraków, dnia 16  lutego 1942, scan 691. 9 YVA, JM.1581: 691.

Jewish Initiatives of Rescue  79 10 YVA, JM.1581: 691. 11 YVA, JM.1581: 691. 12 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Instrukcja o organizowaniu wspólnot pracy, Załącznik do okól‑ nika nr 61 z dnia 11 czerwca 1942 (Instruction on the organization of work communi‑ ties, Annex to circular No. 61 of June 11, 1942), scan 700–701. 13 YVA, JM.1581: 700–701. 14 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Okólnik nr 50, Dotyczy pomocy w dziedzinie pracy dla robot‑ ników rolnych. Kraków, dnia 5 stycznia 1942 (Circular No. 50, Concerning work aid for agricultural workers. Kraków, January 5, 1942), scan 683–684. 15 YVA, JM.1581: 683–684. 16 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Okólnik nr 61. Dotyczy pomocy w dziedzinie pracy, BARDZO PILNE (Circular No. 61. For assistance in the field of work, VERY URGENT), Kraków, June 11, 1942, scan 702–703. 17 YVA, JM.1581: 702–703. 18 YVA, JM.1581: 702–703. 19 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Notatka (Memo), Kraków, August 6, 1942, scan 295. 20 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Do Rady Żydowskiej Frysztak (To the Frysztak Jewish Council), Kraków, August 2, 1942, scan 154–155. 21 YVA, JM.1581, ŻSS, Notatka z rozmowy z referentem BuF in District Kraków p. Sta‑ chow (Note from the conversation with the Department of Population and Welfare im Distrikt Krakau clerk, Mr. Stachow). Kraków, September 23, 1942, scan 751. 22 Weichert Michał, Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna w latach 1939–1944 (Jewish So‑ cial Self‑Help in the years 1939–1944, typescript, YVA, O.21/6: 48. 23 Weichert Michał, O.21/6: 51. 24 Weichert Michał, O.21/6: 59. 25 Richard Türk (1903–1984). From January 1943 to 1945, he was the deputy head of the Department of “Population and Social Welfare” in the government of the General Government. 26 Weichert Michał, O.21/6: 59–60. 27 Weichert Michał, O.21/6: 69.

Bibliography Kroll, Bogdan, 1985. Rada Główna Opiekuńcza 1939–1945, Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Ronikier Adam, 2001. Pamiętniki 1939–1945, ed. Maria Rydlowa, Kraków: Wyd. Literackie. Szarota, T. and Materski, W. (ed.), 2009. Polska 1939–1945, Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami, Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Węgrzyniak, Rafał, 2017. Procesy doktora Weicherta, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Weichert, Michał, 1960–1970. Memoirs, 4 volumes, Tel Aviv: Menorah (in Yiddish).

8

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto The Writings of Mordechai Tenenbaum‑Tamaroff1 Weronika Romanik

Introduction Mordechai Tenenbaum‑Tamaroff remains a relatively unknown figure, possibly due to the language barrier that accompanies the reception of his writings, written mainly in Hebrew and not fully translated into English to this day. Tenenbaum wit‑ nessed the so‑called “February Aktion” in the Bialystok ghetto, which he described in some detail, shortly after the events, in February 1943. During the Aktion, which lasted from February 5 to 12, about 10,000  ghetto inhabitants were deported to Treblinka. Descriptions of these tragic events appear in many memoirs; however, Tenenbaum’s writings contain some unique details that only a person with access to special sources of information could know. In this study, I present excerpts from Tenenbaum’s manuscripts regarding the “February Aktion” in the Białystok Ghetto, based on his writings: his Diary, the document “Action” in Bialystok, and the Commentary on this document.2 Mordechai Tenenbaum‑Tamaroff Considering Tenenbaum’s leadership role in the underground during the final “liq‑ uidation” of the Białystok Ghetto, I propose referring to Tamaroff as the “Aniele‑ wicz of the Białystok Ghetto.” Similarly, he deserves the title of the “Ringelblum of the Białystok Ghetto”3 due to his initiative of the Underground Archive of the Białystok Ghetto, known also as the Mersik‑Tenenbaum Archive.4 Mordechai Tenenbaum, called simply Mordechai by his close associates,5 was born in Warsaw in 1916. He likely studied at the Eastern Institute in Warsaw, a Pol‑ ish academic institution based in Warsaw, which operated between 1926 and 1939. He was a member of the Zionist organization Frayhayt, which later transformed into Dror Hechalutz. During the war, Tenenbaum independently forged false docu‑ ments with a completely fabricated name, “Tamaroff,” combining the name of his beloved, Tema (Tamara) Sznajderman, with the suffix of a Tatar surname from the Vilnius region. Tenenbaum was one of the founders of the Jewish Fighting Organization (Żydowska Organiacja Bojowa) in July 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto. During the war, he frequently crossed the borders of the General Government, in‑ cluding visits to Vilnius, Grodno, Cracow, and Będzin, facilitated by his assumed DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-11

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto  81 Tatar identity. In the Warsaw Ghetto, he engaged in publishing underground press (Yediyes) and witnessed the “Great Action” of 1942. As recalled by Itzchak Zuck‑ erman, a close friend of Tenenbaum, Mordechai “was appointed as the commander in Białystok.” His task was to organize underground resistance, unify the actions of various underground organizations, prepare the ghetto for uprising and armed self‑defense.6 Tenenbaum arrived in Białystok in November 1942 and became one of the main organizers of the underground movement. He led the so‑called Front B,7 conducted negotiations with various groups operating in the ghetto, and established a secret chemical laboratory for the production of explosives. He also served as a liaison between the underground and the president of the Judenrat, Ephraim Barash, with whom he maintained a strong and friendly relationship. Source Materials Tenenbaum’s writings, which form the basis of the article, were mainly composed in Hebrew, with fragments in Yiddish. He also uses phrases or single words from other languages, including Polish, German and Russian. As mentioned earlier, there are three source materials: Tenenbaum’s Diary (kept from January 13 to March 1943) and two additional documents, which can also be treated as a whole. The first document is titled “Action” in Bialystok (in Hebrew: Ha”aktzia” beBialistok), and the second is called He’arot, meaning “notes, remarks,” which complement the former document. Considering their nature, I propose referring to these notes in English terminology as Commentary.8 Both documents primarily focus on the first “liquidation action” in the Białystok Ghetto, which took place between February 5 and 12, 1943. Tenenbaum’s works were written probably after the conclusion of the Aktion, most likely in the second half of February 1943.9 “The February Aktion” In Białystok, the impending “deportation action” was expected. From November 1942 to January 1943, the so‑called “liquidation of the Białystok province” took place within the Białystok District, involving the concentration of the Jewish popu‑ lation from smaller towns into transit camps.10 From there, the Jews were mostly transported to extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz. During this period, Białystok managed to avoid the Aktion. Undoubtedly, the “February Aktion” was one of the most tragic events in the history of the  Białystok Ghetto. It began on February 5 at 3:30 a.m. and lasted for eight days, until February 12, 1943. According to Tenenbaum’s ac‑ count in his Diary, initially, the Germans demanded that Barash hand over 17,600 Jews. Later, they ordered the delivery of three transports, each containing 2,100 ­people – ­negotiations with Barash regarding this number took place before the “action” commenced. The Germans were supposed to follow the lists prepared by the Judenrat, which included families where no one was employed. The tragic, intended sacrifice was of a few thousand people to save the lives of tens of

82  Weronika Romanik thousands of remaining ghetto residents, given that the situation on the front lines could change daily.11 In the final reckoning, the “action” resulted in not 6,300 but about 10,000 victims, with several hundred people being killed on the spot.12 On the third day of the “deportation action,” Tenenbaum managed to meet with Barash, and the outcome of their conversation can be summarized briefly: “[Bar‑ ash] has almost no contact with the Germans. They come and do their thing without informing him about anything.”13 Thousands of people gathered in factories, hoping to find safety there. Accord‑ ing to a census conducted on the fifth day of the “evacuation,” most likely by underground activists and collaborators, there were 12,000 people in the factories. Even more people hid successfully in attics, basements, and other shelters – some even created barricades. “The entire Białystok Ghetto  –  [it’s] one big hideout,” noted Tenenbaum.14 On the ninth of February, the issue of informers emerged in the ghetto – ­individuals who had already been captured and, enticed by the offer of freedom in exchange for revealing the hiding places of other Jews, pointed out locations that the Ger‑ mans would never have discovered without their support. These individuals were supposed to receive official documents exempting them from transportation on that day in return for their “assistance during the evacuation of Jews from the Białystok Ghetto.”15 On the same evening that marked the end of the “February Aktion,” the first acts of lynching against Jewish informers occurred. Tenenbaum reported similar cases on the sixth day after the Aktion ended (February 18, 1943).16 These acts of violence took place secretly from the Germans, while the Jewish police “pretended not to see what was happening.”17 It is worth noting that the denuncia‑ tion thread in Tenenbaum’s account appears only on the fifth day of the Aktion, after the Germans unsuccessfully tried to find additional victims for deportation and came up with the idea of bribing Jews with the promise of a chance for sur‑ vival. The analysis of his narrative suggests a lack of earlier information on this phenomenon in his testimonies. This fact may direct to an interesting conclusion: had the Germans not initiated the bribing idea, the denunciations might possibly have not happened. Itzchok Malmed Writing about the “February Aktion,” it is impossible to omit the figure of Itzchok Malmed, who was hailed as a “hero of the ghetto” by many of his contemporaries. Today, one of the streets in the center of Białystok bears his name.18 There are dif‑ ferent versions of the Malmed story. In this study, I focus primarily on the descrip‑ tion by Tenenbaum, who added new elements to the story known from multiple other testimonies. On the morning of February 5, on the day the “action” began, Tenenbaum received information that “one German, who had acid poured into his eyes, shot his colleague [another German soldier] out of nervousness.”19 This happened in an apartment at 29 Kupiecka Street. The body of the killed German was brought to the Judenrat. According to this account, in retaliation, the Germans took 120 people from the

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto  83 house at that address and neighboring buildings, who were then shot on Szlachecka Street.20 In the document “Action” in Bialystok, Tenenbaum adds the information: “In the morning, the commission arrived to determine the cause of the German’s death. It was established that the bullet did not come from German weapons.”21 The next day (February 6, 1943, Saturday), according to the authorities’ order, a notice was issued by the security service: “Malmed Abraham,22 born in 1903, residing at 29 Kupiecka Street – anyone who finds him or informs about him will receive a reward of 10,000 marks.” He killed a German. The following day, on Sunday, there was a break in the action. According to Tenen‑ baum’s account: Abraham Malmed surrendered himself to the police “to save the ghetto.” In the factories  –  joy “They caught Malmed.” A Gestapo commission ar‑ rived for an investigation. [They ask Malmed]23 “Why did you kill the Ger‑ man?” – “I hate you. I apologize for killing only one. My parents died before my eyes. You killed 10,000 Jews in Słonim before my eyes. I don’t regret [what I did].” That’s how Malmed reportedly responded. In his account, Tenenbaum provides an extremely interesting detail that is not widely known and understandably does not appear in other testimonies. On Sunday, February 7, Tenenbaum tried to reach Malmed all day long in order to give him cyanide, before the official execution. However, as he stated, it was not possible. Even Jewish policemen were not al‑ lowed to reach him.24 Malmed’s execution was to take place the next day, on Monday, February 8, at 8 o’clock in the morning. Allegedly, as many as 300 representatives from various military units (gendarmes, Gestapo, and others) attended the event. The execution was delayed by half an hour because they were waiting for a prominent Nazi to arrive. During this time, there was a discussion between Malmed and the German guards, which Tenenbaum mentioned in the document “Action” in Bialystok: Malmed apologized for killing that German. He heard that this one was a good man. He asked if he left behind a wife, children. He will pray – if God exists – for them. He speaks, and they beat him. He asks for water – “You don’t need water anymore.” They mock him. They insult him. He dies with dignity. He did not ask, did not beg. Calmly. He hanged for 48 hours. The rope broke. He stood on the sidewalk, alive, upright, in all his grandeur, tied to the rope so as not to fall. In Pesach Kaplan’s account from February to March 1943, preserved in the Under‑ ground Ghetto Archive, it is also mentioned that Malmed surrendered to the Gestapo. Others claim that Malmed was tracked down by Yudkowski, a Gestapo agent.25

84  Weronika Romanik From the second day of the “action,” starting from February 6, the search for people for deportation took place during the day: it started around 6–6:30 in the morning and ended around 5–6 in the afternoon. Apparently, after the incident with Malmed on the first day of the “action” (February 5, 1943), the German soldiers were afraid to enter apartments in the dark. Even during the day, when they found a Jewish policeman, they sent him ahead to enter the apartment first – only then would enter a German soldier armed and ready to shoot. Tenenbaum recorded a few cases where Jews injured a Jewish policeman instead of a German soldier in such situations.26 The Jewish Police During the “February Aktion” The Jewish police is portrayed in Tenenbaum’s writings in a very favorable light. In the Commentary, one finds the following: Białystok was the only city within the borders of Poland where the Jewish police – even the part of the police forced to actively participate, meaning go‑ ing with axes and opening doors – stood up to the task. They did not inform, did not help the Germans, “they were not more Catholic than the Pope.”27 Often at the risk of their lives, the policemen saved dozens and hundreds of Jews in hiding. When the residents of the endangered district were warned a few hours before the “action” by members of the underground about the imminent danger, they began to hide in fear. That night, Tenenbaum wrote his observations in the Diary in a hurry: Quarter to two in the morning. Hundreds of people roam the streets, moving from place to place. Panic. They hide. They fear every noise. Jewish police‑ men talk among themselves about not wanting to participate in the action and wanting to throw away their [police] caps at the first opportunity.28 In the document “Action” in Bialystok, dated February 5, he added interesting details: Until seven in the morning, the Germans found up to five hundred Jews in the entire district. They started beating Jewish policemen, saying it was their fault. [They accused them of] not wanting to search, [that] they told the Jews to hide, etc. Policemen began fleeing from the “action” site. Even before that, many policemen did not come to the gathering place. They did not want to participate in the action. They hid.29 Tenenbaum pondered on how the Jewish police’s behavior might be during the next “action,” which he was certain would come. He compared the Białystok ghetto to other places where policemen were given the condition of delivering a quota, i.e., finding a designated number of people for transport, while also threatening that

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto  85 if they failed to do so, the policemen themselves or their families would become victims. Such a situation did not occur in the Białystok ghetto. He concludes his de‑ scription with a rhetorical question: “Maybe that’s why everything went so well?”30 Researcher Katrin Stoll analyzed the legacy of Szymon Datner, a Polish‑Jewish historian, who survived the Białystok Ghetto. Stoll contrasts the critical assess‑ ment of the Jewish police’s behavior expressed in Szymon Datner’s testimony with Tenenbaum’s mild, even positive opinion, which was emphasized by the Is‑ raeli historian Sara Bender in her studies.31 It seems that these two descriptions are contradictory, but is it really the case? In addition, in Tenenbaum’s account, the Jewish police do not completely disappear from the narrative, and their par‑ ticipation in the “evacuation” continues, at least by part of the Ordnungsdienst. Indeed, it is puzzling why Datner does not mention the police resistance in his book, published in 1946, entitled Walka i zagłada białostockiego ghetta (“Fight and Annihilation of the Białystok Ghetto”).32 However, in my opinion, despite some discrepancies, Datner’s and Tenenbaum’s testimonies do not necessarily ex‑ clude each other. On the contrary, they expand the perspective when considered together. Moreover, in 1989, Szymon Datner supplements his previous account in the article titled “The Mutiny of Jewish Policemen in the Białystok Ghetto” (Bunt policjantów w getcie białostockim).33 In the text, the historian admits that part of the Ordnungsdienst resisted joining the Aktion, and he also mentions the names of several police officers who threw off their police caps and went to their deaths with their families. He stresses that it “remains the only case known to him of a group refusal by Jewish police to cooperate with the Germans in the extermination procedures.”34 It is worth mentioning that a few years ago, in Białystok, the testimony of a Jewish police officer, David Shpiro, was found, who described in his diary Febru‑ ary 1943. During the Aktion, he helped the residents of the ghetto by encouraging them to hide or conceal their shelters. Although he perceived his service as tainted by participating in the Aktion, he saw no other way to save himself and protect his closest family than to continue this service.35 After the Aktion Tenenbaum’s text, which was written a day after the end of the “action,” on Febru‑ ary 13, is particularly moving. It is the longest continuous passage in Yiddish from the Diary, which I quote here in its entirety: “After the action.” Only now can the full horror be seen. Many traces have disappeared; people run through the city, calling for their loved ones. They run and fall, run and fall. Suffocated children emerge from hiding – during the search, they started crying, and they wanted to silence them. Everyone struggles with packages. Cries are heard everywhere. Policemen go through basements, attics, and every hole, gathering corpses. Evacuated apartments are sealed. There are huge piles of dead bodies in the cemetery; we bury them in mass graves. One great cry.36

86  Weronika Romanik After the February Aktion, news spread that the next one would take place on Feb‑ ruary 28.37 In reality, there was no “evacuation” on that day. However, on Febru‑ ary 27, an internal meeting of members of the Tel Hai kibbutz belonging to the Dror movement, which had its headquarters in the Białystok ghetto, took place. A detailed protocol of this meeting has been preserved, presenting the discussion among the movement members about the group’s further strategy.38 During the meeting chaired by Tenenbaum, there was a debate over the dilemma of whether to go to the forest and fight against the Germans from there or to remain in the ghetto and focus on preparing for armed resistance before the next “action.”39 Opinions were divided, but ultimately, the position that if the Germans initiated mass depor‑ tations, the members of the movement would initiate a fight, known as the “coun‑ teraction,” prevailed. Conclusion In his writings, Tenenbaum describes the events of February 1943, his meetings, experiences, reflections, and daily activities in an extremely detailed manner. These documents reveal matters and information that were known to only a few, such as confidential data received from the Judenrat president or the strategies and policies of various underground organizations in the ghetto. Certainly, Tenenbaum’s underground experience in other ghettos and his exten‑ sive knowledge of Jewish communities in various parts of the General Government and the German Reich influenced the narrative of his testimonies.40 The fact that fragments of his Diary served as material evidence in the trial of Erich Koch also attests to the historical value of Tenenbaum’s documents.41 Undoubtedly, Tenen‑ baum’s writings are invaluable source material that cannot be overlooked when describing the life and annihilation of the Jews in the Białystok ghetto. Notes 1 A shorter version of this article was published in Polish in Bibliotekarz Podlaski. A Journal of Polish Librarianship and Bibliology in 2018. This is an updated and ex‑ panded version of the article. 2 Tenenbaum’s original manuscripts are in the Yad Vashem Archives (hereafter: YVA) in Jerusalem, see M11/4, M11/5, M11/6. The documents were published in Hebrew for the first time in 1947, and for the second time in a revised version in 1984. See Dapim min hadleka. Pirkei yoman, michtavim ureshimot meet Mordechai Tenenboym‑Tamarof, Tel Aviv 1947 (hereinafter: Dapim, 1947). Cf. Dapim min hadleka. Mahadura chadasha, metukenet umurchewet, edited by Bronka Klibanski and Tzvi Shner, Israel 1984 (here‑ after: Dapim, 1984). 3 The coining of this term was the inspired by conversations with Dr. Anna Michalowska‑­ Mycielska, for which I thank her. 4 For more on this archival collection, see Bańkowska and Romanik, 2013: 257–273. 5 This is evidenced by written and oral accounts from people who knew Tenenbaum, including Chavka Folman‑Raban. Interview with Chavka Folman‑Raban [Israel, 2011]. Private collection of the author. 6 See Zuckerman, “Mordechai, chaveri” in Dapim, 1984: 225.

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto  87 7 Front B – part of the Białystok underground movement formed in January 1943. Con‑ sisted of the following groups: Dror, Hashomer Hatzair, Revisionists, Hanoar Hatziyoni and some members of Bund. See Bender, 2008: 183. 8 In the second Hebrew edition of Tenenbaum’s writings, the title given to the document Commentary is Od al ha “aktzia” (Hebrew: More about “action”). See Dapim, 1984: 73. 9 Both documents were certainly created in February 1943. Various archivists and copy‑ ists have read the date, written on one of the sheets in the collection, in two ways: as either February 17 or February 27, 1943. After analyzing the nature of the handwriting in Tenenbaum’s manuscripts and considering a number of circumstances related to the conditions under which he produced the texts, I favor reading the date as February 27, 1943. See Ha “aktzia” beBialistok, YVA, M11/6. 10 Szymon Datner uses the term “liquidation of the ‘province’ of Bialystok,” using quota‑ tion marks only for “province.” The widening of the punctuation mark here is a deliber‑ ate procedure, indicating the oppressive nomenclature of the German authorities, which has also become widespread in Polish‑language studies by historians. See Datner, 1966, no. 60: 24. 11 According to the Diary, there were about 42,000 Jews in the Bialystok ghetto in early February 1943. See Dapim, 1984: 38–39. 12 Dapim, 1984: 72. In Tenenbaum’s writings under the date April 2nd, 1943, there is a summary of the Aktion, presented as the report of Judenrat for the Gestapo. See Dapim, 1984: 75–76. In March 1943, only 31,000 Jews remained in the Bialystok ghetto. See Bender, 2004: 214. Cf. Bender, 2008: 242. 13 Tenenebaum notes these words under the date of February 7, 1943 in the document “Ac‑ tion” in Bialystok. See Dapim, 1984: 68. 14 Dapim, 1984: 73. All the excerpts in Hebrew and Yiddish were translated by the author of this study. 15 It seems that Tenenbaum quoted the text of the German document, while the sentence given, including the word “evacuation,” is a quotation from it. 16 Dapim, 1984: 47. 17 Dapim, 1984: 42. 18 During the war, the street was called Kupiecka. An incident related to Malmed took place on this street, and this is also where he was executed three days later, on February 8, 1943. 19 This information reached Tenenbaum on the morning of February 5, 1943. See Dapim, 1984: 40. 20 There are discrepancies about the number of people executed and the address appears in different variants. Most sources and researchers report 100 victims. For more on this subject, see Stoll, 2011: 1–54. Cf. Kaplan, 1966: 80. 21 Dapim, 1984: 66. 22 He most likely functioned under two names: Itzchok Abraham Malmed. 23 Data in square brackets are additions by the translator. 24 Dapim, 1984: 68. 25 Such a remark is added in a footnote by the editor of Pesach Kaplan’s account, see Biu‑ letyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1966: 81, footnote no. 9. Cf. Mark, 1952: 161. Cf. Rogalewska, 2008: 94. 26 Dapim, 1984: 66. 27 A phrase used in Yiddish: “nisht geven poypstlecher vi der poypst”. See Dapim, 1984: 74. 28 Excerpt written on the night of February 4–5, 1943; see Dapim, 1984: 40. 29 Dapim, 1984: 65. 30 Dapim, 1984: 74. 31 Stoll, 2014: 102–103. Cf. Bender, 2008: 203. 32 Datner, 1946. The second edition of the book was published in 2014 by the Jewish His‑ torical Institute in Warsaw.

88  Weronika Romanik 33 Datner, 1989: 334–335. Stoll does not refer to this article by Datner in her analysis. 34 Datner, 1989: 334–335. 35 Szpiro, 2021: 212, 215. The diary of Dawid Szpiro (David Shpiro) was written in years 1939–1943. The last account is from the Bialystok Ghetto, from July, 12th 1943. 36 Dapim, 1984: 41. 37 This is indicated by Tenenbaum’s notes in his Diary of February 19, 1943; see Dapim, 1984: 51. 38 The original protocol was written in Yiddish. The document was also published in a Polish translation, see “Sprawozdanie z ogólnego zebrania aktywu kibucu Tel‑Chaj w Białymstoku z 27 lutego 1943” (“Report of the General Assembly of the Tel‑Hai Kib‑ butz in Bialystok of February 27, 1943”), Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycz‑ nego (Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute), 1966, no. (60), 91–97, Warsaw. Cf. Dapim, 1984: 77–84 (Hebrew translation of the document). It is worth mentioning that this report became the document representing the Bialystok theme in the main exhibi‑ tion at the Yad Vashem museum in Israel. 39 For more on this discussion, see Romanik, 2017: 209–235. 40 Tenenbaum acquired information, among other things, through conversations with un‑ derground liaisons. Itzchak Zuckerman wrote of Tenenbaum: “He used to meet with all the liaisons returning from the most remote corners of the General Government and the German Reich – gathering all the news concerning the life of the Jewish communities.” See Zuckerman, “Mordchai, chaveri” in Dapim, 1984: 221. 41 Archives of the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Na‑ tion, SWWW, 742780, File of Erich Koch’s Trial, vol. IX. See Rogalewska, 2008: 50.

Bibliography Bańkowska, Aleksandra and Romanik, Weronika, 2013. “Podziemne Archiwum Getta Białostockiego. Archiwum Mersika‑Tenenbauma”, Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały 9: 257–273. Bender, Sara, 2004. “Akcja Reinhardt w okręgu białostockim”, in: Dariusz Libionka (ed.), Akcja Reinhardt. Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, vol. 17, Warsaw: In‑ stytut Pamięci Narodowej: 203–216. Bender, Sara, 2008. The Jews of Bialystok during World War II and the Holocaust, translated from Hebrew by Y. Murciano, Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press. Published in Hebrew in 1997: Mul mavet orev. Jehudey Bialistok bemilchemet ha’olam hashniya, Tel Aviv, 1997. Blumental, Nachman, 1962. Darko shel Judenrat  –  te’udot migeto Bialystok, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. Datner, Szymon, 1946. Walka i zagłada białostockiego ghetta, Central Jewish Historical Commission, Łódź. Datner, Szymon, 1966. “Eksterminacja ludności żydowskiej w Okręgu Białostockim”, Biu‑ letyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 60: 3–50. Datner, Szymon, 1970. “Getto białostockie i jego podziemne archiwum”, Studia i materiały do dziejów miasta Białegostoku II: 93–112. Datner, Szymon, 1989. “Bunt policjantów w getcie białostockim”, Studia Podlaskie 2, 333–335. The Polish text is followed by the summary in English, titled: “The Mutiny of Jewish Policemen in the Białystok Ghetto”. Datner, Szymon, 2014. Walka i zagłada białostockiego ghetta. Wydanie krytyczne prac Cen‑ tralnej Żydowskiej Komisji Historycznej, Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute [2nd edition of Szymon Datner’s book].

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto  89 Interviews with Chavka Folman‑Raban (Israel, 2011–2012), private collection of the author. Kaplan, Pesach. 1966. “Zagłada Białegostoku. Luty 1943 r.”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Insty‑ tutu Historycznego vol. 60: 77–88. Klibanski, Bronka, 1984. “Al Mordechai we’al archeono”, in: Bronka Klibanski and Tzvi Shner (eds.), Dapim min hadleka, Yad Vashem, Beit Lochamei Hageta’ot, Israel: Hotza’at Hakibutz Hame’uchad: 205–215. Klibanski, Bronia, 2002. Ariadne, Chalonot: Sidra beHotza’at Gvanim, Tel Aviv. Mark, Bernard Ber, 1952. Ruch oporu w getcie białostockim. Samoobrona  –  Zagłada  – ­ Powstanie, Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute. Rogalewska, Ewa, 2008. Getto białostockie. Doświadczenie Zagłady – świadectwa litera‑ tury i życia, Białystok: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. [The second, updated edition of the book was published in 2013.] Romanik, Weronika, 2017. “Co czytano w czasie Zagłady? Refleksja na powieścią “Czterdzieści dni Musa Dah” w kontekście żydowskiego ruchu oporu”, Studia Judaica 2, no. 40: 209–235. http://www.ejournals.eu/SJ/2017/Numer‑2‑40/art/11469/. Romanik, Weronika, 2018. “Wydarzenia z lutego 1943 roku w getcie białostockim w świetle pism Mordechaja Tenenbauma‑Tamarofa”, Bibliotekarz Podlaski. A Journal of Polish Li‑ brarianship and Bibliology 41(4), 171–185. “Sprawozdanie z ogólnego zebrania aktywu kibucu Tel‑Chaj w Białymstoku z 27  lutego 1943”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1966, no. 60: 91–97. Stoll, Katrin, 2011. “Producing the Truth. The Bielefeld Trial and the Reconstruction of Events surrounding the Execution of 100 Jews in the Bialystok Ghetto following the ‘Acid Attack’”, Dapim. Studies on the Shoah 25, 1–54. Stoll, Katrin, 2014. “O “Walce i zagładzie białostockiego ghetta” Szymona Datnera”, in: Datner, Szymon (2014), Walka i zagłada białostockiego ghetta. Wydanie krytyczne prac Centralnej Żydowskiej Komisji Historycznej, Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute: 91–107. Szpiro, Dawid, 2021. Pamiętnik/Diary, Białystok: Galeria im. Slendzińskich w Białymstoku [bilingual publication: in Polish and English].Tenenbaum, Mordechai, 1943a. Diary by Mordechai Tenenbaum, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Archives, M11/4, M11/5. Tenenbaum, Mordechai, 1943b. “Action” in Bialystok (Ha”aktzia” beBialistok), Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Archives, M11/6. Tenenbaum, Mordechai, 1943c. Commentary (He’arot), Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Archives, M11/6. Tenenbaum, Mordechai, 1947. Dapim min hadeleka. Pirkei yoman, michtavim ureshimot meet Mordechai Tenenboym‑Tamarof, with introduction by Itzchak Zuckerman, Israel: Publishing House Hakibutz Haméuchad,Tel Aviv [Dapim, 1947]. Tenenbaum, Mordechai, 1984. Dapim min hadeleka. Mahadura chadasha, metukenet umurchevet, edited by Bronka Klibanski and Tzvi Shner, Yad Vashem, Beit Lochamei Hageta’ot, Israel: Hotzáat Hakibutz Haméuchad,[Dapim, 1984]. Tenenbaum‑Backer, Nina, 1980. Gibor hagetaot. Mordechai Tenenbaum‑Tamarof, Misrad HaBitachon ‑ HaHotzáa Láor, Tel Aviv. Zuckerman, Itzchak, 1984. “Mordechai, chaveri”, in: Bronka Klibanski and Tzvi Shner (eds.), Dapim min hadleka. Mahadura chadasha, metukenet umurchevet, Yad Vashem, Beit Lochamei Hageta’ot, Israel: Hotzáat Hakibutz Haméuchad: 217–232.r4545

Part III

Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation

9

Holocaust Monuments in Poland Forms, Meanings, and Messages Batya Brutin

Introduction A quotation from Władysław Szlengel (1912–1943) a Polish‑Jewish poet, lyricist, journalist, and stage actor poem The Monument (translated from Polish by Halina Birenbaum), from August 1942 reads: Legends will remain after the Great Ones, That they were such Enormous, The myth will coagulate and – become The Monument. Holocaust monuments in Poland commemorate this historical event in the site of its occurrence. This empowers the commemoration, its meanings, and messages. However, the monuments also reflect the way the Polish State’s collective memory consolidates over the years. James E. Young explained that Memory is never shaped in a vacuum; the motives of memory are never pure … every state has its own institutional forms of remembrance. As a result, Holo‑ caust memorials inevitably mix national and Jewish figures, political and religious imagery.1 The memory of the glorious and significant Jewish past in Poland is in the form of ruined synagogues, displaced or neglected gravestones in cemeteries, warehouses full of relics, and ruins of concentration and extermination camps. The memory of this Jewish past remained in the hands of the Poles and became part of the Polish national landscape.2 One of the ways to commemorate the magnificent and rich Jewish past, the way the Jewish communities were destroyed, and the community members were mur‑ dered, is through monuments. Holocaust monuments in Poland were erected right after War World II and continue to be constructed until the present. What is the character of the commemoration presented in the monuments, Polish, Jewish, or universal? Which themes are commemorated, and which artistic expressions were chosen for this purpose? DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-13

94  Batya Brutin Before we deal with these questions, we must first define and clarify the concept of a monument. It is common to see as a monument any statue, column, a mound of stones, or architectural site, which has a set of meaningful symbols commemo‑ rating a historical event.3 The power of a monument is measured by its ability to establish a historical memory.4 The ceremony that takes place next to a monument “revives” the historical event, and ensures that it will continue to remain in the col‑ lective memory.5 Monuments Built with Tombstones To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; [Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3, 1–5] In her research, Rivka Parciack defined three periods during which Holocaust monuments were erected in cemeteries.6 The first was between 1945 and 1950 when Polish Jews survivors returned to their hometowns and villages. They found out that not only their properties were taken by the local Polish population, but also the Jewish cemeteries had been vandalized by the Nazis, the tombstones (matzevoth – Hebrew) broken and displaced by them to pave roads. These monu‑ ments were built by Jews only. The second period was between 1962 and 1967 and was very much different from the previous one since Jewish organizations initiated and erected the monuments. The third began after a long break in 1982 and contin‑ ues until the time of the writing of this chapter, when there is Polish involvement of individuals and institutions in the construction of the monuments. In several places, like Łuków, Sandomierz, Siedlce, Przasnysz, Węgrów, Kielce, Kazimierz Dolny, and others, the survivors build a memorial site with the tomb‑ stones’ fragments they gathered, such as the tombstone monument in the Kielce Jewish cemetery.7 Approximately 330  gravestones survived World War II, from the large cemetery. One hundred fifty of them were used in 1981 to build a monu‑ ment arranged in the form of a lapidarium (This form appears in other Holocaust monuments such as in Węgrów, 1981, Gorlice, the mid‑1990s, Wyszków, 1997).8 The rest of the tombstones are placed along paths in the cemetery or scattered on the grounds of the cemetery. The gravestones are gathered in three rows with a concrete gap between them, in the form of a leveled pyramid. On the two lower rows, tombstones are arranged in a rectangle, and the highest row is not completed. All stones are undamaged, and we can read the names of the deceased, return their human dignity, and pay our respect to them. The space between the rows and the empty center of the monument represents the loss and vacuousness of the Jewish community of Kielce because of the Holocaust (Figure 9.1).

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  95

Figure 9.1 The Tombstones Monument, Kielce Jewish community, 1981.  (Photograph by the author)

Another example is the Wall of Remembrance at Kazimierz Dolny. During World War II, tombstones from the Jewish cemetery on a hill outside the town of Kazimierz Dolny were used to pave the courtyard of a cloister which was con‑ fiscated to serve as Nazi headquarters, and a backyard in town was also used by them. The Jews, on whom the harsh and humiliating command was ordered to tear out the tombstones, paid their last respect to the dead by turning the tombstones with the inscription downward. After the war, the tombstones were removed and fortunately, the inscription remained in a good shape. In July 1983, the tombstones were retrieved and brought back to the Jewish cemetery site by the initiative of Polish‑Jewish accomplished artist and activists Monika Krajewska and Polish phi‑ losopher, mathematician, writer, and activist Stanislaw Krajewski with help of Jan Jagielski a social activist, author of publications on the traces of the historical pres‑ ence of Jews in Poland. The tombstones were sorted and divided into two groups, women’s tombstones, and men’s tombstones. Polish architect Tadeusz Augustynek (1919–2009) erected the wall monument in 1984. The monument is a free‑standing wall torn with a jagged crack, a metaphor for the Holocaust. It is standing as a facade to the Jewish cemetery which existed behind it, and individual tombstones are still scattered on the hill ground. A group of undamaged tombstones is placed in front of the wall. Men’s tombstones are on the right, and women’s are on the left.

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Figure 9.2 Tadeusz Augustynek, Wall of Remembrance, Kazimierz Dolny, 1984.  (Photo‑ graph by the author)

All round tombstones with candelabra and candlesticks are arranged at the top of the wall as a crown (Figure 9.2).9 A recent monument with tombstones was inaugurated in 2011 in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, and expanded in 2019. It is an ongoing project since the town resi‑ dents and leaders, and descendants of the Jewish community are looking for more gravestones to add to the memorial site.10 This monument began as a private ini‑ tiative of the brothers Josef Kieliszek and Ze’ev Kieliszek Shaked (later their sis‑ ter Tamara Tsac joined) who visited the town several times during the1980s and 1990s and saw the destroyed Jewish cemetery and the robbed graves. Most of the tombstones were missing. In 2010–2011, they managed to fence off the area of the Jewish cemetery. After some investigation, they found approximately 110 broken tombstones under the town’s drainage channel and in private properties. With the help of Roman Grzybowski, a local contractor, and with the support of Mayor Ja‑ cek Kowalski, they were excavated and brought back to the Jewish cemetery and put on both sides of the first concrete memorial wall. Later, some 60  additional damaged tombstones were extracted from the train station area and a military base, both in the Jewish cemetery surroundings. These tombstones were put on the sec‑ ond wall in 2018–2019. In front of the wall, there is an assembly plaza to hold the memorial ceremonies to honor the pre‑war Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki, Jewish residents (Figure 9.3a,b). Since part of the cemetery was a sand quarry, the place where the memorial walls were standing was a huge pit. With the help of Poland’s Chief Rabbi, Michael Joseph Schudrich, the initiators of this monument brought the soil that was taken out to build the foundations of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews to

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  97

Figures 9.3 (a) Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki monument, 2011–2019  –  front. (Photograph by Tsvika Plachinski). (b) Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki monument, 2011–2019 – back. (Photograph by Tsvika Plachinski)

cover the pit. This happened because Rabbi Schudrich persuaded Warsaw munici‑ pality not to use this earth for construction because it was in the ghetto area and is soaked in Jewish blood. The Jewish community’s descendants continue to look for more tombstones to save. Commemoration at the Event Site There are many monuments erected at the places where Holocaust events have occurred, deportation places from which the Jews were sent to the concentration

98  Batya Brutin and death camps, death pits where the Jews were murdered and buried, etc. along with places to mark Jewish bravery. The first example represents the monuments commemorating the places of Jewish victimhood as the national monument at the deportation place in former ghetto Warsaw, The Umschlagplatz Monument created by Polish architect and designer Hanna Szmalenberg (b. 1950) and Polish sculptor and painter Władysław Klamerus (1956–1992) in 1988.11 This monument demon‑ strates a memorial commemorating the location from where Jews were deported to their death by the Nazis.12 In 1948, a sandstone memorial plaque was placed by the local authorities on the side wall of one of the remaining Umschlagplatz build‑ ings (from the side of Stawki Street). It contained an inscription in Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish: “From this place, in 1942‑1943, hundreds of thousands of Jews were transported by the Nazi murderers to the death camps. May their memory be sacred and blessed” (Figure 9.4). The current marble monument was inaugurated on April 18, 1988, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Its shape resembles an open freight car as a reminder of the way the Jews from the War‑ saw ghetto were transported to the Nazi extermination camps. The Umschlagplatz Monument is an open area consisting of four marble walls, approximately three meters high, reminiscent of the Warsaw ghetto wall. On the upper third of the monument’s exterior walls, a horizontal black marble strip wraps them, referring

Figure 9.4 Hanna Szmalenberg and Władysław Klamerus, The Umschlagplatz Monument in Warsaw, 1988.  (Photograph by the author)

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  99 to the tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), or a reminder of the black mourning ribbon on the arm, a Christian custom. The gate to the commemoration area is topped by a semicircular black stone, in a shape of a Jewish tombstone header, carved with a relief depicting a shat‑ tered forest to symbolize the violent death of the victims of different ages and at different stages of their lives. On the axis of the wide main gate, on the opposite wall, there is a narrow vertical clearance crowned with a cut Jewish gravestone to symbolize the fracture of the Jewish people in the Holocaust. Through the rift, we see a tree that was planted and grew behind the monument after World War II to symbolize hope and the new beginning of life after the Holocaust. The inscription inside the monument appears in four languages: Polish as it is a Polish monument; Yiddish, being the language of Polish Jews in Warsaw; Hebrew, as many of the survivors live in Israel and this is their new language, and English because it is the language of international tourism. On the back wall of the monument, the inscription reads: “From this place, in the years 1942–1943, in the Nazi occupation period over three hundred thousand Jews from Warsaw ghetto in suffering and torments were transported to the Nazi death camps.” Next to it, a list of the 400 most popular Polish and Jewish names was engraved in alphabetical order, without reference to gender, to represent all victims. On the side wall of one of the remaining Umschlagplatz buildings adjoining the monument is a quotation from the Book of Job in Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew: “Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!” (Job 16, 18). From the edge of Stawki Street, between the main body of the monument and the building wall, a road was paved with black basalt cubes as part of the monument, to mark the road of death where Jews were driven to the railway ramp to be trans‑ ported to Treblinka. The second example represents the monument’s commemorating the locations of Jewish bravery as the Monument of the Evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto Fight‑ ers, erected by Polish sculptor and poet Maksymilian (Max) Biskupski (b. 1958), and Polish architect Konrad Kucza‑Kuczyński (b. 1941) in 2010. The monument is situated at the very place where on May 10, 1943, 40 combatants of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were evacuated from the sewage canals, loaded onto a truck, and transported to freedom. Most of those rescued fought again in the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944. The monument stands on a plaza marked with red bricks in a shape of a cut arrow at the top, facing toward the sewer cover on the road. It consists of three parts, in the center a cylinder cut in incline at its top. Inside is a ladder with climbing hand palms and a golden Star of David shape to symbolize the bravery of the Jewish fighters who escaped the ghetto through the sewers. On the back of the cylinder, there are many embedded hand palms to refer to the Jews in the ghetto who could not escape. On both sides of the cylinder, there are black marble rectan‑ gular cubes with white inscriptions in Polish, English, and Hebrew. On the right cube, the inscription reads (Figure 9.5): Here, on 10 May 1943, Simcha Rotem‑Ratayer, nom de guerre “Kazik”, combatant in the ghetto uprising, led the last group of some forty fighters of

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Figure 9.5 Max Biskupski and Konrad Kucza‑Kuczyński, Monument of the Evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto Fighters, 2010.  (Photograph by the author)

the Jewish Combat Organisation through sewage canals, out of the burning ghetto. They later continued their armed struggle as members of partisan units and in the Warsaw Uprising. Some of them survived the war, bearing witness to the heroism of the Warsaw ghetto. On the left cube, there are four lists: of those fighters who came out of the sewers and survived the war; those who came out and later died in combat; those who re‑ mained in the sewers; and the organizers of the escape. An inscription added later pays respect to those who helped the fighters flee from the ghetto: “The evacuation of Jewish fighters from the ghetto was made possible thanks to the help of Warsaw sewer workers Wacław Śledziewski and Czesław Wojciechowski.” Monuments at Former Concentration Camp Sites Most of the concentration and extermination camps were built on Polish territory that was occupied by Nazi Germany and there are many remains and evidence of what happened in these places. Immediately after World War II, and in the three decades after the war, the Com‑ munist authorities in Poland decided to turn most of them into commemoration

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  101 sites, and they erected monuments as evidence of the Nazis’ atrocious actions. These places, like Majdanek, Auschwitz, Stutthof, and Operation Reinhard’s camps, be‑ came an important component of the Polish national remembrance landscape, and are always connected with the current historical narrative, concepts of collective memory, concepts of national identity, and historical politics that influence the forms, meanings, and messages of these sites over the years. I will discuss only Operation Reinhard’s former German extermination camps, Bełżec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. It was not until 1961 that Polish authorities decided to clean up the Bełżec site.13 The mass graves that remained at the site were robbed by the local Polish popula‑ tion that looked for valuables buried with the victims. The Polish press at the time condemned this behavior but the Polish authorities could not prevent the phenom‑ enon, which continued until the mid‑1950s. The entire area was plowed and sown, and trees were planted. The work began in 1963, and the commemoration area was limited to five hec‑ tares, on which there were mass graves and the main devices of the extermination camp. They fenced off the area and erected a symbolic gate to the camp, paved a path past the gates toward the mass grave marker, and to the original Bełżec monu‑ ment. The site officially opened on December 1, 1963, but the fenced area did not match the actual camp area, so new buildings were built on parts of the camp. The most significant architectural element was the monument in a shape of a mausoleum, with the remains of the victims.14 It was made of cube‑shaped con‑ crete covered with granite and sandstone facings. On the front wall, two emaciated figures were holding one another, and the inscription “In memory of the victims of the Hitlerian terror murdered in 1942–1943,” without mentioning that the victims were Jewish. After several years a concrete panel that was placed near the entrance included the information: “In this place from February to December 1942, there was a Hitlerian extermination camp, in which 600,000 Jews from Poland and other European countries, and 1,500 Poles for helping Jews, suffered a martyr’s death.” After several years, it was replaced with a metal panel. Today it is part of the mu‑ seum’s exhibition. In the early 1990s, immediately after Poland’s liberation from Soviet rule, several surveys of the camp were conducted to determine the size and location of the camp and to discover new details about the activities there. In 1997–1998, an archaeo‑ logical excavation was carried out by a Polish team in which remains of the rail‑ road tracks and several buildings were found. They also discovered 33 mass graves, which contained, according to their estimates, about 15,000 unburned bodies. In 1995, an agreement was signed between the Polish government and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to erect a commemoration for the murdered victims in Bełżec. In a competition held in 1997, a group of artists was selected to build the new monument and museum. The old commemoration site was destroyed, and the old monument was demolished. In 2002, the Bełżec Memorial became a branch of the Majdanek State Museum, and the new monument and museum became a mutual Polish American project inaugurated in 2004 designed by Polish artists Andrzej Sołyga, Zdzisław Pidek, and Marcin Roszczyk. The main entrance to the new monument is located where

102  Batya Brutin the siding was situated. The monument consists of two parts: the “Ramp” and the Museum building, which forms a cemetery wall from the side of the gateway with an inscription about the camp, the verse from the Book of Job, 16, 18, and the Jew‑ ish menorah image. At the end of the “Ramp,” there is a railroad track sculpture. It symbolizes the siding where trains carrying the deportees stopped upon arrival at the camp and the pyres on which the victims’ bodies were cremated. On the wall behind the sculpture, the poem “Written in pencil in a sealed freight car” by Israeli Holocaust survivor poet Dan Pagis, appears. The poem is supposedly a quote from fragmented writing in a death train wagon addressed to the survivors and relatives of the victims (Figure 9.6). The only way from the “Ramp” is the “Road” leading to the “Crevasse,” which resembles a crack in the ground. The cast‑iron platform depicts expressive lines ar‑ ranged as a Star of David. It delineates the symbolic border between life and death. The soaring walls, which give the impression of immersing in the ground, render the horror of one of the largest graves in the world. At the end, there is a granite wall, containing an engraved quotation from the Book of Job. Together with stone plaques containing symbolic names of victims, it forms a place of reflection on the tragedy of the Jewish people who died in the camp. The exit leads to stairs to the left and the right. A concrete graduated path runs through the “Stone Pile.” It includes cast‑iron names of the towns from which peo‑ ple were deported to Bełżec. A small, well‑designed museum was added to the right

Figure 9.6 Andrzej Sołyga, Zdzisław Pidek, and Marcin Roszczyk, Bełżec Memorial Site, 2004.  (Photograph by the author)

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  103 of the entrance, and its main responsibilities are documenting and commemorating the victims of Bełżec. After World War II, Sobibór and its history were also forgotten for nearly 20 years. It was the trial of ten former Ukrainian guards in April 1963, in Kiev (Kyiv), who were found guilty, that brought Sobibór to public attention. Engineer Romuald Dylewski (1924–2019) a Polish urban developer was the initiator of the Sobibór original commemoration concept. In 1965, a memorial wall with a large sign Sobibór was situated on the spot of the railroad train to the camp. In the beginning, there were only four metal slabs in English, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Dutch. Later, German, French, and Polish slabs were added with information about the camp ending with a quotation from the Book of Job. A cast‑iron statue by Mieczysław Welter portrays a huge, agonized woman with a child placed on the ground as a tribute to the Jewish mothers mur‑ dered with their children without being able to protect them or save them. Next to it is a column referring to the gas chambers, and a mound of ashes and crushed bones of the victims gathered on the spot as a symbolic burial place. All these elements are situated according to the information at that time based on testimonies, docu‑ ments, and excavations (Figures 9.7–9.9). In 1993, on the 50th anniversary of the Sobibór uprising, a museum was es‑ tablished as a branch of the Włodawa Museum. In 2003, in the supposed place of the Himmelfahrstrasse (Road to Heaven), on the initiative of social organizations from Germany, the Netherlands, and the Sobibór Commemoration Association Poland, a new form of commemoration was created – the Alley of Remembrance. Symbolic stones placed alongside the road bearing the names of people murdered in Sobibór. Archeologists Yoram Haimi from Israel and Wojciech Mazurek from Poland initiated excavations in the camp area from 2007 until 2013.15 After five years of excavations, they were able to remap the camp and find the location of the Himmel‑ fahrsstrasse, the mass graves, and the barbed‑wire enclosure that separated mass graves and cremation pits from the living area of Camp III, marking the perimeter

Figure 9.7  Sobibór Memorial Wall, 1965.  (Photograph by the author)

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Figure 9.8 Mieczysław Welter, Woman with a Child, 1965, and a column referring to the gas chambers. (Photograph by the author)

Figure 9.9  A Mound of Ashes and Crushed Bones of the Victims. (Photograph by the author)

of the killing zone. They also discovered thousands of personal items belonging to the victims. The most touching find Haimi said, has been engraved metal identifica‑ tion tags bearing the names of Lea Judith de la Penha, and Deddie Zak, both from the Netherlands. They also found some pendants.

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  105 In May 2012, the Sobibór Museum became a branch of the Majdanek State Museum which initiated the design of a new commemorative architectural and landscape form maintaining the layout of the 1965 monument. A team of Polish architects won the international competition. In July 2017, the work of covering the mound of the victims’ ashes with layers of geotextile and white marble aggregates was completed. The column referring to the gas chambers was demolished, prob‑ ably based on the new archeological findings. The next stage was building the Museum and Memorial Site. Its shape fits the space of the former German extermination camp. It consists of a glazed exhibition hall, which houses the main exhibition, and a multi‑purpose room intended for classes, lectures, and seminars. The construction of the Museum and Memorial Site was financed by the Minis‑ try of Culture and National Heritage, and the Majdanek State Museum from funds provided by the Federal Republic of Germany. Currently, work is underway to expose the outline of the gas chambers and to renovate the monument sculpture, for its new location in front of the museum. In 1955, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art announced a competition to commemorate Treblinka as a memorial site.16 A team of artists, Adam Haupt, Franciszek Duszeńko, and Franciszek Strynkiewicz, developed the memorial site considering the entire campgrounds. It includes a Treblinka schematic plan of the campgrounds and five stone panels in Polish, Yiddish, Russian, English, and Ger‑ man with basic information about Treblinka. Huge two‑meter‑high stones mark the former death camp borders. A symbolic entrance gate to the campsite, composed of two concrete panels with the caption: “Extermination Camp” in Polish, and a paved road, runs through the middle of the gate to the ramp area. On the side, out of the woods, symbolic concrete blocks of railway tracks lead to the ramp, representing the train that brought the Jews to Treblinka. Next to the ramp are 11 stones bearing names of countries from which Jews were deported to the camp, and a paved road from the ramp to the central monument that stands on the spot of the original camp gas chambers. The monument is built of large granite blocks, reminiscent of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The front wall is cracked in the middle as a symbol of the catastrophe that befell the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Three sides of the header depict a pile of tortured corpses and the back header portrays the meno‑ rah symbol to emphasize that the victims were Jewish (Figure 9.10). The monument is surrounded by scattered uneven stones to give expression to the Jewish communities that were destroyed during the Holocaust. Among the stones, the only one mentioning a person’s name bears the inscription: “Janusz Ko‑ rczak (Henryk Goldszmit) and children” to pay tribute to a unique person who was murdered with his orphans and colleagues in Treblinka. In front of the monument, there is a granite block, inscribed: “Never Again” in Yiddish, Russian, English, French, and German on the right side. At first, the Polish text was accentuated by placing it in the center of the left side, but in the late 1990s a Hebrew text was added to the request of formal Israeli authorities. It clearly emphasizes that this monument was meant to be Polish. Behind the monument, where the camp crematorium stood, there is a black basalt stone recessed rectangle creating an irregular surface. Behind

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Figure 9.10 Adam Haupt, Franciszek Duszeńko and Franciszek Strynkiewicz, Treblinka Commemorating Site, 1964.  (Photograph by the author)

it, the area of 22,000 square meters was covered with concrete to conceal the ashes of the murdered Jewish victims. On it, 17,000 stones of various sizes symbolize Jewish communities, and only 216 of them bear the names of cities and towns. In 1998, one of the last living survivors of Treblinka, Samuel Willenberg (1923–2016), worked to build an educational center outside the memorial site. Af‑ ter years of solicitation attempts of the Polish government, institutions, and the public on August 2, 2013, he initiated the placing of a cornerstone for such a center. But his dream was never fulfilled.17 Instead, the small old museum was renovated, and in July 2018, it started its activity as a new, separate cultural institution. The permanent exhibition presents the history of both camps – Treblinka I Penal Labor Camp and Treblinka II Extermination Camp, with a model of it. Feeling that the museum was dated and needed an upgrade like other Holocaust‑­ related museums in Poland and throughout the world, a design competition was announced. In the winning design, one of the spaces is dedicated to Willenberg’s sculptures depicting scenes from Treblinka. Epilogue The memory of the glorious and significant Jewish past belongs to the Polish na‑ tional landscape. Thus, from the 1940s until today, Holocaust monuments erected in

Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages  107 Poland commemorate this historical event in the places where it occurred. Individ‑ uals, organizations, and the Polish State are involved in building these monuments. Here we have seen that the memory and imagery of the Holocaust, as appears in monuments, are influenced by political, national, and religious perceptions. Notes

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Young, 1993: 2. Young, 1993: 188, 194. Ibn Even‑Shoshan, 1974, entries: ‘monument’ and ‘tombstone’. Moses, 1984: 333. Ofrat, 1982: 59. Parciack, 2007: 85–88. Young, 1994: 27; Young, 1993: 194–203. Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, ref. 132/290, Obiekty judaizmu wo‑ jewództwa kieleckiego, p.  70; The author’s telephone interview and correspondence with Polish historian Krzysztof Bielawski from Polin museum in Warsaw, the author of the book Zagłada cmentarzy żydowskich (The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries), 2020, April 11, 2023. Krajrwska, 1993, unpaged, fig. 28–30; Young, 1993: 201–203. http://nowydworjewishmemorial.org/ (accessed March 9, 2023); Author’s telephone interview with activist Tsvika Plachinski, a second generation of parents from Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki Jewish community, April 10, 2023. Umschlagplatz is a German word that denotes a place where all goods for rail transport are collected and handled. The Nazis used it as a euphemism for the location where they would deport the Jewish population to the death camps. Young, 1993: 204–206; Taborska, 2014: 68–70. Hänschen, 2012: 35–47. Engineer Henryk Jabłuszewski, Jarosław Olejnicki, and Stanisław Strzyżyński, Bełżec Monument, 1963. https://faculty.berea.edu/faculty/gowlers/remembering/Poland/belzec/ (accessed August 30, 2022). Author’s interview with Yoram Haimi, Beit Shemesh, August 29, 2022. Young, 1993: 186–189. Author’s telephone interview with Ada Willenberg, and Orit Willenberg‑Giladi, August 23, 2022.

Bibliography Even‑Shoshan, Avraham, 1974. The Concentrated Hebrew Dictionary, Jerusalem: Kryath Sepher (Hebrew).Hänschen, Steffen, 2012. “Transforming Remembrance in the Former Death Camp Belzec – A Short History”, Témoigner – entre histoire et mémoire Décembre: 35–47. Krajewska, Monika, 1993. A Tribe of Stones, Jewish Cemeteries in Poland, Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers Ltd. Moses, Gil, 1984. “Hahantzach, Tzorech Kiumi La’adam – Kemesima Leomnut, Ha’andartot ke’emtzai Hantzacha Tziburi,” (“Commemoration, an existential need for man ‑ as a task for art, the monuments as a public means of commemoration,”) Hed Hagan 48: 333–334 (Hebrew). Ofrat, Gideon, 1982. “Al Ha’andarta Vechovot Hamakom (On the Monument and Place ­Duties)”, Kav 4–5: 58–62 (Hebrew).

108  Batya Brutin Parciack, Rivka, 2007. Here and There, Now and on Other Days, The Holocaust Crisis Seen through the Material Culture of Cemeteries and Monuments in Poland and Israel, Jerusalem: Magnes. Taborska, Halina, 2014. Miasto, Które Nie Zginęło, Ludność cywilna Warszawy 1939–1945 I Pomniki Jej Poświęcone, Warsaw: Bellona. Young, James E., 1993. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Young, James E., 1994. “The Art of Memory, Holocaust Memorials in History”, in: James Young (ed.) The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History, New York: Prestel: 27 (Catalog).

10 Passports from Switzerland How History Becomes Politics Agnieszka Haska

In July 1945, Judyta Truskier, a survivor of Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek concentra‑ tion camp, and forced labour camps, submitted her testimony to the Central Jew‑ ish Historical Commission, established in 1944 for collecting all documents and evidence about fate of the Jews during the Holocaust. In her testimony, Truskier describes the activities of the post office branch in the Warsaw Ghetto – mainly how letters and packages were sorted and distributed. In the last paragraph, she mentions that in the weeks just before the Ghetto uprising in April 1943, there was “a big traffic at the post office” on Zamenhof Street 19. A rumor was spreading that an organization had been established in Switzer‑ land with the aim of rescuing, and thus taking [from Warsaw], Polish Jews. And people, putting themselves at risk, came running from all the shops and all the ghetto area to the post office. They sent letters to Switzerland en masse and waited every day for a reply with great impatience. And there were only a few individuals who received personal documents to go to Switzerland, especially rabbis. People were crazy with joy.1 These few sentences from Truskier’s testimony are a glimpse of a much bigger history, of how during the Holocaust the network of Jewish Orthodox activists and organizations, with help of Polish diplomats, made immense efforts to rescue Jews in Nazi‑occupied Poland and elsewhere, and why these efforts mostly failed. But this is only part of the picture which will be discussed in this chapter. In recent years, politics have written a contemporary supplement to the historical facts; Pol‑ ish officials and newly established state institutions are using these facts to create a new, manipulated narrative about Polish‑Jewish relations and assistance efforts during the war. In a way, it is a story of how a very complicated, multi‑layered historical analysis of the past is simplified into a black and white narrative, which becomes a tool of present political propaganda. All this also prompts questions about distortions of Holocaust history and the future of Holocaust studies in the context of political pressures.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-14

110  Agnieszka Haska The Real Foreigners One of first testimonies of the fate of the Warsaw Ghetto is diary by Mary Berg, published in New York in February 1945. Born in Lodz as Miriam Wattenberg in 1924, Mary started to write just before the outbreak of the war; in September 1939, she and her family escaped to Warsaw – and subsequently, the Wattenbergs were closed behind the walls of the Warsaw ghetto. But Mary’s situation was a bit different from other ghetto inhabitants; her mother, Sylvia, was an American citizen. Sylvia Wattenberg made efforts to leave occupied Poland with her fam‑ ily in the spring of 1940; unfortunately, despite traveling to Berlin, she failed to obtain permission from Germans. Soon, in June 1940, this official way was closed, but Sylvia’s passport gave the Wattenbergs temporary protection from persecution. Jews‑foreigners, defined by German law in General Government as “anyone who has a nationality other than that of the German Reich or the Protec‑ torate of Bohemia and Moravia”,2 and not being Polish, was not subjected to all the decrees of the occupation authorities, e.g. they were not obligated to wear the armband with a star of David or to have a special pass to leave the ghetto area. In some cases, mostly in Warsaw and Cracow, Jews with foreign citizenship were also permitted to live on so‑called “Aryan” side. The only known census of for‑ eigners in the Warsaw ghetto was carried out no later than the beginning of July 1941; 715 people registered.3 In April 1942, a small group – mostly women and children with American citizenship – were transported by Germans from Warsaw to the internment camp in Liebenau. A second, larger group of approximately 100 people from the Warsaw ghetto with American, South American, and British (also Palestine Mandate) citizenships was interned by Germans in the Pawiak prison on July 16, 1942.4 Among them were Mary and her family. On October 23, 1942, a group of men was transported to the German internment camp in Titmoning; women with children were taken to Vittel internment camp on Janu‑ ary 18, 1943. Similar actions of interning Jews and Poles with foreign citizenship were also conducted in other cities in the General Government in 1942 and 1943. These actions were connected to German plans for future exchanges of so called “hostile citizens” for German prisoners of war interned by the allies,5 which was also stated explicitly in an ordinance of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) of February 1943; apart from the planned exchange, this document also mentions “arousing the interest of Jewish organisations, so that it would be possible to ex‑ ploit the Jews profitably”.6 From the perspective of Jews in German‑occupied Poland, if being a foreign citizen in 1940 meant safety from persecution and some privileges, then in 1942 and 1943, possession of such documents simply meant a chance of survival. As Truskier’s testimony states, in 1943, people were sending letters to Switzerland to obtain foreign passports. The question is – to whom? Organizing the Rescue Following the war’s outbreak, many organizations were established to help people in the occupied territories. Among them was RELICO (Komitee zur Hilfeleistung

Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics  111 für die Kriegsbetroffene Jüdische Bevölkrung) founded at the end of 1939 in ­Geneva by Abraham Silberschein (1882–1951), Zionist lawyer and former mem‑ ber of the Polish Sejm, who came to Switzerland in August 1939 as one of the leaders to attend Zionist Congress. RELICO was created as a relief work subde‑ partment of the World Jewish Congress with a goal to provide help for Jews in Nazi‑­occupied Europe. From 1940, it sent food and medicine parcels via neutral countries mostly to Polish territory under German rule.7 Simultaneously, Yitzhak and Recha Sternbuch, Orthodox Jews in Montreux, were helping Jewish refugees who illegally crossed the Swiss border; in 1941, they established HIJEFS (Hils‑ verein für Jüdische Fluchtlinge in Shanghai), sending aid to Jewish refugees in Shanghai, who fled there in 1940 thanks to travel visas issued in Kaunas by Chiune Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk. Using various connections, Sternbuchs and their close family ­circle – among them rabbi Shaul Weingort, who also came to Swit‑ zerland just after the outbreak of the war8 – start to help various individuals from occupied Poland. In their various efforts, Silberschein and Sternbuch’s circle co‑ operated with Agudath Israel’s representative in Zurich, Chaim Israel Eiss, Juliusz Kühl, an auxiliary employee in the Polish Legation to Switzerland, Liechtenstein from Bern, and others (e.g. Alfred Schwarzbaum). As early as 1941, an idea arose to obtain semi‑legally South American passports to help relatives flee from occupied Poland. The first attempts concerned relatives of Weingort and Stenbuchs; Leo Weingort, Shaul’s brother, who in 1939 flew to Lviv and was trying to obtain an exit permit from the Soviet Union and Guta Eizenzweig (and her family) from Warsaw, a romantic interest of Eli Sternbuch, Yitzchak’s brother. According to the Swiss Police protocol of Shaul Weingort’s interrogation from May 1943, to get a South American passport for his relative, Weingort went to Juliusz Kühl, who informed him, that for 1,000 Francs, he could arrange for such a document from the Paraguayan honorary consul in Bern, Rudolf Hügli. The idea was that Soviet authorities would recognize the holder of this passport as a for‑ eigner and issue a permit to exit their territory to Japan. In a letter sent in October 1941 from Bern to the Paraguayan embassy in Berlin, Hügli explained that The Polish minister in Bern asked me to help some Polish citizens under Russian rule (…) As I have good relations with the local embassy, and these were only a few cases, I decided to do this and save some people.9 But when Paraguayan documents for Leo Weingort reached Lviv in May 1941, the road to Japan was closed; soon, after the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, Weingort returned to Warsaw. Nevertheless, South American passports could be used as protection as Jews recognized by Nazi authorities as foreigners were not subjected to all the law decrees. Knowing this, in autumn 1941, Eli Stern‑ buch bought a Paraguayan passport for Guta Eizenzweig and her family, then in the Warsaw Ghetto, from Hügli.10 In July 1942, Eizenzweig was interned in the Pawiak prison in the same group as Mary Berg. In 1942, news about possibility of obtaining South American passports traveled through ghettos in the General Gouverment. Friends and relatives wrote letters to

112  Agnieszka Haska Switzerland asking for help. In mid‑1942, when deportations from the ghettos to the extermination camps began, it became clear that foreign documents were the only guarantee of survival; Sternbuchs, Silberschein, Eiss and Weingort started working together with the help of Polish Legation in Bern to obtain such papers. Passports and so‑called affidavits (provisional identity papers confirming foreign citizenship) came not only from Hügli, but also from other honorary consuls, who issued docu‑ ments for pay (from 500 to 2,000 Francs) or for free. Thus, passports and affidavits from Paraguay, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, El Salvador, Peru, Bo‑ livia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela were obtained. These documents were subsequently sent mostly to the General Government, but also to occupied Netherlands and Belgium. Approximately 4,000 passports were sent from Switzerland to occupied Europe. A detailed description of the entire action can be found in Silberschein’s telegram sent on May 12, 1943, to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the World Jewish Congress in the United States: On the basis of completely reliable information, only 10% of the Jewish pop‑ ulation in the General Government remained alive. Therefore, I considered it my first duty to organize the rescue of this remnant, in particular of outstand‑ ing individuals and young people, first of all HeHalutz. The action consists of obtaining South American passports from our friendly consuls, in particular those of Paraguay and Honduras; these documents remain with us and pho‑ tocopies are sent to the country; this saves people from doom, because as “foreigners” they are placed in good conditions in special camps where they are to stay until the end of the war – and where we have contact with them by letters. We make a written commitment to the consuls that the passport is used to save a person and will not be used otherwise.11 The issued passports and documents contained personal details and photos; this was in letters sent from the Warsaw ghetto mentioned by Truskier. In some cases, there were lists of individuals who should be rescued. For example, the Jewish underground in Warsaw ghetto was aware of this scheme and in early 1943, a com‑ mittee was set up; among its members were: Dr. Ignacy (Itzhak) Schipper, Mena‑ chem Kirszenbaum, and Emanuel Ringelblum. This committee compiled a list of people to be saved and sent it to Switzerland.12 The money to finance the purchase of the documents came from relatives and via World Jewish Congress was trans‑ ferred to Switzerland through diplomatic channels made available by the Polish Legation in Bern, the Polish Foreign Office in London, and the Polish Embassy in Washington. Diplomatic cables were also used to provide communication between Switzerland and Jewish organizations in United States. Additional employees of the Legation in Bern, apart from Kühl, were also engaged in all actions; Minister Plenipotentiary Aleksander Ładoś, head of Legacy, supported obtaining the docu‑ ments and used his contacts among the diplomatic corps to help. Ładoś’ deputy Stefan Ryniewicz and deputy consul Konstanty Rokicki were also engaged in this activity; the latter even filled out a number of blank passport forms with personal details for Hügli to sign.

Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics  113 Most documents were obtained at the turn of 1942/1943. However, in Decem‑ ber 1942, Walter Meyer, the Paraguayan consul in Zurich, pressed charges against Hügli, accusing him of issuing false documents and overcharging for them. The Swiss Federal Police started an investigation; they interrogated Kühl, Weingort, Eiss, and Schwarzman, among others. Although charges against Hügli were even‑ tually dismissed, in September 1943 Hügli’s official status as honorary consul was revoked by Paraguayan government; this same thing happened to other consuls who issued passports. Also in September 1943, the Geneva police arrested Abra‑ ham Silberschein and his assistant and partner Fanny Hirsch; they were released after few days. But all these events had profound consequences for the holders of passports in Nazi‑occupied Poland and elsewhere. On the Way to the Unknown Those who managed to obtain their passports and affidavits on time were interned by the Germans in spring 1943 and transported to internment camps. But in many cases, by the time letters with South American papers arrived, the holders of these documents were already dead. In Warsaw in May 1943, this undelivered mail be‑ came an object of interest among Jewish collaborators – Leon (Lajb) Skosowski and Adam Żurawin. It remains to be clarified whether Skosowski and Żurawin sim‑ ply bought these documents from the Germans to sell later at a profit, or whether the Germans decided that there was a profit to be made from the sale of these docu‑ ments and proposed an illegal partnership. Nevertheless, at the end of May a rumor spread throughout the Warsaw ghetto that one can buy South American passports for Jews and be transported to the special internment camp to await exchange for German prisoners of war interned by the allies. People started to show up – first at Hotel Royal on Chmielna St. 31 (from where a transport of 64 people went to Vittel on May 22, 1943), then at Hotel Polski on Długa St. 29, designated by the Germans as a place for Jews‑foreigners  –  to purchase these passports. Passport “transac‑ tions”, according to testimonies, were conducted via middlemen, or directly with Skosowski or Żurawin, without waiting. Apart from Skosowski and Żurawin, there was a third person in Hotel Polski. Daniel Guzik, director of the JOINT, also in‑ volved in the Jewish underground (and described as its loyal member13), helped people obtain documents free of charge, and was sure that the entire operation would be successful (he also sent his family abroad through the Hotel). One of Guzik achievements were the so‑called “Palestine certificates” delivered to Długa St.; when the Hotel Polski was an internment centre, he sent telegrams to the Pales‑ tine Agency in Constantinople, via the Government Delegate’s Office, requesting more certificate forms.14 Guzik gave these documents away free of charge. He also had a certain number of South America passports which, apparently, he reserved for Jewish underground activists, soldiers of the Jewish Fighting Organisation, and the Jewish Military Union. We do not know how Guzik obtained South American documents. Perhaps the underground had these documents, or perhaps Skosowski and Żurawin, gave some of the documents to the underground, seeing this as a chance for future rehabilitation if charged with collaboration. It is highly likely

114  Agnieszka Haska that it was a package deal; those who paid large sums of money (from 30,000 to 300,000 zlotys) for the passports thus sponsored those who could not afford them. After the transaction, people were directed to Auslandstelle officials, who put the “foreigners” on transport lists. In many Jewish diaries and testimonies from that period there was the dilemma: “to go or not to go” to Długa St.? On the one hand, there were some doubts, which stemmed from the fact that the organizers were Jewish collaborators. This aroused the obvious suspicion that the Hotel Polski was a trap set by the Gestapo to lure people from their hideouts and make a profit at the same time. But people did not want to believe that the Hotel Polski could be another fiction. The dangers of hid‑ ing on the Aryan side determined their decisions, and despite the doubts, more and more people turned up at Długa Street. The argument that the organizers of the action were collaborators was countered by the argument that both Skosowski and Żurawin (and other known Jewish Gestapo agents) had sent their families on the transport. Also, those who previously went to internment camps were sending letters that everything is fine and they reached paradise. Some people went to the Hotel because they simply had nowhere to go, their hideouts were discovered, or they had nowhere to hide. Hotel Polski operated until July 13, 1943, when two transports left Długa Street; 600 people to Bergen‑Belsen, and the remaining 400, most without documents, were transferred to the Pawiak prison. On July 15, 1943, 300 people from that group were shot there. A few days earlier, on July 5, 1943, around 1,200 left the Hotel for the Bergen‑Belsen camp. According to different estimates, around 2,500 people passed through the hotel, including approximately 265 holders of so‑called “Palestine certificates”. A detailed list has not survived and it is impossible to re‑ construct it, as people left on the basis of passports and affidavits issued in the names of people who were already dead. One thing must be stressed; Hotel Polski operated legally on mentioned the RSHA ordinance regarding Jews – foreigners; the internment action was then in full swing all over the General Government, and at that time transports from Cracow and Lvov were arriving in Bergen‑Belsen. In consequence of Swiss Federal Police investigation in September 1943, RSHA offi‑ cials started to verify documents of people interned in Bergen‑Belsen camp. On Oc‑ tober 21, 1943, approx. 1,800 people – holders of South American passports – left Bergen‑Belsen; they were said that the transport is going to the “better” Bergau camp near Dresden, but the real destination was Auschwitz‑Birkenau, where they all perished. Another verification by the officials from Auslandstelle took place on April 14, 1944 – subsequently, two more transports went to Auschwitz‑Birkenau with 350 people on May 17 and 23, 1944. In the Vittel camp, a special commission from the Auswärtiges Amt came on December 18, 1943; four months later, on April 17, 1944, 163 people were taken first to Drancy and then to Auschwitz. A month later, on May 16, an additional 51 were taken from Vittel. All perished. Simultane‑ ously, with help of Polish Legation in Bern, Jewish organizations were trying to find a way to pressure South American governments to recognize the passports as valid.15 Unfortunately, the official recognition of documents by South American governments in May 1944 came too late for most of Jewish holders of these papers.

Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics  115 From the group of Polish Jews interned in Vittel and Bergen Belsen camps only approx. 350 people survived, mostly with Palestine certificates, as neither Great Britain nor the United States challenged the validity of these papers.16 Birth of a Legend In August 2017, one of the main Polish newspapers, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, published an article by Michał Potocki and Zbigniew Parfinowicz entitled: “A Pole, on the order of the government, saved Jews from the Holocaust. The world didn’t know about it”.17 Potocki and Parfinowicz summarized the documents of the Swiss police from 1943, drawing the conclusion that the whole passport action was coordinated by Aleksander Ładoś and the Polish Legation in Bern, which, on behalf of the Polish Government in Exile, was supposed to make efforts to ar‑ range South American documents for Polish Jews as early as 1940. In addition, the article claimed that it was the journalists who first discovered the history of passports from Switzerland – which was not true, as it soon turned out that both the entire action and Ładoś’s biography had already been described in historiogra‑ phy.18 Nevertheless, this and subsequent articles became the beginning of creating a legend for the use of Polish politics of history and memory. The key role here was played by Jakub Kumoch, then Polish ambassador to Switzerland, who was behind publicizing the history of passports in the press and the efforts to com‑ memorate the so‑called “Ładoś group” or “Bernese group”, as this network of peo‑ ple involved in obtaining South American documents was soon called. The history of passports from Switzerland – or “Passports for life” – was a title of exhibition prepared in 2018 and shown in the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusa‑ lem, the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the Polish Cultural Institute in London, and other places. This soon became a politi‑ cal narrative proving the “real” attitude of the Polish state and nation toward the Holocaust exploited and promoted after the amendment of the act on the Polish Institute of National Remembrance in 2018 and the subsequent international public debate about Polish‑Jewish relations. The history of the so‑called “Ładoś group”, in which Polish diplomats were helped by Jewish organizations, was supposed to be a story of heroes that contradicted historical research and opinions showing the ambiguity of Polish attitudes towards the Shoah and indicating the varying degrees of involvement of Polish society in the Holocaust. Two state institutions coordi‑ nating historical politics, the Institute of National Remembrance and the Pilecki Institute established in 2016, have been involved in researching and promoting the subject of the passports. The first of them includes the documentary “Passports of Paraguay” directed by Robert Kaczmarek, shown all over the world on special screenings at Polish cultural and diplomatic missions. The Pilecki Institute, gen‑ erously subsidized by the Polish state, made the history of the so‑called Ładoś group one of its main research and educational goals, preparing publications and the aforementioned exhibition. Efforts were also made to grant Ładoś, Ryniewicz and Rokicki the title of Righteous among the Nations from Yad Vashem – when it was granted only to Rokicki, it sparked an outrage in Polish press.19 However,

116  Agnieszka Haska in 2019, Aleksander Ładoś, Stefan Ryniewicz, Konstanty Rokicki, Chaim Eiss, Juliusz Kühl, and Abraham Silberschein were awarded The Virtus et Fraternitas Medal by the President of Poland on the recommendation of the director of the Pi‑ lecki Institute. The medal is a token of commemoration and gratitude to those who provided aid and assistance to Polish citizens, and it has been established in 2017 as a Polish Righteous Among the Nations title. With subsequent publications about Ładoś, we witness the birth of a legend. A story about a man is created, devoid of icing. Heroes of flesh and blood, who cannot be pigeonholed, who do not fit into the demanding unambigu‑ ity of Polish historiography or often simply hagiography. About a hero that Poland needs. – wrote Zbigniew Parfinowicz in 2019 in another article about Ładoś group.20 All this resulted in the Sejm of the Republic of Poland’s passing a resolution that 2021 was the Year of the Ładoś Group and consecutive publications, memory plaques, theatre plays and even postage stamps with Ładoś portrait. No one questions the commitment of Aleksander Ładoś and his employees at Polish Legation in efforts to help Jews. The problem lies in very smooth manipu‑ lation of historical facts and putting emphasis on different aspects of the story of passports from Switzerland. Firstly, the adopted official names “Ładoś group” or “Bernese group” are imprecise and inaccurate. In the group, we have people from Bern, Montreux, Zurich, and Geneva, so therefore “Bernese group” is a geo‑ graphically inaccurate simplification. As for the “Ładoś group”, here again we are dealing with a simplification – it was an informal circle, it had no structure. Was Ładoś its leader? There is no such certainty. It seems that the group was more of an orchestra, not an established structure, working together, but also individually. In the foreword to the “Ładoś list”, the index of names on which South American passports were issued, published by the Pilecki Institute, we also read that the passports obtained by Polish Legation were from consuls of Paraguay, Honduras, Haiti, and Peru. What about other countries, among them Salvador whose Consul General José Arturo Castellanos and First Secretary George Mandel‑Mantello is‑ sued documents for free, mostly to Hungarian Jews? In an article in 2019, Kumoch explained that the activity of Salvadoran diplomats “is a later action that replaced the activity of the Ładoś group”21 after the Swiss police investigation. But Salva‑ doran passports were also sent to occupied Poland in 1943, as evidenced by letters with names and dates of sending confirmations in Silberschein’s documents.22 So it wasn’t a “later action” but part of the same action  –  some of the documents were obtained by the Jewish organization without the intermediary of Polish Le‑ gation, which proves that the Legation played a vital role in this scheme but not a central one. There is also no proof that Polish Legation came up with the idea of obtaining South American documents for Polish Jews as early as 1940  –  the first cases, as mentioned before, are from 1941. The “Ładoś group” name is an intentional simplification, indicating that Polish diplomats played a central role in the whole idea, not Jewish organizations. Also, there is no trace that Ładoś and

Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics  117 company was acting on orders from Polish Government in Exile in London – the first information about it sent from Bern to London is from May 1942.23 Secondly, it is suggested that this group, apart from Ładoś himself, had only six members (Eiss, Kühl, Ładoś, Rokicki, Ryniewicz, and Silberschein).24 The Sternbuch fam‑ ily and Weingort are mentioned here as a “second circle”, who “knew about the passports and who to approach in order to obtain them, but there is no evidence that they fully understood the mechanisms which lead to their creation”,25 which is doubtful knowing that Yitzhak Sternbuch was one of the people receiving let‑ ters from the Warsaw ghetto and also a person sending information to the United States using diplomatic cables provided by Polish Legation. Thirdly, taking about communication channels, the new narrative omits one more person from Polish Legation  – ­encryption officer Stanisław Nahlik who was engaged in both send‑ ing telegrams and transferring money. In his autobiographical essay, Kühl writes about Nahlik as “a very decent man” who “would leave parties at night in order to continue [our] work at the Embassy”.26 Why is Nahlik’s role omitted? The answer is very simple – in 1965, when Nahlik was a professor at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, he was recruited as agent by Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa). In the black and white version of history preferred by historical propaganda, a com‑ munist agent couldn’t be a hero beforehand. Moreover, in this narrative, the story of “Ładoś group” is presented as a his‑ tory of rescue, not an attempt which unfortunately failed. The whole part of Hotel Polski affair is usually omitted here or mentioned in a footnote;27 all efforts of researchers from Pilecki Institute is to prove how many people survived thanks to the passports. In the aforementioned publication, the “Ładoś list”, containing data on the identity of 2,992 passport holders and 261 of their unknown family mem‑ bers, authors estimate on that between 30% and 35% of Ładoś passport bearers could have survived the war. But there are severe methodological problems with that list – it is an index of names on which South American passports were issued, based mostly on Silberschein’s notes from the Yad Vashem Archives, not people who received the documents. The analysis of that list, with cross‑references to other archival sources shows names of people who survived the war, but not thanks to South American passports. One prominent example here is Yitzhak Cukierman; his name is on that list. In Cukierman’s memoirs and other documents, there is no mention that he received a passport; in “Surplus of Memory”, Cukierman mentions that he thought “we could also send out one or two people through Hotel Polski, so they could tell our story to the world”,28 but not a word about himself. Neverthe‑ less, in the “Ładoś list” he is counted as a person who survived thanks to “Ładoś group”. Even the title “Ładoś list” is an example of the use of positive emotional connotations and analogies to “Schindler’s list”. The history of passports from Switzerland is multi‑layered story which still hides many unknowns and requires in‑depth historical research. The problem is when this research is politically ordered to get the right results and interpretations, simplified into a black and white narrative, which can be used as a tool of contem‑ porary political propaganda. The history of attempts to rescue Jews by obtaining South American passports and affidavits is very interesting because of its different

118  Agnieszka Haska dimensions; cooperation, efforts, hope  –  and tragedy when it turned out that all these people could not be saved. Turning it into narrative about Poles helping Jews with the help of other Jews by manipulating the facts is a Holocaust distortion –  and unfortunately, judging by involvement of Polish state institutions, will be continued. Notes 1 Archives of Jewish Historical Institute Archive (AŻIH), 301/4492, p. 12. 2 National Archives in Cracow, Akta miasta Krakowa, Urząd Paszportowy, sygn. 699, p. 13. 3 Gazeta Żydowska, July 11, 1941. 4 “Getto w Warszawie”, IPN Archives, 165/367. 5 Shulman, 1982: 228. 6 AŻIH, NG 2856‑P. 7 For more information about RELICO activities and parcels scheme see: Lepper, 2022: 49–77. 8 About Shaul Weingort see Kadosh, 2019. 9 Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), P.51/34. 10 Kranzler, 2004: 94. 11 The Central Archives of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych, later: AAN), Po‑ selstwo RP w Bernie, 330. 12 Yitzhak Cukierman’s afterword to The Last Writings of Itzhak Katzenelson, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Beit Lochamej Hagetatot 1956, quoted in: Rubin, 2003: 15. 13 Shulman, 1982: 229. 14 AAN, Delegatura Rządu na Kraj, XV‑2/343. 15 AAN, Poselstwo RP w Bernie, 327. 16 Haska, 2006. 17 https://www.gazetaprawna.pl/wiadomosci/artykuly/1063030,alekander‑lados‑­ ratowal‑zydow‑holokaust.html (accessed February 15, 2023). 18 Eck, 1957; Friedenson and Kranzler, 1984; Lewin, 1977; Haska, 2015. 19 https://dorzeczy.pl/swiat/224482/aleksander‑lados‑nie‑otrzyma‑tytulu‑od‑yad‑vashem. html (accessed February 15, 2023). 20 https://www.gazetaprawna.pl/wiadomosci/artykuly/1444410,parafianowicz‑lista‑­ ladosia‑czyli‑narodziny‑legendy.html (accessed February 15, 2023). 21 Kumoch, 2019. 22 YVA M. 20/179. 23 AAN, Poselstwo RP w Bernie, 330, telegram by Abraham Silberschein, 12 V 1943 r. 24 Kumoch (ed.), Maniewska, Uszyński and Zygmunt, 2020: 12. 25 Kumoch (ed.), Maniewska, Uszyński and Zygmunt, 2020: 15. 26 USHMM, Julius Kühl Collection, RG‑27.001, series 8: 28. 27 Kumoch (ed.), Maniewska, Uszyński and Zygmunt, 2020: 23. 28 Zuckerman, 1993: 445.

Bibliography Eck, Natan, 1957. “The Rescue of Jews with the Aid of Passports and Citizenship Papers of Latin American States”, Yad Vashem Studies 1: 125–152. Friedenson, Joseph and Kranzler, David, 1984. Heroine of Rescue. The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust, New York: Mesorah Publications.

Passports from Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics  119 Haska, Agnieszka, 2006. Jestem Żydem, chcę wejść. Hotel Polski w Warszawie, 1943, War‑ saw: Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN. Haska, Agnieszka, 2015. “‘Proszę Pana Ministra o energiczną interwencję’. Aleksander Ładoś (1891–1963) i ratowanie Żydów przez Poselstwo RP w Bernie”, Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały 15: 299–309. Kadosh, Sara, 2019. We Think of You as an Angel. Shaul Weingort and the Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publications. Kranzler, Dawid, 2004. Holocaust Hero: The Untold Story and Vignettes of Solomon Schon‑ feld, an Extraordinary British Orthodox Rabbi Who Rescued 4000 Jews during the Holo‑ caust, Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishers. Kumoch, Jakub, 2019. “Les passeports de Lados”, Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah 1: 135–146. Kumoch, Jakub (ed.), Maniewska, Monika, Uszyński, Jędrzej and Zygmunt, Bartłomiej, 2020. The Ładoś List. An Index of People to Whom the Polish Legation and Jewish Or‑ ganizations in Switzerland Issued Latin American Passports during the Second World War, transl. Julia Niedzielko, Ian Stephenson. Warszawa: Instytut Pileckiego. Lepper, Anne, 2022. “‘Because I Know What That Means to You’. The RELICO Parcel Scheme Organized in Geneva during World War II”, in: Jan Láníček and Jan Lambertz (eds.), More Than Parcels. Wartime Aid for Jews in Nazi‑Era Camps and Ghettos, De‑ troit: Wayne State University Press: 49–77. Lewin, Izaak, 1977. “Próby ratowania Żydów europejskich przy pomocy polskich placówek dyplomatycznych podczas drugiej wojny światowej”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 1, no. 101: 85–122. Rubin, Arnon, 2003. Facts and Fictions about the Rescue the Jews, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Uni‑ versity Press. Shulman, Abraham, 1982. The Case of Hotel Polski, New York: Holocaust Library. Zuckerman, Yitzhak, 1993. A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Upris‑ ing, transl. Barbara Harshav. Berkeley‑Oxford: University of Califormia Press.

11 My Love Affair with Jewish History From Small Town to Source of Identity Grzegorz Krzywiec A Small‑town Boy from the Former Shtetl I became interested in Jewish topics quite late, and it was not related either to my background, close friends or acquaintances, or any personal experience; at least not in a direct connection; or so it seemed to me for a long time. I come from a small town in the Lublin region, the eastern part of Poland. I was born into a family (1974) in which both parents came from the peasant countryside and these links, for a long time, were strongly maintained. My childhood and most of my adolescence passed there, although I completed my secondary education in Puławy, a town where there was a prestigious secondary school and several centres of local intellectual life. Although I had been interested in history since childhood, particularly the his‑ tory of the 19th and 20th centuries, issues and problems relating to the history of the Jews and their alienation rarely, if ever, came up there. Primary education in Poland at that time up to the age of 14 did not take into account the multi‑ethnic and multi‑religious nature of Polish history at all until basically the middle of the 20th century. The political and, to some extent, opposition to the regime‑communist narrative also marginally touched upon this issue. Significantly, both in my home‑ town Dęblin and in Puławy, some 10 km away, there were numerous and thriving Jewish communities until the outbreak of World War II; until the early 21st century, however, all material and cultural evidence of Jewish presence was either usually ignored or even carefully erased. I do not recall that any of the local communities took any interest in the fate of their Jewish co‑residents or at least knew how numerous, lively and versatile their presence was. Sometimes traces of such a presence could be found by chance, in various spot not often visited. From my early youth, however, I was confronted with antisemitism and various kinds of hostile or even hateful manifestations of hostility towards the Jews, but also towards national and ethnic minorities as such, although these attitudes were so widespread that I was largely unaware of them. For example, in Dęblin area, there is a cemetery of Russian soldiers from the Great War, which over time has be‑ come a kind of large rubbish dump for the local population on the one hand, or worse; though a storehouse for petty crime groups from the surrounding area. The remains of the dead, the valuable remains of soldiers have been looted over the years. DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-15

My Love Affair with Jewish History  121 The first time I experienced the presence of antisemitic attitudes on a massive scale was during the 1990 presidential elections. Even then, the odes of this cam‑ paign could be massively felt in the provinces. Perhaps as one of the first free elections of 1989, the subject came up, mainly due to rivalries between local politi‑ cians; among other things, anonymous supporters of one candidate posted on walls that another candidate was Jewish. The latter one in turn signed: “I am not Jewish”. This political hysteria was accompanied by political mobilisation in the press and in the local Catholic churches. In the first years of the 1990s, there was so much of this that nobody paid any attention to it. The history of the Jewish community in Dęblin is in its own way unique but in many respects typical for the area. The first Jews appeared in the area of the Irena (Dęblin‑Irena) settlement in the middle of the 19th century, which can be associ‑ ated with the social and political changes brought about by the capitalist economy. They mostly settled around the market square, where the material remains of this life were present until the second half of the 20th century; the majority of Dęblin’s Jews moved there in the mid‑19th century from the nearby village of Bobrowniki. There, to this day, there are remains of an abandoned Jewish cemetery, devastated, unfortunately by human hands. In time, the Dęblin‑ Irena settlement, next to one of the largest Russian for‑ tresses on the western borders of the Tsar Empire, became the seat of an important Hasidic dynasty, including, among others, Rabbi Israel Taub (d.  1921) , known as the Modrzycer rebbe, who settled there in 1889. The community of local Jews made its living primarily by contacting and supplying the Russian army troops stationed in the local fortress. By the end of the 19th century, the town had be‑ come an important link in the developing rail transport (the so‑called Ivangorodo‑­ Dombrowskaya železnaja doroga), linking Dęblin (then called Ivangorod) and the Old‑Polish Zagłębie with the Dabrowskie Zagłębie, an enterprise in which two financial tycoons of the then Kingdom of Poland, both prominent Poles of Jewish origin (Herman Epstein and Jan Gottlieb Bloch – “King of the Iron Railways”), participated. Dęblin is mentioned in many accounts of the period, including those of the famous writer Stefan Żeromski and Bolesław Prus, but only curiosity‑­seekers know about the Jewish traces. The Jews of Dęblin were primarily engaged in trade and crafts, fulfilling the roles and functions of the middle classes; as blacksmiths, locksmiths and carpen‑ ters, as well as tailors, shoemakers, saddlers using the products of the local tanner‑ ies. They were indispensable. When the settlement also started to become a holiday resort in the late‑19th century, many Jews provided a variety of services to holi‑ daymakers. From the very beginning, Dęblin’s Jews also took an active part in the social life of the village; for example, in 1863, the local Jewish community showed its support for the January Uprising (However, an immortal antisemitic saying to this day is that they supported the Tsar). From the late of the 19th century, the settlement grew steadily. In 1884, the set‑ tlement had 2,236 inhabitants, of whom 2031 were Jews (90%). Among the Jew‑ ish community in Dęblin‑Irena, Hasidim predominated, which significantly shaped the life of the town. In addition to the followers of the Modrzycer rebbe, Hasidim

122  Grzegorz Krzywiec of the Gora Kalwaria court also lived here. The last rabbi of the community was Emmanuel Gerszon Rabinowicz, who died during World War II. During World War I, after the Austrian occupation of Dęblin, many Jews left the town. Among them was Rebbe Saul Jedidja Eleazar Taub, who moved to Otwock and established a new Hassidic court there. The rebirth of Poland did not necessarily arouse mixed feelings in the local population. In November 1918, troops of the Polish Army under General Jozef Haller entered Dęblin. Over the following months, Jews were subjected to systematic persecution by the soldiers. There were beatings, confisca‑ tion of property and beards were cut off, etc. In 1919, even a drastic tragedy oc‑ curred. The bodies of four children of a well‑known local Jew, Rubinsztajn, who had previously disappeared, were found near the settlement. The murder was not explained, although the surrounding Jewish community was left with the over‑ whelming belief that the suspects had not been sufficiently prosecuted. During the Polish‑Bolshevik war, Dęblin hosted Jozef Pilsudski, then Head of State, the highest state official, still considered a leading figure in 20th‑century Pol‑ ish history, who was welcomed by the local Jews with bread and salt. This event is commemorated by one of the most iconic, still reproduced, photographs from this period. Although Dęblin’s Jews in the Second Polish Republic had every right to feel that they were second‑class citizens, the interwar period saw the development of Jewish political life in the settlement. While the life of ethnic Poles was domi‑ nated by National Democracy (Endeks), the life of Jewish Dęblinians first came under the overwhelming influence of the Agudah, and then of the Zionists in their radical versions as well. Also active were supporters of the Bund and, in the 1930s, several radicalising groups. Youth organisations were also active in the small town. In 1928, a HeHalutz‑Pioneer cell was formed, and in 1932, Betar and Zionist Youth branches were established. In 1925, the Bundists and Zionists even founded a Jew‑ ish library together, which educated the local Jewish youth. In the second half of the 1920s, an Interest‑Free Loan Fund was established in the town, as well as a Society of Free Houses and a Jewish Co‑operative Bank. From 1929, the local Yiddish weekly Der Obserwator was published in the rally from the beginning of the Great Depression until the outbreak of the WWII; the only paper in the area. In the interwar period, the main source of livelihood for Dęblin’s Jews continued to be crafts and petty trade. The majority were tailors, shoemakers and saddlers. There was a Jewish sawmill, mill and brewery in the settlement; two Jewish doctors practised in the town, as well as a Jewish dentist. Yet the vast majority of the town’s Jewish inhabitants were in difficult material conditions; many of them, like the non‑Jewish population, were unemployed. In the 1930s, with the rise of antisemitic sentiment in Poland, the “Polish” Dęblin also began to regard Jews as the greatest threat to Polish identity, and Jewish shops as competition for Polish trade. In par‑ ticular, between 1936 and 1937, there were numerous assaults on Jewish stalls, itin‑ erant traders, as well as cases of terrorising the local, both Jewish and non‑Jewish population; today we know that this was one of the greatest waves of antisemitic violence before the outbreak of World War II. However, many Jews also found ref‑ uge in Dęblin from antisemitism. Among those who found their place in the town were those fleeing from Przytyk near Radom (1936), but also the family of the man

My Love Affair with Jewish History  123 who would later become the charismatic chairman of the German Central Council of Jews, Ignaz Bubiz (1927–1999), who fled from Nazi Germany. The Bubiz family, like many of the Jews of Dęblin, later perished at Treblinka. Who knows about this? Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, many Jews took refuge from the bombardment in the local synagogue. Others fled to nearby towns and villages, above all to nearby towns: including Ryki, Puławy and Żelechów. The Germans entered Dęblin at the end of September 1939 and this was the beginning of the Jewish ordeal; at the beginning of 1940, they ordered them to wear an armband with a Star of David and established the first Judenrat, public persecution began en masse, and Jewish public buildings were also confiscated. In the second half of 1940, the Germans established an open ghetto in Dęblin, which Jews, with the exception of forced labourers, were not allowed to leave. Between 1941 and 1942, the Germans established as many as five labour camps in and around Dęblin. Two operated in the vicinity of the airport, which to this day remains one of the most im‑ portant areas of local life, the third near the road to the village of Mierziączka, from where a large part of Deblin’s contemporary population originates, the fourth near the freight railway station, and the fifth on Lipowa Street. All of these are places that most of the residents of Deblin and the surrounding area are familiar with. In none of these places, is there even a trace of a Jewish presence. In total, more than 1,000 Jewish workers worked there; probably all of them were murdered. Most of Deblin’s Jews perished during the Holocaust; after the war, a few returned, only to flee forever shortly afterwards, not least from widespread antisemitism. Why mention all this in such detail? Deblin, in many respects, is not a special place; it is one of many provincial Polish towns whose inhabitants should confront their past in order to know more about themselves. The inhabitants of Deblin, like most similar towns, know little or often nothing about this history. Jewish themes were and are systematically suppressed, but usually nothing is known about them. There is not always anything to be ashamed of; often these are glorious pages and worthy of remembrance. However, this knowledge, often in a very caricatured ver‑ sion, like a boomerang, returns to the inhabitants of such places as Dęblin usually from the national media; on the occasion of some spectacular event, usually when black pages from the past are uncovered. Unfortunately, they do not find much help either in schools or, even less, in lo‑ cal politics. Rarely, if ever, will anyone in a major urban centre or capital take an interest in these stories. I mention these local contexts and peculiarities because learning about this rich multi‑ethnic, multi‑religious area, which was wiped off the face of the earth and then its memory almost completely forgotten, makes it pos‑ sible to understand why the Polish, or perhaps even the broader Eastern European provinces, are so reluctant, or sometimes hostile, to the discovery of its past. Jedwabne and after Jedwabne For many researchers of Polish‑Jewish relations, but also antisemitism, the event that changed their view of the issue was the case of Jedwabne and the book by Jan Tomasz Gross (Gross, 2001). At that time, I was already employed at the Institute of

124  Grzegorz Krzywiec History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in what was then the Laboratory of the History of the Intellectuals, which was headed by the eminent historian and public intellectual Jerzy Jedlicki Jedlicki (1930–2018), one of the most prominent figures of the Warsaw historical milieu, a distinguished essayist and former democratic opposition activist in the People’s Republic of Poland, led seminars at the School of Social Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences during the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s. A number of then prominent public figures passed through this centre, including a large part of the cultural elite that would lead Polish public life for years to come. Jedlicki, a Holocaust survivor, spent much of World War II in Warsaw, in hiding under a false name. Although he patronised numerous scholarly initiatives around Jewish themes, he was one of the most prominent experts on Polish antisemitism. He never directly engaged in Jewish studies; however, his participation in the de‑ bate around Jedwabne and several later ones was unmissable. Among other things, he was the organiser of one of the most important historical debates at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in which the main opponents met, and which became a staple of later discussions about the incidents that occurred in Jedwabne and the surrounding towns in the press and media, etc. Jedlicki had per‑ haps the greatest influence on my intellectual development, as well as on a certain type of sensibility that shaped an entire generation of scholars. His death, following a long and serious illness, remains for me a loss that cannot be made up for. As is well known, the debate around Jedwabne not only exposed the black pages in the attitude of Poles towards Jews, but also revealed the extent and variety of antisemitic attitudes in Polish society both during World War II and shortly af‑ terwards, both in the big cities and, above all, in the Polish countryside. For me personally, the discussion itself was not so much a traumatic experience; rather, it complemented what I already knew; above all, the extent of the involvement of the Polish provincial population in the extermination of the Jewish population during the Holocaust. At the turn of 1990/2000, I was carrying out a number of archival searches on wartime Polish‑Jewish relations at the request of the Holocaust Mu‑ seum in Washington, D.C., including, above all, those relating to my home region, Lublin. That experience made me realise that the violence and direct participation of non‑Jewish Poles in the murder of Jews was widespread and could not be con‑ fined to any one narrow geographical area. In fact, apart from a few exceptions, they took place throughout the whole territory of the Polish lands; antisemitism among “neighbors” was, however, a phenomenon that did not give me peace of mind. From the beginning, I was quite skeptical about the actual extent of the impact of the effects of Jedwabne on the public consciousness, and for the most part my fears were confirmed. What I did not expect, however, was the cultural backlash effect, which initially seemed limited to the extreme right. The effect of Jedwabne was not only to expose the black pages of Polish history, an impulse for a new opening in the history of Polish‑Jewish relations and Jewish studies for a whole generation of scholars and social activists, but also a recidivism of old and sometimes even distant prejudices and resentments. In my personal experience, Jedwabne was one, but probably not the most important, of the issues that influenced scholars to deal

My Love Affair with Jewish History  125 with Polish antisemitism: its religious, social, and also trans‑national sources. Both my doctoral and postdoctoral thesis and a number of later publications on the sub‑ ject grew out of this interest. Numerous contacts and collaborations with eminent researchers from Europe, the United States and Israel grew out of this interest. Future joint projects and ventures also followed. Jedwabne was not only a great trauma for a considerable part of the intellectual class; it also became an important impulse for research into the history of Polish Jews. At the time, the topic was becoming fashionable in academic circles, as one well‑known 20th‑century scholar publicly stated. Out of Jedwabne sprang such eminent enterprises as the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, but also numerous other academic and cultural undertakings, respected throughout the world. But has Jewish studies acquired a separate, independent, unquestionable status in Polish historiography or the academy more broadly? The Polish humanities and social sciences still need to reach wider social circles with their knowledge; to go beyond the elite circles of the big cities. So far, they have reached a wider audience mainly through the media, politics and to an insufficient degree, as it seems to me, in the Polish countryside. This long road of getting used to facts that are difficult for many, however, needs to be taken and worked through. I myself consider one of the most important fields for building such a space to be not so much the discovery or falsification of new facts, but the creation of a story in which the broadest pos‑ sible community could find itself. Until this happens, we are all in for a spitting into the wind. Bibliography Dęblin‑Irena, 2001. [w:]The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, vol. 1, ed. Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder, New York: NYU Press; 303. Gross, Jan Tomasz, 2001 Neighbors; The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jed‑ wabne, Poland, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Porter‑Szucs, Brian, 2014. Poland in the Modern World, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

12 In Search of the Victims’ Agenda German Scholarship on Polish Jews During the Holocaust Stephan Lehnstaedt

After the war, tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors lived in DP camps in oc‑ cupied Germany. They were the ones who published the first studies and eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust and Jewish resistance.1 Of course, these were not aimed at an academic and especially not at a German audience. But here, former opponents of the Nazis had joined together in the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime (VVN). Their motivation was the fight against fascism – and this included giving the former fighters a voice. It was this association that produced the first German publication on Jewish resistance: Civia Lubetkin’s account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.2 It was a small pamphlet printed on cheap paper, but the print run must have been several thousand, if not tens of thousands of copies. In Germany, too, Warsaw 1943 was the beginning of any engagement with Jewish resistance. The publication had great symbolic significance, and it certainly had readers. But it did not initiate a serious exploration of the subject. It is hardly surprising that Germans after 1945 paid less attention to Jewish resistance than to German resist‑ ance as ultimately, the respective narratives of resistance are nationally dominated. This is the basis of social commemoration, requiring a modest amount of familial memory. This perspective characterizes European countries, which included the topic of Jewish resistance the resistance of the Jewish population in varying de‑ grees within their own canons.3 The German case, however, has some distinctive features within academic his‑ toriography. For decades there was, at times, a harsh rejection of Jewish resistance or even a general Jewish agenda during the Holocaust – both as an object of study and as a historical phenomenon. Why did this occur? To answer that question, I will begin with a survey of German scholarship about the Jewish agenda and resistance in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, with particular focus on Jews in occupied Poland. In doing so, I will offer an explanation as to why this topic became of inter‑ est in German research only in the last 20 years. Early German Scholarship on Jewish Resistance Resistance against the Nazi regime was a difficult topic for German society, as so many willingly had followed Hitler, and so few actually rejected him. The VVN, which had made a case for the former resistance fighters and hinted at the Warsaw DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-16

In Search of the Victims’ Agenda  127 ghetto uprising, was soon considered to be infiltrated by communists, thus dis‑ crediting it in the West. There, historiography was limited primarily to politically and ideologically inspired studies of the failure of the Weimar Republic and the structural shaping of National Socialism in the pre‑war period,4 primarily ignoring the Holocaust for almost 30 years. In the German Democratic Republic, a Marxist‑­ influenced historical science developed, which intentionally shortened Nazi history by essential elements, most notably the specific victimhood of racial persecution. In the West, by the 1960s at the latest, Count Stauffenberg and his assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 had become part of the commemorative canon, and in 1968, the German Resistance Memorial Center opened in Berlin, which gradually adopted a broader and more inclusive definition of resistance. Yet, German Jews had no place there for a long time, because in the German view they did not form groups but were active either as individuals or in non‑Jewish dominated associa‑ tions, such as the communist or trade union resistance. In contrast to this widespread assessment,5 other points of view were rather marginal. The research related to this had its origins in the GDR, and had already culminated in a remarkable West German publication on German Jews in the re‑ sistance in 1984, but it did not appear in a renowned academic series or one of the traditional historians’ publishing houses.6 Its main author was Helmut Eschwege, born in Hanover in 1913. Eschwege had emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s but returned to the GDR after the war. As an ideological communist, he struggled with the existing form of socialism throughout his life, had to endure multiple party ex‑ pulsions and, although he had actually been a historian since 1952, was unable to officially practice his profession for most of his life. His pioneering study, which he published together with the West German historian Konrad Kwiet, who had been teaching in Australia since 1976, is still a fundamental work today. With their book, Eschwege and Kwiet moved in an international field of re‑ search, corresponding to the Hebrew term Amidah whose concept had been ex‑ plored in Israel, but which also had a counterpart in a broad and nuanced study of resistance in Germany.7 In particular, the notion of Resistenz should be mentioned here, which can perhaps best be translated into English as resilience. Developed largely at the Munich Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) centering around Martin Broszat, the term means something like an attitude of refusal in everyday life, such as not giving the Hitler salute, insisting on traditions of non‑National Socialist milieus, and so on.8 Despite this fact, or possibly because of it, for many years, Eschwege and Kwiet’s book was largely ignored. Even the positive review by Arnold Paucker – himself a German Jew, resistance researcher, and director of the Leo Baeck Institute in London between 1960 and 2001 – in the key journal Historische Zeitschrift, did not change this attitude.9 German historians were enthusiastic about researching everyday life under National Socialism, and the concept of resilience stemmed from large‑scale projects on the subject. In these projects, efforts were made to access new sources and perspectives beyond the conventional tradition of state records. This would have been a fundamental prerequisite for research into the Jewish resistance as well, which by necessity could not document its own activities at the time, as records

128  Stephan Lehnstaedt would simply have been suicidal in the event of discovery. But German historians rejected the extensive Jewish memoire literature that emerged after 1945, including the numerous memoirs printed from the 1980s onward, such as those appearing un‑ der the imprint of renown publishers such as the Fischer publishing house under the editorship of Wolfgang Benz,10 just as they rejected oral testimony from survivors. It was precisely this view that additionally reinforced the victimhood of the per‑ secuted Jews. There was no place for their agenda, nor for looking eastward where there had been so many prominent examples of resilience. But this also meant that, as “objects of aggression and extermination, they were once again robbed of their given and quite active behavioral possibilities, of the ability to renounce, of the willingness to emerge from impositions and ‘entanglements,’ and finally of the will to revolt” – according to a thoroughly self‑critical assessment by Peter Steinbach, the longtime academic director of the German Resistance Memorial Center.11 Turning Eastward In addition, German scholars did not deal with Jewish resistance in Germany be‑ cause it was not considered particularly spectacular. There had been no revolts last‑ ing several weeks, mass escapes, or assassinations, as had been the case in Eastern Europe. In view of these acts, and also in view of the totality of the Holocaust, even the survivors in Germany had to regard their own acts of resistance as modest. Some even spoke of the fact that there had actually been no Jewish resistance in their homeland. Instead, they spoke about the alleged Jewish passivity on the one hand and the impossibility of revolt in the face of the perpetrators’ superiority on the other hand.12 As long as moral legitimacy and recognition were fed by a victim status, the emphasis on active acts was problematic; additionally, how could the few resistance fighters be connected to the millions who died? The answer to this question, beyond the problematic and ubiquitous concept of victimhood, is obvi‑ ous: the resistance fighters, too, were victims of persecution, and the millions who died were by no means passive. This is also the argument of the most comprehensive German‑language account of Jewish resistance to date, dating from 1994. Its author was Holocaust survivor Arno Lustiger (1924–2012) from Będzin, Poland, who took an inclusive approach: “Every survivor is a witness to this resistance, because if the Nazis had had their way, no Jew would have survived the war.”13 After the war, Lustiger had established himself as a Frankfurt textile manufacturer and after retiring, became a self‑taught scholar of Jewish history. His documentary study can be characterized as popular history, but is very impressive in its comprehensive approach that includes all of Europe with a major focus on occupied Poland. Lustiger, however, had entered a territory that academic historians were not willing to share. Their treatment of survivor‑scholars had always been exclusion‑ ary, defaming their approach and rejecting the books they produced, even when researchers like Joseph Wulf limited themselves to commenting on perpetrator sources.14 They now rejected Lustiger,15 and even 20 years after its publication, his book fell victim to Wolfgang Benz’s condemnation: Lustiger had tried

In Search of the Victims’ Agenda  129 to shape the sum of individual, widely scattered Jewish activities into the im‑ age of an omnipresent Jewish resistance […] To follow his ideas, however, presupposed a great deal of good will and a willingness to give primacy to feelings of guilt among his audience.16 In the 1990s, however, a change in the perception of the Holocaust began in Ger‑ many, as it did elsewhere. Thanks to major media events such as the American television series “Holocaust” or Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” the Holo‑ caust became a widely perceived public issue. At the same time, academia faced what Tom Lawson calls “The breakdown of grand narratives.”17 After many years of research on National Socialism and its crimes, overall interpretations of Na‑ tional Socialism had lost their appeal; instead, scholars increasingly looked at the micro‑level in Eastern Europe, where the mass murder of European Jews had had its geographical center. They also did so from a very German perspective. Perpetrator studies, which are widely perceived as an influential research phenomenon, turned out to be the most influential development. Wolfgang Scheffler, who as a postdoc had been one of the official German observers of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem,18 may be considered the father of this school of thought. In the following decades, he became the Ger‑ man luminary of the Holocaust and was active as a historical expert in countless trials on Nazi crimes. Yet, he was largely denied academic recognition for this: Scheffler had to make a living from his field of expertise and thus published little, although he did publish an interesting publication on the Nazi crimes during the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943.19 Among Scheffler’s students were historians such as Andrej Angrick, Peter Klein, Christian Gerlach or, as a frequent guest in seminars, Dieter Pohl. In this circle, a forensic turn in Holocaust research emerged,20 which was much less in‑ terested in perpetrator psychology or origin than in a highly precise, in‑depth de‑ scription of the deeds in Eastern Europe and the identification of those responsible for them. The historical narrative had to be able to stand up in court. Yet, it was not about the victims or their actions. Scheffler was also not very interested in the archives in Eastern Europe, which had become more accessible since the fall of the Iron Curtain, but worked almost exclusively with the investigative files of the German judiciary. The “Scheffler School” was mainly composed of men. Here a gender bias can be observed in German Holocaust research: Those who were interested in perpetra‑ tors and their crimes were mainly male. Those who were interested in the victims, their lives, and their actions were primarily female.21 Significantly, the pioneering German study on Jewish actions did not come from the field of academic research, but from the feminist Ingrid Strobl who published a book on Jewish women in the resistance in occupied Poland and Western Europe in the late 1990s.22 Based on extensive interviews, she was also concerned with female empowerment using the example of Jewish fighters, while she was only peripherally interested in the rac‑ ist persecution situation of her heroines. Also, she differentiated between Jewish resistance and Jewish women, and Jews in the resistance outside of Jewish groups.

130  Stephan Lehnstaedt Academically minded scholars have long since left this unproductive division behind. According to Peter Steinbach, this is based on the concept that Jewish re‑ sistance, because of the totality of the extermination, cannot be grasped via con‑ ventional categories, and that in this sense, neither resistance nor Amidah is needed for explanation, because it is simply sui generis. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is so general‑human and universal – the striving for survival, the assertion of man in the face of total violence – but in principle can and should be thought of beyond political goals. For this very reason, Jewish resistance does not need to be mythi‑ cized, which in turn has the advantage that it does not need to be demythicized either. In short: Jewish resistance and Jewish agency are special and remarkable, but due to circumstances created by Germans, not by Jews.23 Jewish Life and Jewish Agency Combined with accessible archives in Eastern Europe, this tendency to broaden the view on Jewish life and resistance during the Holocaust led to some remarkable German studies in the last 20 years that were not influenced by political disputes. The pioneering study in this field was conducted by Andrea Löw, who in 2006 analyzed the living conditions, self‑perception, and behavior of Jews in the Litz‑ mannstadt ghetto. Her main sources were ego documents: testimonies, which for the first time in German historiography were used not only for the consideration of perpetrators. That is why Löw concluded that the “discussions about the alleged passivity of the Jews persecuted by the National Socialists misses the reality and the actual problem.”24 Public interest about life in the ghettos also grew during those years, which is why Löw, together with Markus Roth, was able to publish two more excellent books on self‑assertion in the ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow.25 Moreover, a legal development was of particular importance for the academic discourse in Germany, namely the so‑called ghetto pensions. With this law, passed in 2002, Jewish work‑ ers from the Nazi ghettos were to receive pensions from the German pension insur‑ ance. The prerequisites for this were a payment received in return for this work at the time (food was also considered as payment) and the so‑called “own decision of will,” i.e. one’s own decision to want to work – in contrast to forced labor, where one has to work under the threat of direct violence. This legal construction, stemming from Germany’s desire not to pay a monthly pension to the millions of forced laborers as well, led to the grotesque situation that survivors as claimants emphasized their room for maneuvering in the ghettos, while at the same time the German pension insurance (along with many courts) referred to the totality of the Holocaust and considered agency to have been virtu‑ ally non‑existent.26 During the long legal battles, many historians worked as expert witnesses for German social courts and dealt with Jewish agency within the Leb‑ enswelt Ghetto – the title of a synthesizing anthology – in great depth.27 In the last ten years, several important titles on ghettos in occupied Poland have appeared, in which not only Jewish self‑assertion but also resistance play an impor‑ tant role. This is exemplified by two very different studies on the Tarnów ghetto,

In Search of the Victims’ Agenda  131 which portray Jewish life under the German extermination policy28 while also ana‑ lyzing the Polish‑Jewish relationship from a long‑term perspective, and thus con‑ textualize them differently once again,29 or a book on Izbica, which is devoted in an original way to a ghetto that is significantly smaller.30 Other studies take on sensitive issues such as crime and justice in ghettos,31 and, last but not least, the Munich Institute of Contemporary History launched a project dealing with privateness under National Socialism , which included a study of the private sphere in ghettos.32 In the last five years, the Aktion Reinhardt, the murders in the death camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, also received some attention, along with the Jew‑ ish resistance against this stage of Nazi anti‑Jewish policy. Two studies by Fran‑ ziska Bruder deserve special mention: she first dealt with the uprising in Sobibor and subjected the survivors’ statements to a detailed analysis33; and she published an immensely well‑documented book about escapes from deportation trains to the camps of Aktion Reinhardt, which focuses entirely on the occupants of the trains and almost completely leaves out the question of the aftermath – survival in non‑Jewish society between collaboration and aid.34 All these topics are signs of a broadening of perspective, along with a “normali‑ zation” of the history of the Holocaust in Germany, which is now no longer only always written in a self‑referential way. In fact, it is even a double broadening of perspective: first, geographically, with the view to the East, and second, themati‑ cally, because the Jewish perspective and above all Jewish actions in and against the Holocaust, are now systematically taken into account, as Saul Friedländer had demanded with his “integrated history” which had long been met with skepticism in Germany, especially on the part of the IfZ.35 The fact that this very institute, in its 16‑volume document edition Persecution and Murder of the European Jews (VEJ), takes a pan‑European approach and includes countless Jewish testimonies, leads indeed to “a monumental project and a small miracle.”36 Holocaust research in Germany is no longer just German, like the “Scheffler School,” but operates in international academic contexts. The Center for Holocaust Studies, which has existed at the Munich IfZ for almost ten years, also contributes to this. The institute sees itself as a Center for Advanced Studies and its fellowship program offers opportunities for exchange from and to Germany. Also relevant for the German scholarly landscape, is the fact that Jewish agency and Jewish resistance are apparently “female” topics. Annika Walke con‑ cludes in her fundamental study of Jewish partisan women in the Soviet Union: “The undervaluation of female‑coded activities is the reason for not integrating the concern for mere survival, as it was central for Jews, into the understanding of resistance against the National Socialists.”37 In a figurative sense, this obser‑ vation probably also applies to the academic landscape in Germany: with their “masculine” and at the same time “German” topics, some of Scheffler’s students have made it to respectable professorships in the German‑speaking world. An‑ nika Walke succeeded with her “female‑Jewish” topic in the United States, but most of the other important studies by female scholars did not lead to comparable academic careers.

132  Stephan Lehnstaedt Conclusion In Germany, important studies on Jewish resistance or Jewish self‑assertion in oc‑ cupied Eastern Europe and Poland in particular have been published recently, and in the last years even current Israeli, Polish, or American books have been translated.38 The topic is academically accepted. With the Silent Heroes Memorial, which is a branch of the German Resistance Memorial Center, there is now even a place in Berlin prominently dedicated to the (self‑)rescue of Jews.39 This exhibition, with a pan‑European focus and an accompanying book series organized by country, ad‑ dresses attempts to survive as Jewish resistance, from flight and hiding to uprisings and mass escapes in death camps. In view of the state goal of murdering Jews, this is not an absurd argumentation, but in Germany also the end of decades of ignorance. There, the Holocaust was not a topic for a long time because it was associated with unpleasant questions about social and individual responsibility. Historians therefore dealt with their own versus the Jewish history, which was perceived as foreign, and isolated them from each other despite the obvious interdependencies. In the public, ignorance of a Jewish perspective on the Shoah led, on the one hand, to the idea that the Jews should have resisted even more than others, and, on the other hand, to the idea that they had done too little. Both are exculpatory views in view of the extensive German passivity – or better: approval – toward National Social‑ ism and its crimes: Against the Holocaust in its totality, one could not have done anything oneself, but at least the Jews, those affected by it, should have at least tried. Historical scholarship has recently changed noticeably after long years of disin‑ terest and important new scholarship on Jewish agency and resistance, especially in occupied Eastern Europe, is largely carried by female researchers. Yet, where earlier there had been less interest in Jewish resistance, which was associated with its perceived foreignness (an “othering”) making its study seem irrelevant, there now appears to be a gender bias, because the object of study is only very limitedly career‑oriented. None of this should belittle the scope and significance of this broadening of perspective for German historical scholarship: There is now an internationally rel‑ evant Holocaust research that does far more than just dealing with German crimes and German criminals. On the contrary, the latter is increasingly fading behind the study of Jewish life during the persecution. However, it should also be pointed out that research on Holocaust history is currently much less extensive in Germany than that about forms of its representation and cultures of remembrance after 1945. This is reflected not least in teaching: as a recent study by the Free University Ber‑ lin showed, one in five German universities offered only one or even no course on the years from 1933 to 1945 within four semesters. Almost twice as many courses were offered on the aftermath of National Socialism and genocide.40 Notes 1 Jockusch, 2012: 121–158. The most influential publication Fun letstn Churbn was re‑ cently translated and published: Beer and Roth, 2021. 2 Lubetkin, 1949. Notably, this text first appeared in an Allied journal (for Germans) and was thus re‑published: Lubetkin, 1948.

In Search of the Victims’ Agenda  133 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40

For the example of France: Poznanski, 2001: 245. An overall interpretation can be found by Kershaw, 2001. In regard to Baum e.g. Brothers, 1993: 83 and 94. Kwiet and Eschwege, 1984. Michman, 2003: 224–227. Broszat, 1981. Paucker, 1985. Pehle, 2006. Steinbach, 2016: 22. Gruner, 2015: 22f. Lustiger, 1994: 18. Cf. in general Berg, 2013, and in particular on Wulf: Berg, 2013. See e.g. the review by Kwiet, 1992. Benz, 2014: 589f. Lawson, 2011: 180–183. Political Archive of the German Foreign Office (PAAA), B 130‑VS‑REG/3039A: Note by Scheffler for Dr. Brand, 18 April 1961. See however, published jointly by Scheffler and his partner, a Hamburg‑based state at‑ torney: Scheffler and Grabitz, 1993. I owe thanks to Daniel Brewing (RWTH Aachen), with whom I jointly did research on this Scheffler‑Group. Further thanks to Andrej Angrick, Peter Klein and Dieter Pohl, who all discussed the topic with us. The following paragraphs are based on these interviews. This is even true for Scheffler’s students, see e.g. the edition by Martina Voigt, one of the inner circle around Scheffler, of Schieb and Voigt, 2006. Strobl, 1998: 15. Steinbach, 2016: 30f. Löw, 2006: 508. Roth and Löw, 2013; Löw and Roth, 2011. For an English language summary of this legal matter: Lehnstaedt, 2011. For historical evidence: Hensel and Lehnstaedt, 2013. Hansen, Steffen, and Tauber, 2013. Hembera, 2016. Wierzcholska, 2022. Hänschen, 2018. Bethke, 2015. Haas, 2020. Bruder, 2013. Bruder, 2019. Broszat and Friedländer, 1988; Friedländer, 2007. Böhler, 2011. Walke, 2007: 186. Especially Yehuda Bauer has found an audience and has regularly been translated, with the last book being Bauer, 2013. Most recent is Porat, 2021, and from Polish Wójcik, 2020. However, most of Israeli and US research is not available in German, e.g. none of Israel Gutman’s studies. Tuchel, 2020. Nägele and Kahle, 2018.

Bibliography Bauer, Yehuda, 2013. Der Tod des Schtetls, Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag. Beer, Frank and Roth, Markus (eds.), 2021. Von Der Letzten Zerstörung: Die Zeitschrift “Fun Letstn Churbn” Der Jüdischen Historischen Kommission in München 1946–1948, Berlin: Metropol.

134  Stephan Lehnstaedt Benz, Wolfgang, 2014. “Die Erinnerung an Den Widerstand Gegen Den Nationalsozialis‑ mus: Überlegungen Zum 70. Jahrestag Des 20. Juli 1944”, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswis‑ senschaft 62, no. 7/8: 581–599. Berg, Nicolas, 2003. “Ein Außenseiter Der Holocaustforschung: Joseph Wulf (1912–1974) Im Historikerdiskurs Der Bundesrepublik”, Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 1: 311–346. Berg, Nicolas, 2013. Der Holocaust und die westdeutschen Historiker: Erforschung und Erinnerung, Göttingen: Wallstein. Bethke, Svenja, 2015. Tanz auf Messers Schneide: Kriminalität und Recht in den Ghettos Warschau, Litzmannstadt und Wilna, Hamburg: Hamburger Edition. Böhler, Jochen, 2011. “A Monumental Project and a Small Miracle”, Yad Vashem Studies 39, no. 2: 259–271. Broszat, Martin, 1981. “Resistenz Und Widerstand: Eine Zwischenbilanz Des Forschungs­ projektes‚Widerstand Und Verfolgung in Bayern 1933 Bis 1945”, in: Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Anton Grossmann (eds.), Bayern in Der NS‑Zeit 4: Herrschaft Und Gesellschaft Im Konflikt, München: Oldenbourg: 691–709. Broszat, Martin and Friedländer, Saul, 1988. “Um Die ‘Historisierung Des Nationalsozialis‑ mus’: Ein Briefwechsel”, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 36: 339–372. Brothers, Eric, 1993. “Wer War Herbert Baum? Eine Annäherung Auf Der Grundlage Von “Oral Histories” Und Schriftlichen Zeugnissen”, in: Wilfried Löhken and Werner Vathke (eds.), Juden Im Widerstand: Drei Gruppen Zwischen Überlebenskampf Und Politischer Aktion. Berlin 1939–1945, Berlin: Hentrich: 83–94. Bruder, Franziska, 2013. Hunderte solcher Helden: Der Aufstand jüdischer Gefangener im NS‑Vernichtungslager Sobibór: Berichte, Recherchen und Analysen, Hamburg: Unrast. Bruder, Franziska, 2019. Das eigene Schicksal selbst bestimmen: Fluchten von Juden aus den Deportationszügen in die Vernichtungslager der »Aktion Reinhardt« in Polen, 1st ed. Reihe antifaschistische Texte 28. Münster, Westf: Unrast. Friedländer, Saul, 2007. Den Holocaust beschreiben: Auf dem Weg zu einer integrierten Geschichte, Göttingen: Wallstein. Gruner, Wolf, 2015. “Verweigerung, Opposition Und Protest: Vergessene Jüdische Reak‑ tionen Auf Die NS‑Verfolgung in Deutschland”, Jahrbuch Selma Stern Zentrum 3: 11–30. Haas, Carlos Aberto, 2020. Das Private im Ghetto: Jüdisches Leben im deutsch besetzten Polen 1939 bis 1944, Göttingen: Wallstein. Hänschen, Steffen, 2018. Das Transitghetto Izbica: Die Deportationen in Den Distrikt Lub‑ lin Im Frühsommer 1942, Berlin: Metropol. Hansen, Imke, Steffen, Katrin and Tauber, Joachim (eds.), 2013. Lebenswelt Ghetto: Alltag Und Soziales Umfeld Während Der Nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Hembera, Melanie, 2016. Die Shoah im Distrikt Krakau: Deutsche Besatzung und jüdische Selbstbehauptung in Tarnów 1939–1945, Darmstadt: WBG. Hensel, Jürgen and Lehnstaedt, Stephan (eds.), 2013. Arbeit in Den Nationalsozialistischen Ghettos, Osnabrück: Fibre. Jockusch, Laura, 2012. Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe, Oxford: Oxford UP. Kershaw, Ian, 2001. Der NS‑Staat: Geschichtsinterpretationen Und Kontroversen Im Über‑ blick. 1985, 2nd ed. Hamburg: Rowohlt. Kwiet, Konrad, 1992. “Ein Lesebuch Zum Jüdischen Widerstand”, Jahrbuch für Antisem‑ itismusforschung 4: 301–304. Kwiet, Konrad and Eschwege, Helmut, 1984. Selbstbehauptung Und Widerstand: Deutsche Juden Im Kampf Um Existenz Und Menschenwürde, 1933–1945, Hamburg: Christians.

In Search of the Victims’ Agenda  135 Lawson, Tom, 2011. Debates on the Holocaust. Issues in Historiography, Manchester: Man‑ chester University Press. Lehnstaedt, Stephan, 2011. “Ghetto Labour Pensions: Holocaust Survivors and Their Strug‑ gle for Compensation in the 21st Century”, Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, no. 283: 191–210. Löw, Andrea, 2006. Juden im Getto Litzmannstadt: Lebensbedingungen, Selbstwahrneh‑ mung, Verhalten, Göttingen: Wallstein. Löw, Andrea and Roth, Markus, 2011. Juden in Krakau Unter Deutscher Besatzung 1939–1945, Göttingen: Wallstein. Lubetkin, Zivia, 1948. “Die Letzten Tage Des Warschauer Gettos”, Neue Auslese 3, no. 1: 1–13. Lubetkin, Zivia, 1949. Die Letzten Tage Des Warschauer Gettos, Berlin: VVN‑Verlag. Lustiger, Arno, 1994. Zum Kampf Auf Leben Und Tod! Das Buch Vom Widerstand Der Juden 1933–1945, Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Michman, Dan, 2003. Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective. Conceptualiza‑ tions, Terminology, Approaches and Fundamental Issues, London: Vallentine Mitchell. Nägele, Verena, and Kahle, Lena, 2018. “Die universitäre Lehre über den Holocaust in Deutschland”, http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/FUDOCS_document_000000028929. Paucker, Arnold, 1985. “Review of: Kwiet/Eschwege, Selbstbehauptung Und Widerstand”, Historische Zeitschrift 240, no. 3: 738–739. Pehle, Walter H., 2006. “Zwei  Buchreihen: Die ‘Europäische Geschichte’ Und Die ‘Schwarze Reihe’. Erfahrungsbericht, Zwei Beobachtungen Und Ein Vorschlag”, His‑ torische Zeitschrif. Beihefte 42: 189–209. Porat, Dinah, 2021. ‘Die Rache ist Mein allein’: Vergeltung für die Schoa: Abba Kovners Organisation Nakam, Paderborn: Brill/Schöningh. Poznanski, Renée, 2001. “The Geopolitics of Jewish Resistance in France”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15, no. 2: 245–265. Roth, Markus and Löw, Andrea, 2013. Das Warschauer Getto: Alltag und Widerstand im Angesicht der Vernichtung, München: C.H. Beck. Scheffler, Wolfgang and Grabitz, Helge (eds.), 1993. Der Ghetto‑Aufstand Warschau 1943 Aus Der Sicht Der Täter Und Opfer in Aussagen Vor Deutschen Gerichten, München: Goldmann. Schieb, Barbara and Voigt, Martina (eds)., 2006. Frederick Weinstein, Aufzeichnungen aus dem Versteck: Erlebnisse eines polnischen Juden 1939 – 1946, Berlin: Lukas. Steinbach, Peter, 2016. “Zur Kontextualisierung Des Widerstands Von Juden: Exemplari‑ sche Überlegungen Zum Widerstandsbegriff”, in: Julius H. Schoeps, Dieter Bingen and Gideon Botsch (eds.), Jüdischer Widerstand in Europa (1933–1945): Formen Und Fac‑ etten, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg: 17–31. Strobl, Ingrid, 1998. Die Angst kam erst danach: Jüdische Frauen im Widerstand in Europa 1939–1945, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Tuchel, Johannes (ed.), 2020. Stille Helden: Widerstand gegen die Judenverfolgung in Europa 1933 bis 1945: Katalog zur Dauerausstellung, Berlin: Stiftung Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand. Walke, Anika, 2007. Jüdische Partisaninnen: Der verschwiegene Widerstand in der Sowje‑ tunion, Berlin: Dietz. Wierzcholska, Agnieszka, 2022. Nur Erinnerungen und Steine sind geblieben: Leben und Sterben einer polnisch‑jüdischen Stadt: Tarnów 1918–1945, Paderborn: Brill | Schöningh. Wójcik, Michał, 2020. Der Aufstand Von Treblinka: Revolte Im Vernichtungslager, München: Piper.

13 March 1968 – the Last Chapter in the History of Polish Jews1 – Reflection and Representation of the Events of March 1968 in Polish Films Hana Oren Introduction The events of March 1968, during which Polish Jews faced state‑sanctioned an‑ tisemitic campaigns, including restrictions on their rights and forced expulsions that effectively ended Jewish life in Poland, have received limited attention in the Polish cinema. Since the fall of the communist regime in 1989, three feature films have been made about the events of March 1968, in contrast to numerous docu‑ mentary films. Feature films, as a popular culture for the masses, have the potential to encour‑ age critical examination of the past and acknowledgment of historical events and their consequence, serving as a lesson for the future. This lack of representation in cinema regarding this topic could be attributed to several factors, including the political sensitivity surrounding the relationship between Jews and Poles and the historical context of communist rule in Poland during that period. This chapter aims to analyze two central aspects of the events of March 1968 as represented in three feature films: Marcowe Migdały,2 Rózyczka,3 and Marzec ‘68,4 produced after the fall of the Communist regime: The Polish Jewish Identity and Generation Gap. It explores the viewpoint of Polish artists who chose to address this painful period in Poland’s post‑World War II history and its implications for the country and its nation. My choice of topic is not coincidental. It originates from my desire to delve deeper into the background of my family’s story, which was significantly influ‑ enced by the events of “March 1968”. My grandparents, Holocaust survivors who lost most of their family members, chose to remain in Poland and embraced the communist ideology they had adopted even before World War II. Some held posi‑ tions in the Communist party, while others secured key roles in workplaces pri‑ marily designated for party associates. My parents, Torn Halina and Maurycy, born after the war, grew up in Warsaw and were raised under the influence of communist ideology. Simultaneously, they maintained connections with Jewish cultural organizations, such as Jewish summer camps and the “Babel” club in Warsaw. The situation escalated when my parents, who were students, decided to partici‑ pate in the student demonstrations on March 8, 1968. Following the demonstrations, DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-17

March 1968  137 my father was arrested and interrogated for several days. His name was published in a Polish newspaper as someone involved in organizing the demonstration, lead‑ ing him to realize that “life for him in Poland was over”, as testified by my uncle, Josef Torn, who heard it from my father after his release. In the aftermath, my grandparents managed to obtain a transit permit and left Poland to safeguard their children from the uncertain future that awaited them. The trauma of leaving Poland left a deep scar on the hearts of both generations, becom‑ ing a topic of conversation that endured until they passed away. Historical Background According to estimates, at the end of World War II, there were some 380,000 Jew‑ ish survivors from among Polish Jewry.5 Some understood immediately after the war that they had nowhere to return to, after losing most of their families and their property, and in view of the antisemitic hostility from Poles, both in word and deed, especially after the pogrom in Kielce in July 1946. In 1956–1957, after the “coup” of Władysław Gomulka,6 20,000 Jews left Po‑ land. After this significant immigration, it seemed that the Polish authorities and Polish people stopped actively dealing with Polish‑Jewish citizens. The remaining Jews (between 20,000 and 25,0000) were divided into different groups. Some en‑ joyed what the Jewish community had to offer in Poland at that time: engaging in libraries, Jewish social gatherings, Jewish theater, newspapers, summer camp, and more, without considering it as detracting from their loyalty to Poland. On the other hand, some chose to forget their Jewish past and assimilated into the Polish society, changing their names, marrying non‑Jewish partners, and raising their children as Christian Poles while concealing their former identity.7 Despite good diplomatic relations between Poland and Israel, the Polish Secret Police (UB) gathered infor‑ mation on citizens with Jewish roots.8 In 1967, Gomulka was involved in a power struggle with the Minister of the Interior Mieczyslaw Moczar, who was known for his openly antisemitic views. Moczar saw an opportunity to rid Poland of its Jews, suppress the intellectuals’ rebellion, and fill Communist party positions with his own supporters. Gomulka aligned himself with these demands, joining the Soviet‑Arab bloc as loyalty to the Soviet Union. During this period, the Secret Police reports described the protests as activities of Jews with external interests.9 The ambivalent attitude of Polish Jews toward the events in Israel was perceived as disloyalty to Poland. Israel’s victory in the Six Days War led to public expressions of joy by some Polish Jews, criticizing the Polish‑Soviet government for supporting the Arab side.10 Gomulka’s speech on June 19, 1967, accused Holocaust survivors of betrayal and labeled them a fifth column, marking those with Jewish roots.11 The climax of the struggle between the Communist government and the reform‑ ists occurred with the decision to stop the play DZIADY (“Forefathers’ Eve”) in the Polish State Theater in Warsaw. The play, written in the 19th century by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, deals with the struggle between the bad and good guys when tsarist Russia represents the force of evil. During the show, when Russia

138  Hana Oren was mentioned, the audience jeered with contempt. The show’s message caused discomfort among the leaders of the Communist Party, who worried about the re‑ bellious ideas that could arise among the viewers and feared the reaction of the Soviet leadership.12 The decision led to significant demonstrations, and the ruling party demanded the dismissal of Adam Michnik and Henrik Schleifer, who was accused of organ‑ izing a petition. On March 8, 1968, a large demonstration was held in Warsaw by students against censorship and the dismissal of students. The police, with workers recruited by the Communist Party, used severe violence against the demonstrators and arrested thousands of them. The demonstrations spread to other universities across Poland. On March 19, 1968, Gomulka accused the demonstrators of col‑ laborating with the Revisionists, the political Zionist Party, of undermining Poland, leading to an expulsion campaign against Jews.13 Approximately 8,358 Jews, former Jews, and Polish collaborators defined as “Revisionists” were expelled from the Communist Party14 despite their loyalty for many years. Officers and soldiers with Jewish roots were removed from the army, and civil servants lost their jobs. Following this, between 12,000 and 15,000 Jews left Poland, losing their Polish nationality and citizenship. The majority left to countries such as Sweden, Denmark, the United States, and approximately 3,000 immigrated to Israel.15 In 1989, with the collapse of the com‑ munist regime, discourse about Polish‑Jewish relations began in Poland. While there was some dissociation about relations during the Holocaust, critics emerged about the Communist period and the attitude toward Jews. This chapter shows the representation of the criticism made in feature films after the collapse of the Communist regime. Movie Review The three Polish feature films explore different aspects of Polish‑Jewish history and offer insights into the individuals’ social, political, and personal experiences during the challenging times of March 1968. “Marcowe Migdały”, came out in 1990, just after the fall of the communist re‑ gime in Poland. The film’s plot takes place within a short period of time in 1968, when it reflects the events of the period through the eyes of 11th‑grade students in the town of “Lubliama”, a provincial town in Poland. The students don’t un‑ derstand the background of the occurrence of the events around them and fail to contain the intensity of the emotions and reactions of some of those around them: their parents, the educational staff, and more. The heroes of the film try to live their own lives. For them, what is more critical are romantic and family dramas, dreams about the future, and parties with friends rather than political issues, but politics is invading their world. “Rózyczka”, which came out in 2010, is based on the true story of the writer Paweł Jasienicy and his second wife, Zofią O’Bretenny.16 Just like in their story, Kamila is being recruited under the name “Rózyczka” to follow Adam Warszewski and marry him. The movie explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the political

March 1968  139 climate of the time, showing the Secret Police under tremendous pressure from the party leaders in order to find the people who are inciting against the communist party and its values, who manage to attract the masses to the streets while using methods, that were inhumane. Marzec ‘68 is a Polish historical drama that aired in 2022. The movie is about the Warsaw University Students and the events between the end of 1967 and until the middle of 1968. The movie’s plot is about two young lovers, Hannia and Yanek, among the protesting youth. They are young and madly in love with each other, like in Shakespeare’s drama Romeo and Juliet, their families are on both sides of the March barricade in a country overwhelmed by rebellion. While the two films’ Marcowe Migdały and the film Marzec ‘68 allow us a point of view from the everyday life of Polish youth, the film Różyczka sharply high‑ lights the methods of operation of the Secret Police UB, according to the demands of the Communist Party to follow the citizens of the country and how this affected the events of the period. Polish Identity – Zionist Identity All three films deal with questions of national identity, “Polish” identity versus the “Zionist” identity of a group of Polish citizens with Jewish roots that the Pol‑ ish Communist Party chose to exclude out of aspiration for political survival. As in reality, also in the movies, the question of the identity of the group of citizens who have Jewish roots starts from collective guilt that is directed toward them by Gomolka in his speeches from June 1967 following the Six Day War, until they left Poland. All three directors attached importance to the historical facts by incorporating in their films the original speeches in Gomulka’s voice, in which he makes negative use of the term “Zionists” when he refers to Jews, accusing them of being a fifth column while trying to disclaim that there is no connection to the fact that they are Jewish. The question of national identity that arose from Gomulka’s speeches per‑ meated in reality into the lives of Polish citizens during that period: Is it possible to be Jewish without being considered a Zionist?! Who is a Zionist?! According to the school’s headmaster’s statements to her students in the film Marcowe Migdały, “Zionists are bad Jews”. If Zionists are bad Jews, that means there are also good Jews. But the decision of who are good or bad Jews remains very vague. Gomulka’s speeches and what was written and said by the media leave the concept of “Zionist” very vague, which is also reflected in a newspaper arti‑ cle the students read about a party being held at the home of one of the students (Marcyś Siedlecki, who will later turn out to be Jewish). The article reports about the “Zionist” party, and the name of the house owner (Marcyś’s father) is men‑ tioned, accusing him of causing damage to the Polish nation. Until that article, no one knew that Marcyś, whom all his friends and teachers love, had Jewish roots. Although there was no discussion about politics at the party, it was defined as a “Zionist” party, and to provoke revulsion, the article includes stories about orgies that didn’t happen.

140  Hana Oren The conversation between the students in the film when they are sent in the mid‑ dle of a test to a demonstration organized by the Communist Party, shows how con‑ fused they are and how they do not understand the purpose of the demonstration. The students repeat the headmaster’s words and what they read in the newspapers that there are “good Poles and bad Poles” and that there is no place for bad Poles in Poland, without really knowing how to explain to themselves what makes someone a good or bad Pole, apart from being Jewish. In the movie Marzec ‘68, Colonel Roman Wolicki (Yanek’s father) tells his wife Julia that Hannia’s father was fired for being a “Zionist” and continues to say: “he is a Jew!”. Although Hannia’s father’s entire file in the Secret Police was known to him, he has no other explanation for why he was really accused of Zionism, apart from the fact that he is Jewish. The Jews themselves had diffi‑ culty understanding why they were defined as Zionists and seen as a fifth column, Especially the young ones, born in Poland after World War II, who considered themselves Poles. Hannia fails to understand why anyone would consider her as non‑Polish. When she talks to Yanek about her father’s dismissal, she asks, angry and crying with tears: “Why does Gomulka know better where my roots are and who I am?” And again, in front of the official officer who hands her the transit certificate to leave Poland, she replies angrily and sarcastically: “I am Polish, and I will remain Polish, even if you don’t like it”. In Marcowe Migdały, the boy Marcyś doesn’t leaves the demonstration even when he realizes that the statements being made there are against people like him, in order to prove his loyalty as a good Pole. On the other hand, Lola asks him: “Do we have Zionists?” he answers with discomfort: “There are, but everyone knows he is a good man”, distancing himself from this definition. Later, Marcyś will fight his father against leaving Poland, to the point of attempting suicide. For him, Poland is home, where he was born, has friends, and built his status as the main actor in school plays; these are the important things for a boy his age. Roman Wieckiewicz, the hero of the movie Rózyczka, sacrifices his girlfriend, Kamila Sakawicz, at the demand of his superiors from the Communist Party and recruits her to get close to Adam Warszewski, a writer and university lecturer so that she can find out the extent of his involvement in the organization of resistance to the government, and who his partners are. After the plan fails, Roman is accused of failing the mission only because he is a Jew since his original surname is Rozen. When confronted with this fact, he has no answer, stands and lowers his head. When he tries to defend himself, his superior yells at him so loudly: “Rozen”. At the movie’s end, he leaves Poland after all he has done for the country. In the movie Marzec 68’, Jerzy Bielski, Hannia’s father, a director of a surgical department in a hospital, was fired from his job due to a rumor that he organized a celebration to commemorate the victory of Israel over the Arabs, even though it was a toast to the completion of a doctorate of one of his assistants. The fact that he changed his name from Aaron Gutman, fought to liberate Poland from the Nazis as part of the Armia Krajowa, and married a non‑Jewish Pole, did not help him to escape the same fate as the rest of the Polish Jews. In those times, people used to

March 1968  141 snitch on others about their roots, things they did or did not do, driven by various interests like jobs, apartments, etc. When Yanek confronts his father, who has a very senior rank in the Secret Po‑ lice, about the attitude toward Hannia’s father, he asks: “Why can’t Jews live here normally?” His father, despite his senior position in the Secret Police, has no an‑ swer, and he remains silent. For him, the truth of the party is indisputable. The atmosphere in the street is so clear that if someone is no longer a Polish citizen, it means he is a Jew. This is even clear to Adam’s six‑year‑old daughter Dorotka, as she tells Kamila during their bus ride in the movie Rózyczka. Following this conversation, which is conducted in a loud voice, Kamila hurries to get off the bus because she feels people staring at them after that being said. The Generational Gap in Attitudes Toward the Communist Party In two out of three films (Marcowe Migdały, Marzec ‘68), the plot shows the gap between generations in attitudes toward the Communist Party. This is expressed in reference to the truth, blindly following the Communist Party statements and the media. In the third movie, Rózyczka, this gap is not presented. Instead, there are voices of characters of different ages, most of them are educated: university students, university lecturers, and artists who oppose the Communist Party propa‑ ganda standing against the rest of the Polish inhabitants. In Marcowe Migdały, we see the gap in reactions between both generations in the fact that the “friendship train” coming from Czechoslovakia did not stop in “Lobliyama”. The scene displays how “truth” is interpreted differently by young‑ sters compared to adults, When the school headmaster asks Tomek to write an arti‑ cle about the train for the school newspaper, he confronts her about the fact that the train didn’t stop. The headmaster insists with a little bit of anger, that it did happen as written in the newspaper The Workers Voice, showing him the article, and says “You have to look beyond the facts”. In the movie Marzec ’68, Roman has trouble explaining to his son Yanek the logic behind the propaganda against Jews being accused of Zionism and causing demonstrations. Nevertheless, Roman actively participates in the struggle against the students, using violence against them according to the orders of his superiors and the Communist Party’s spirit. Throughout the film Marcowe Migdały, we see how difficult for the students to deal with the emerging political situation at that time, they are constantly debating how much to believe in what is being said by their teachers and the headmaster, representing the older generation, how much to believe in the authorities as they see the older generation doing. They intend to go against the Communist propa‑ ganda, refusing to accept the “truth” they spread. When Marcyś takes upon himself an act carried out by Tomek to save him from punishment, he tells Tomek that he is being forced to leave Poland. Tomek understands that if Marcyś is being forced to leave Poland, it means he is a Zionist, Jew, and instead of “thank you”, he tells him: “Very good. There is your place!”. He is so confused that he forgets that this is his best friend until then.

142  Hana Oren But when the moment comes for Marcyś to leave, Tomek comes to say goodbye in the train station, brings him a gift, and even shouts after him when the train starts to move: “Send an address”. In the film Marzec ‘68, the generation gap is evident in the student demonstra‑ tions against the party’s decision to stop the show “Dziady”, which they see as an inter‑generational struggle. The young generation, represented by Hannia, Yanek, and the rest of the students, believes that freedom of speech and criticism of eve‑ rything should be allowed, including the government and the church. On the other hand, the older generation is represented by Yanek’s parents, their friends, the lead‑ ers of the Communist Party, civil servants, and the workers. The director highlights the generation gap through the actors he chose, with most of the actors playing members of the Secret Police, Policemen, and the workers that violently confront the students, looking older than the students. The relationship between Yanek and his parents also highlights the generation gap. The parents’ perceptions of Jews from the older generation emerge during a social gathering at their house on the occasion of the New Year when a statement such as: “They have a good head for business” is said without mentioning the word Jew but using pantomime. Conversations between Yank and his parents reveal their differences. The parents admire everything said and done by the Communist Party, appreciating all the benefits it offers to party members. They will not dare to go against the party, even if it means they have to fight their son. Meanwhile, Yanek chooses to ignore the fact that Hannia is Jewish and fights for his love for her until the last moment. However, his mother con‑ fronts him upon learning about Hannia’s Jewish roots. During this confrontation, Yanek defiant his mother about her “Ukrainian” roots, reminding her that she also doesn’t have “Polish” roots. His mother replied, “It’s not the same”, refusing to accept that there is a difference in the way certain minorities are received compared to other minorities. In a different confrontation about the authority’s behavior toward the students and Jews, Yanek fails to understand his father, leading to a physical fight between them. Yanek tells his father angrily, “I’m not like you!”, and leaves the house, mov‑ ing to Hannia’s parents’ house. Throughout the film Rózyczka, Loyalty to the Communist Party and its oppo‑ nents does not stem from age, as we can see people from different generations on both sides. The filmmakers emphasize the resistance of the educated against communist rule regardless of their age. Adam and his friends gather in a meeting, thinking of ways to bypass the censorship of the communist party and dare to say and write things that are not acceptable to the Communist Party, leading them to be suspected of inciting demonstrations. On the other hand, Roman also from the elderly generation remains loyal to the Communist Party to extant that he scarifies his girlfriend Kamila as his superiors demand him. Analysis and Conclusions This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the representation of the events of March 1968 in Polish cinema, focusing on three feature films. It highlights the importance of cinema as a medium to understand historical events, memory, and

March 1968  143 identity. My personal connection to the topic adds depth to exploring Polish Jewish identity and the generation gap during this period. By examining these films, this chapter emphasizes the significance of acknowl‑ edging and learning from history to build a more empathetic and understanding so‑ ciety. The experiences of Polish Jews during this tumultuous time remain relevant to this day, prompting reflection on the consequences of prejudice, discrimination, and political manipulation. The movie reviews offer valuable insights into the three films under examina‑ tion. Each film presents a unique perspective on Polish‑Jewish history and the po‑ litical climate’s impact on individuals’ lives during the events around March 1968. By exploring the diverse characters and experiences depicted in these films, the chapter highlights various facets of March 1968. The creators of the three films were teenagers in March 1968 and testified in interviews that this year had a significant impact on their lives. Radoslaw Piwowar‑ ski, the director of the film Marcowe Migdały, testifies that the loss of friends with whom he grew up, with whom he dreamed and made plans for the future,17 who suddenly disappeared, left him lonely. Piwowarski expresses the feeling of loss through an artistic statement after the film ends; he adds a slide showing where each of his friends lives as of 1990, when the film was made. The three directors end their film with a farewell scene at the train station, and immediately after that, the train leaves with one of the film’s heroes on it. Over the years, there have been cinematic works in Poland that touch upon the broader theme of Polish‑Jewish relations, exploring the complex historical legacy and addressing the issues of memory, identity, and reconciliation between Poles and Jews Most of them dealt with relationships during the Holocaust, and only a few did the post‑Communist era. As testified by Bojana Janicka, a radio broad‑ caster and film critic in a radio show: “The paucity of cultural sources that deal with the subject, considering that we won freedom after the end of the communist regime and still there are subjects that are better not to be touched on”.18 The events that took place from the mid‑1960s until the expulsion of the Jews from Poland in 1968 were also never welcomed by Polish society. The blame was placed on the Communist Party, just as the murder of the Polish Jews was placed on the Germans. So, time after time, the Polish people are left feeling that actions that happened on their land and in their surroundings are not their responsibility or fault, and hence, they do not need to apologize for them, pay for them, or anything else. The fact that only three feature films were made as a form of popular culture that allows discussion by large sections of the population about this period when Polish Jewry was, in fact, annihilated is indicative of the difficulty of Polish society in dealing with or rather not dealing with, its actions toward those who were citi‑ zens of the country and felt themselves Part of the Polish nation. In my opinion, there is a need for an open and transparent discourse after a real investigation of the period’s events between the two sides, to ensure that such events do not repeat themselves. For the sake of fairness, I will admit that even in the State of Israel, the issue is hardly discussed because of the low number of Jews who were de‑ ported during this period and arrived here. Most deportees never arrived in Israel, and the information about those who arrived is scarce and known only to those around them.

144  Hana Oren Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

https://humanities.tau.ac.il/events‑march1968?gid=28 Marcowe Migdały, Director. Radoslaw Piwowarski, 1990. Rózyczka. Director. Jan Kidawa‑Błoński, 2011. Marzec ‘68. Director. Krzysztof Lang, 2022. Gutman, 1985: 12. Gutman, 1985: 100. Gutman, 198f: 113. Gutman, 1985: 115. Stola, 2007: 98. Stola, 2007: 166 . Plocker, 2011: 95. Gutman, 1985: 116. Plocker, 2011: 120. Plocker, 1022: 121. Govrin, 2009: 80. https://filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=1223331 https://wizjalokalna.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/wywiad‑z‑radoslawem‑piwowarskim https://www.polskieradio.pl/7/4457/Artykul/2053000,Czy‑wydarzenia‑z‑Marca68‑ znalazly‑swoj‑wyraz‑w‑polskim‑kinie

Bibliography Govrin, Yosef, 2009. Israel’s Relations with Eastern European Countries: From the Time of Their Severance in 1967 to Their Renewal in 1989–1991, Jerusalem: Y.L. Magnes Book Publishing, The Hebrew University. Gutman, Israel, 1985. The Jews in Poland after World War II, Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar. Plocker, Anat, 2011. “Jews as a Fifth Column: The Anti‑Zionist Campaign in Poland, 1968–1967”, Zmanim: History Quarterly, 116: 90. Stola, Dariusz, 2007. “Anti‑Zionism as a Multipurpose Policy: The Anti‑Zionist Campaign in Poland, 1967–1968”, in Jeffrey Herf (ed.), Anti‑Semitism and Anti‑Zionism in Histori‑ cal Perspective: Convergence and Divergence, London: Routledge: 175–201. Films Marcowe Migdały, Director, Radoslaw Piwowarski, 1990. Marzec ‘68, Director, Krzysztof Lang, 2022.Rózyczka, Director, Jan Kidawa‑Błoński, 2011. https://humanities.tau.ac.il/events‑march1968?gid=28 https://filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=1223331 https://wizjalokalna.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/wywiad‑z‑radoslawem‑piwowarskim https://www.polskieradio.pl/7/4457/Artykul/2053000,Czy‑wydarzenia‑z‑Marca68‑ znalazly‑swoj‑wyraz‑w‑polskim‑kinie

14 Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec The Zeyfman Brothers Rivka Chaya Schiller

One of the more fascinating texts I have come across during my doctoral studies was a 1948 “brochure” documenting the postwar trial of two Jewish collaborators from the town of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Poland. Its full name is quite long: Di geshikhte fun di tsvey Idishe farreter fun Ostrovtse: di brider Avraham un Leybush Zeyfman: der mishpet fun di ferreter in Nyu York: di bavayzn fun lebedige eydes, or The Account of the Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Brothers Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman: The Trial of the Traitors in New York: The Proofs of Living Witnesses. The text was published in New York by the Ostrowiec Relief Commit‑ tee, a mutual aid society (landsmanshaft) for Ostrowiec kinsmen. “Ostrovtse” in Yiddish, the city is located approximately 93 miles south of Warsaw. During the interwar period, it was situated in the province of Kielce.1 This publication is essentially a pseudo‑legal transcript of an ad‑hoc Jewish honor court2 trial held at Central Plaza Annex, 40 East 7th Street in New York City on Nov. 30, 1947.3 Tribunals – often referred to as honor courts – were enacted shortly following World War II, especially in Poland and the displaced persons camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy. These courts were spearheaded by Holocaust survivors with the help of local Jewish communities, who demanded a just form of retribution against Jews who had collaborated with the Nazis. Among those tried in these honor courts were individuals accused of serving in the ghettos on Jewish councils (also known in the singular form as a Judenrat), working as ghetto police, or acting as informants on fellow Jews. Outside of Poland and the displaced persons camps, political organizations, and in the instance of this account, a landsmanshaft occasionally established ad‑hoc honor courts to publicly scrutinize and try accused individuals. If found guilty of collaboration, the convicted individual could face prison time and in certain cases the more severe punishment of excommunication from the Jewish community, known as herem.4 Of Hebrew origin, Herem is precisely the decree that was issued against the Zeyfman brothers – and by extension, their close kin – in 1946, by the Jewish community of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the country to which the Zeyfmans (two brothers, two wives, and one child) fled in the aftermath of World War II. The two individuals tried at this assembly were Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman, alternatively spelled “Zeifman,” “Zaifman,” “Zajfman,” et  al. in other sources,5 DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-18

146  Rivka Chaya Schiller who were accused of being traitors to the Jewish people and Nazi collaborators during World War II. The two brothers were tried in absentia, as they resided in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and did not travel to the United States for the trial. The majority of the book is taken up with the firsthand testimonies of Holocaust survivors who were personally victimized by the Zeyfmans and/or whose loved ones were. Avraham Zeyfman was the Chief of the Jewish Workers Bureau under the Third Reich,6 and Leybush Zeyfman, a member of the Jewish Police7 in the Ostrowiec ghetto. Following the liquidation of the ghetto in April 1943, Avraham Zeyfman was “crowned by the Nazis as camp director”8 of the Ostrowiec labor camp that was created in the wake of the first mass deportation action, which began in the ghetto on October 10, 1942.9 The purpose of this book, according to the publication’s introduction, is to call out two beings, beasts in human form; Jewish people who became Nazi agents, who caused the death of thousands of Jews through [the] informing and hand‑ ing over [of Jews] to the Nazis, and themselves took part in shameful acts against their own brothers and sisters. We mean the two traitors: the two broth‑ ers, Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman, who are now in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.10 The book concludes with a parallel statement vis‑à‑vis its mission: “May this small book … remain as an eternal document regarding the actions of the two Jewish traitors … may their names be extinguished.”11 In part, this work and the Jewish honor court proceedings that it depicted, were meant to pay a duty to those who had perished at the hands of the Nazis. In the words of Harry Steinhart (c. 1900–1991),12 who led the indictment against the pu‑ tative criminals: “When our martyrs went to the crematoria and gas chambers, they begged and ordered those who survived, that they bring judgment upon the criminals.”13 Moreover, the committee felt it was their duty to “try those who carry with them the guilt of shedding Jewish blood.”14 They also wanted to warn other collaborators that they were likewise doomed to the same fate as the Zeyfmans. Highlights from Two Jewish Traitors The account includes highly charged and incriminating statements about Avraham Zeyfman, in particular, “one of the most dangerous accessories of the Gestapo dur‑ ing the time of the occupation by the German in Poland.” Indeed, “he takes first place on the black list of the Ostrowiec Historical Commission.”15 As for Leybush Zeyfman, he stood out for his cruelty and sadism. His beloved method of torment‑ ing a victim was to squeeze the testicles … Not being able to tolerate the agonizing pain, the victim immediately revealed everything that [Leybush] Zeyfman had just de‑ manded from him … Even his colleagues among the police admitted that with his beatings, Leybush takes the first place, and nobody can compete with him.16

Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers  147 This included deporting countless Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz and ­Treblinka – in addition to extorting money from many of the incarcerated Jews, informing on Jews to Gestapo, actively ferreting out Jews in hiding, killing, or in‑ forming on anyone engaged in partisan17 and/or communist activity, raping and as‑ saulting women and girls, actively barring Jews from escaping from the Ostrowiec ghetto‑camp entity, and finding hideouts with Polish acquaintances.18 One example of the Zeyfmans’ treatment of Jewish women and girls reads: “… the Zeyfman brothers took part in the murder of two Jewish families; that one of the Zeyfmans raped girls, and when they showed resistance, [he] sent them to [do] hard labor.”19 Women are particularly strongly harassed by [Avraham] Zeyfman for not showing him enough “respect” and “agreeableness.” He would send them for the hardest work and tormented them for so long, until they were persuaded to meet his demands. Then he entices them [by deception] into his office, and together with the wild murderers [i.e., Gestapo figures] amuses himself.20 With regard to Leybush Zeyfman: He is not any less guilty than his brother Avraham Zeyfman in the death of hundreds of men, women, and children, whom he led to the transports and was careful that nobody disappear along the way. He overpowered Jewish girls into giving themselves to him, for wanting to benefit from his protection/connections. [Yid. protektsye]21 At the tail end of the Ostrowiec camp, when the last Jews were being liquidated and deported to Auschwitz, the two brothers, a younger brother, Motl – who after the war wrote that he did not participate in the actions of his brothers and was prepared to testify to this in a court of law22 – and other family members were said to have used the money the brothers had stolen from thousands of Jews to flee and hide out with the help of a paid‑off Pole. Of the nearly 2,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz at this time, only a small number survived.23 Shortly after World War II, the two brothers, along with their respective spouses and one child, managed to immigrate to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by supposedly us‑ ing false passports with fabricated names via diplomatic channels.24 According to the testimony of at least one source, they arrived on a luxury airplane to Brazil, where they were well‑received by the local Jewish community on account of their being the first Jewish refugees from World War II to arrive there. However, shortly thereafter, letters began arriving from DP camps in Germany, Italy, Poland, and France, from Ostrowiec survivors, warning people that the Zeyfmans were murder‑ ers. Not long thereafter, the local Portuguese and Yiddish press took up this matter in a number of articles.25 Among the arriving correspondence were demands that the Zeyfman brothers be put on trial for their heinous collaborationist activities. An investigation committee

148  Rivka Chaya Schiller was established to study the criminal claims against the Zeyfmans. This, in turn, led to an ad‑hoc honor court in which 1,000 people participated.26 Three rabbis from the local Rabbinate: Ts. Kinovski [sic] (whose actual name appears to have been Rabbi [Mordechai] Ciechanowski),27 Dr. Lemle, and M. Zingerevitsh were sought out for their assistance in the proceedings, and there was also participation from the local Zionist Organization, the Association of Polish Jews, the Ostrowiec Aid Society, and four representatives of the Jews of Ostrowiec. Likewise, the heads of three Jewish weekly Rio de Janeiro newspapers were also present during the trial. The honor court itself included the testimonies of surviving witnesses, the accused Zeyfman brothers, and numerous letters from overseas. The trial lasted six months, with the first testimony of Avraham Zeyfman alone lasting from 8:30 pm to 2:30 am.28 Ultimately, it was determined that Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman were guilty of the crimes of which they were accused. In the words of Two Jewish Traitors, those who were present understood that the Zeyfman brothers were cruel individuals who carried out not only that which the Nazis ordered them to do, but went beyond the call of duty … Not only did they rob, but in a sadistic manner tormented men, and even more so, women; and especially Jewish girls.29 The crowd overwhelmingly called for “herem” as a punishment, and a vote was taken. All but one dissenting voice agreed that the brothers should be put in herem. Two candlesticks with black candles were produced and placed on the legislative table.30 The presidium stood wrapped in prayer shawls and uttered the traditional herem. During this ceremony, there reigned a “deathly silence from which great sobs escaped from people who remembered their murdered relatives.”31 Following the recitation of the herem decree, the chairman of the proceedings asked those present if they agreed with what he had uttered, to which there was a resounding outcry: “Herem! Herem! Herem! May their names be blotted out from among us Jews. Avraham and Leybush, sons of Shmuel Zeyfman, are traitors; may their names and memories be obliterated!”32 As a final act of condemnation aimed at driving home the gravity of the Zeyfmans’ deeds and the appropriate sentence for such actions, a declaration was made that at that very moment a ship with the Polish Embassy was awaiting the Zeyfman brothers to transport them back to Po‑ land and be tried there as criminals in a court of law.33 Chaim Lieberman’s Articles The account of the Zeyfman brothers might have ended here, had it not been for the fact that a particular journalist, Chaim Lieberman (1890–1963), a columnist for the Forverts [Jewish Daily Forward], decided to take up the cause of Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman, by writing six full‑length articles about them between August 1, 1947, and November 14, 1947.34 Lieberman sought to find flaws in the Rio de Janeiro herem and offered the impression that the brothers were victims of a grand conspir‑ acy. In an effort to defend the Zeyfmans, Lieberman took to printing letters from the

Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers  149 accused themselves in his column, in which they bewailed the herem.35 It is worth mentioning here that although Lieberman had never before met the Zeyfman broth‑ ers in person, he chose not to print letters in any of his columns that maligned them. In Lieberman’s estimation, there were several problems with the herem issued in Rio de Janeiro against the accused: (1) A Mr. Khalfn, the man behind the sin‑ gle dissenting voice in opposition to the herem – as mentioned earlier on in this paper – wished to oppose the herem and defend the Zeyfmans. As such, he was thrown out of the so‑called courtroom. (2) Those who issued the herem were fellow kinsmen from Ostrowiec. Therefore, they were not permissible as witnesses since they had a personal interest at stake and could not be expected to be objective. (3) A few members of the investigation committee in Rio de Janeiro withdrew from the committee.36 It was due to Lieberman’s series of articles, published in New York City, that the Ostrowiec Relief Committee found it necessary to call a public gathering – yet another ad‑hoc honor court – to discuss the “Zeyfman Affair” and to issue its own verdict regarding the Rio de Janeiro herem.37 The communal trial was held on November 30, 1947, in Manhattan, under the auspices of the Ostrowiec Relief Committee. During this ad‑hoc honor court, held in absentia of the two accused brothers, testimonies were given in person by 12 individuals who had survived World War II and were themselves victims of the Zeyfmans. Also included in the live testimo‑ nies, though not himself a survivor from Ostrowiec, was Y. [Jacob] Kutner, editor of the Portuguese language Jewish newspaper, Jornal Israelita [Israelite Newspa‑ per] from Rio de Janeiro. It was he who related how the herem in Rio de Janeiro was carried out and the background leading up to it.38 The testimonies given by the Holocaust survivors mirrored those given in Rio de Janeiro. The major distinction in this secondary honor court was the presence of Chaim Lieberman, who presented his own arguments in defiance of the herem and the general treatment of the brothers. Aside from Lieberman’s aforementioned points of dissention, he also warned the audience that newspapers dare not print charges against people, because they could be accused of libel, and that all those assembled there could be arrested. He further added that one must be exceedingly careful in issuing a herem, and that Jews must exhibit fairness and justness; accord‑ ing to the preeminent Torah scholar, Maimonides (1135–1204), a judge must be an expert in the field of law.39 Given Lieberman’s presence at this trial, it should come as no surprise that he was confronted with questions by those in attendance and even berated for his ac‑ tions and beliefs. Chief among these questions was “why he printed letters of the murderers and silenced the letters of the other side.”40 An even more biting question came from a (nameless) Holocaust survivor in the form of an attack: You did not see how the murderers tore up our children while they were alive. You did not see how the traitors aided in all the murders. We saw it. So how dare you defend them? And now that you heard all of these witnesses, will you write in the Forverts what you heard?41

150  Rivka Chaya Schiller Yet, instead of addressing these questions, Lieberman retorted in a manner that ac‑ cording to the account was laden with chutzpah: “You are a rabble, a mob, and I do not accept your decisions.”42 The last of the noteworthy confrontations aimed at Lieberman, as mentioned in this publication, came from Chaim Kruger, a member of the Ostrowiec Relief Committee. Kruger’s query was: How is it that you, Mr. Lieberman, such a religious Jew, write six articles about one side, but should not come ask the Ostrowiec Branch 34 Arbeter Ring [Workmen’s Circle]; perhaps they would have shown him his error, instead of [his] telling us that we are a mob?43 At the close of all the testimonies, questions, and answers, a resolution was passed by those assembled at the Manhattan court to convict Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman.44 Furthermore, those in attendance publicly stated that they recognized the herem from Rio de Janeiro as just and stood in “solidarity with the Jews in Rio de Janeiro.”45 The Zeyfman brothers were found guilty of the following specific crimes: “1) subduing Jewish women; 2) extorting money from Jews; 3) taking away from Jews their last possessions; 4) handing over Jews in Nazi hands and handling like goods/ merchandise the annihilation of Jewish human beings.”46 Based on this ruling, the honor court deemed Avraham and Leybush war criminals. The decision was thus made to turn over all the material amassed in New York on that day (November 30, 1947) along with the material then in possession in Rio de Janeiro, which was relevant to this case, to the World Jewish Congress (WJC). The WJC should in turn see to it that “the Polish government demand that the two criminals are handed over to Poland and tried in the place where the crimes took place.”47 Finally, the last decision passed by the New York court pertained directly to the Forverts and its columnist, Chaim Lieberman. It demanded that Lieberman write “an accounting of the facts, which were presented today by the surviving witnesses, and publish these facts as prominently as the articles on behalf of the Zeyfmans.”48 Bernard Frenk, a surviving witness, said of Lieberman: It is only unfortunate that such a responsible Jewish journalist … should publish letters from Zeyfman’s family or from bought off friends, without a prior investigation of their integrity/justness … It now needs to be the goal of the entire Jewish community to hand over the two Zeyfman brothers to the Polish government as war criminals number 1. Their just and true sentence should be hanging, just as with the Görings and those like them, may their names be obliterated.49 In the aftermath of the New York trial, the United Ostrowiec Relief received addi‑ tional letters from victims and other testimonies that confirmed the now convicted two brothers’ crimes. Moreover, letters were printed in the Yiddish press in Amer‑ ica, France, and Poland from individuals who were familiar with the actions of the Zeyfmans, who defended the herem of Rio de Janeiro and the New York trial.50

Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers  151 Lieberman never changed his position on the trial or the sentence and said only that “the best thing would be that we should forget it and `the matter will be snuffed out.’”51 Unfortunately, Lieberman’s readers did not have the opportunity to hear the victims’ voices; and as such, were influenced to believe that the Zeyfmans were indeed the true victims of injustice.52 Addendum Forverts [Jewish Daily Forward], August 1, 1947, page 2 In kherem [Excommunicated] by Chaim Lieberman53 “With the permission of the Master of the Universe [i.e., God] and with the knowledge of the Jewish community, we are placing the brothers, may their names be obliterated, Avraham and Leybush sons of Mindl and Shmuel Zeyf‑ man, who devotedly served the Nazi rulers and with horrible cruelty tor‑ mented Jewish men, women, children, and old people in the holy community of Ostrovtse [Ostrowiec]. They tormented and killed in order to extract spoils. “Therefore we are decreeing a herem upon them, so that they will be lost and wandering and cursed in both courts of law, in the upper and the lower, and in [the] herem of Seraphim and Ophanim [i.e., different types of angels] should fall upon their heads all the plagues of the Tokheha [i.e., God’s re‑ buke of Israel in chapter 26 of Leviticus], those that are found in the Torah and those that are not mentioned there. All those who look at them should be shocked with disgust. May their residence be a place of wild jackals and their drink, snake’s toxin. May darkness become their fate and may they be an‑ nihilated by God’s rage. May they be excommunicated, lost and wandering and cursed without any condition and stipulation! One may not include them in a quorum of men [Heb., minyan], they may not be called up to the Torah, nobody dare be found within four cubits of them. Those who help them or protect them should be comparable to them [i.e., receive the same treatment as do they]! Also, their wives and those who deal with them or are in contact [with them], may the herem be upon them; and when they die, may their bed be stoned just like by Akhan [Joshua 7:26]! If heaven forbid there is a minor or major religious Jewish court of law that wants to loosen the herem, or speak with them even at a wink [or signal], may they, just like the criminal felons and institutions, be in herem both in life and after death. “May God take revenge for the spilled blood of his devoted servants, and the earth will not forgive the blood that was innocently spilled upon it, unless through the blood of those who spilled it. “May they be ruined and made weak in their sin/transgression, and may no memory remain of them among their people. May the earth swallow them up like Korah and his congregation [Korah and his followers rebelled against Moses. As punishment from the Lord, they were consumed alive by the earth. Numbers 16:32]. May God make their path dark and slippery. May their burial be a dishonorable one!

152  Rivka Chaya Schiller This is what has become of the vile and wicked scoundrels, Avraham and Leybush sons of Mindl and Shmuel Zeyfman. May all that stands in the herem come to pass for them, and may God watch over and protect us, as well as the entire community of Israel, from any calamity, and may God spread out the tent of peace and blessing over all of Israel. Notes 1 Jewishgen Communities Database, https://www.jewishgen.org/communities/jgcd.php (accessed March 1, 2023). 2 Finder, 2011. 3 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 6. 4 Schechter and Greenstone, 1906: 286. 5 See: “The ‘Federation’”, 1951: 8; JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry – ­Brazil Burial Record (JewishGen, 2022), https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/ jowbr.php?rec=J_BRAZIL_0019803 (accessed March 1, 2023). 6 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 12. 7 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 23. 8 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 29. 9 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 24. 10 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 4. 11 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 57. 12 Emmanuel Reich, “Hersh Steinhart,” Hersh Steinhart (Geni, April 28, 2022), https://www. geni.com/people/Hersh‑Steinhart/6000000019908434208 (accessed March 1, 2023). 13 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 10. 14 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 53. 15 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 26. 16 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 31; Levine, 1948b: 4. 17 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 14. 18 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 29. 19 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 25. 20 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 29. 21 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 32. 22 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 32. 23 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 21, 30, 52. 24 Levine, 1948b: 4. 25 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 10. 26 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 8–9. 27 See: “Ha‑Rav Mordechai Tzekinovsky [Ciechanowski],” n.d., RG 495, Box 5 “Biog‑ raphies of Rabbis,” Folder P‑T, Papers of Samuel Ephraim Tiktin, 1930s–1940s, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Archives, New York. 28 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 41–42. 29 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 42. 30 Dawidowicz recounts a similar image of black candles being incorporated into a public rabbinically conducted herem ceremony in Wilno (Vilna), Poland, on Sunday, March 26, 1939. Dawidowicz, 1991: 118. Yiddish writer, H. Leivick invokes comparable herem imagery in his poem, “Royte tikhelekh” [Red Kerchiefs], in which black lights are used and a shofar is blown – also traditionally utilized in this ceremony. Glaser, 2020: 100. 31 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 46. 32 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 46. 33 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 46. 34 Levine, 1948a: 52. 35 Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 5; Lieberman, 1947a: 2.

Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers  153 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 5. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 5–6. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 7. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 34. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 36. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 36; Levine, 1971: 209. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 37; Levine, 1948b: 4. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 37. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 37; Levine, 1948b: 4. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 37. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 39; Levine, 1948b: 4. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 39. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 39. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 21. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 56. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948: 56; Levine, 1948a: 52. Levine, 1948a: 57. Lieberman, 1947b: 2.

Bibliography Dawidowicz, Lucy S., 1991. From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938–1947, New York: Bantam Books. “The ‘Federation’ of the State of Rio Ratifies the Condemnation of the Zeifman Brothers ‘Herem’ Statement of the ‘Federation’”, 1951. Undzer Shtime [Our Voice] (Portuguese). November 16. Finder, Gabriel N., 2011. “Honor Courts”, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Yale University Press. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Honor_Courts (accessed March 1, 2023). Glaser, Amelia M., 2020. Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levine, Shmuel Dovid, 1948a. 50 Yor Forverts: di rol fun “Forverts” in dem Idishn lebn: faktn, fotostatn un tsitatn (Yiddish), New York: N.p. Levine, Shmuel Dovid, 1948b. “New Shocking Facts about the Two Traitors from Os‑ trowiec”, Undzer shtime [Our Voice] (Portuguese). January 15: 4. Levine, Shmuel Dovid, 1971. Kapitlen fun mayn lebn zikhroynes (Yiddish), New York: S. D. Levin bukh‑komitet. Lieberman, Chaim, 1947a. “Di kherem brider redn” [The Excommunication Brothers Speak], Forverts [Jewish Daily Forward] (Yiddish). October 22: 2. Lieberman, Chaim, 1947b. “In kherem” [Excommunicated], Forverts [Jewish Daily Forward] (Yiddish). August 1, 2. Ostrowiec Relief Committee in New York, 1948. The Account of the Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Brothers Avraham and Leybush Zeyfman: The Trial of the Traitors in New York: The Proofs of Living Witnesses [Di Geshikhte Fun Di Tsvey Idishe Farreter Fun Ostrovtse: Di Brider Avraham Un Leybush Zeyfman: Der Mishpet Fun Di Farreter in Nyu York: Di Bavayzn Fun Lebedige Eydes] (Yiddish), New York: Ostrowiec Relief Committee. Schechter, Solomon and Greenstone, Julius H., 1906. “Excommunication (Hebrew, ‘Niddui,’ ‘Herem’)”, in: Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 5, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co.: 285–287.

15 “Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia” – Exhibition Organised by the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia Iwona Zawidzka Translation Ewa Zawada On September 8, 2022 (12 Elul 5782), the exhibition entitled “Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”1 opened in in the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia. The exhibition’s goal was to remember the local Jewish community, its history, everyday life, as well as holidays and customs inscribed into the local landscape. It also commemorated people who used to live there or who would have lived there if not for their ancestors’ life choices or historical events which disrupted their everyday existence. The opening date was not chosen at random, as 80 years previously, on 12 Elul 5702 (August 25, 1942) the occupying German authorities carried out the first deportation of Bochnia’s Jews to the death camp in Bełżec, leading to the extermination of most of the town’s Jewish population. And although two more deportations took place late (in November 1942 and September 1943), the first one caused the death of the largest number of Bochnian Jews. The idea of creating the exhibition, proposed by its curator, was a continuation of the museum’s long‑time tradition of commemorating the Jewish community of Bochnia through lectures and publications, as well as through exhibitions. The first of the latter, “Bochnia’s Jews” – was organised in 1999; a few years later the mu‑ seum prepared an exhibition illustrating the religious aspect of the life of local Jews (“Synagogue, Siddur, Tefillah”, 2008). The idea for the “Windows of Memory” exhibition was accepted by the museum’s management and scheduled for 2022. It also meant that the undertaking was allocated funds from the museum’s budget, which, incidentally, is a municipal institution. The exhibition’s theme was the titular windows  –  window frames presenting photographs of representatives of the local community: individuals, families, and groups of friends. Those windows became the element connecting the threads of the exhibition. They originated from a building which, during the German occupa‑ tion, was located within the ghetto, and from January 5, 1942, became a hospital for its inhabitants. It was through these windows that the ghetto was observed, and they witnessed all the tragedies that took place within the walls of the hospital. (Figure 15.1)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-19

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  155

Figure 15.1  Windows of Memory. (Photograph by Piotr Duda)

Opening Ceremony The opening ceremony took place in the museum’s Attic, the space of temporary ex‑ hibitions. The official inauguration was carried out by the museum’s director, Anetta Stachoń, and it was attended by descendants of Jewish residents of Bochnia, repre‑ sentatives of local authorities, guests interested in the topic, as well as a representative of the chief rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, who read out a letter on his behalf.2 The head of the Union of Bochnians in Israel, Dr. Rachel Kollender, whose roots lie in Bochnia, gave a presentation about the contacts between her organisation and modern Bochnia. An essential element of the inauguration was the discussion of the exhibition by its curator. The official part of the opening was concluded by a perfor‑ mance by Urszula Makosz and a band, who presented songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. The opening ceremony was preceded by a meeting at the monument commemo‑ rating victims of the Holocaust from the Bochnia area, which had been erected in 2008 in Niecała Street, situated within the borders of the former ghetto. There, prayers for the victims were recited and candles were lit. The following days were filled with events complementing the museum ex‑ hibition. On Friday, September 9, the story of the annihilation of the local com‑ munity was told at the mass grave of the Bochnia ghetto Jews massacred in the Niepołomice Forest. The next day, a walk following the route of places significant for Jewish history was organised, while on Sunday, September 11, a visit to the lo‑ cal Jewish cemetery, located on the Krzęczków hill, took place.

156  Iwona Zawidzka Topics Presented in the Exhibition The exhibition touched on several topics illustrating various, interconnected as‑ pects of Jewish life in a small town, such as Bochnia was in the inter‑war period.3 The Beginnings of Jewish Presence in Bochnia The story was opened by documents referring to the first Jews present in the town.4 One of them5 illustrated an interesting practice of old Bochnia – admitting Jews to town charter laws, which led to their having equal privileges to other townsfolk. There were seven such cases between the years 1539 and 1613 and they pertained to both local Jews and those arriving from other towns.6 The presence of Jews in the town,7 initiated in the 14th century, was interrupted in the early 1600s by a religious conflict: on the basis of the privilege known as “de non tolerandis Judaeis”, issued by King Sigismund III, the Bochnia Jewish community was banished in 1605,8 for the alleged crime of desecration of the Host; this is proven by a decree exiling Jews from Bochnia, as included in a 17th‑century codex,9 a photocopy of which was displayed in the exhibition. The following docu‑ ments were related to the period when Bochnia accepted a large group of Jews from the nearby Wiśnicz after a fire destroyed its Jewish district in July 1863: an extract of the list of Jews arriving in Bochnia, a question for the district head about institutions important for the community, such as a mikvah and prayer houses, as well as a document announcing the creation of a cemetery in 1872 (Figure 15.2).10

Figure 15.2  Part of the exhibition on religious life. (Photograph by Piotr Duda)

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  157 Synagogues, Holiday Time What distinguished Jews from other residents of Bochnia the most was religion which is why a large section of the exhibition was dedicated to this topic. The most important prayer houses were shown – through photographs, blueprints, and peo‑ ple connected to them. The first synagogues were established in the 1890s; among them, the most significant ones were funded by religious associations that oper‑ ated in Bochnia11: the prayer house of the Halberstam Synagogue Society and the “Khadushim” Synagogue which belonged to the Prayer and Charity Society. Much later, in 1922, the creation of a synagogue was put forward by the Rabbi Halber‑ stam Association of Bobowa.12 The building was erected thanks to the donation of Czarna and Beniamin Klapholz, who gifted a piece of their land for the purpose.13 “Bobowa” was administered by Józef Königsberg, whose business included mak‑ ing and selling talliths. The seat of the Talmud‑Torah Association was located in the vicinity of his house. It ran a cheder and a shelter for poor travellers. Two prayer houses were situated there as well: Rabbi Izak of Szczucin’s Bet Hamidrash, and a synagogue called “Dzików”.14 The latest of the synagogues was the one funded by the Jewish community, located in Trudna Street, designed by the Kraków architect Bernard Birkenfeld in the 1930s. Apart from those listed, there were numerous private places of prayer in the town, including Izaak Waserlauf’s prayer house in the back of the tenement house on the corner of Floris and Fischer Streets. The exhibition presented a map of its location and the arrangement of the interior, re‑ constructed from memory in the early 21st century by Zew Fischler, a Bochnian who used to participate in Saturday prayers there with his father. Another building important for the community and presented in the exhibition in the form of a photograph and a blueprint was the mikvah. The first mikvah was built in the 1880s on the corner of Kraszewskiego and Bracka Streets, and thanks to the plans preserved at the National Archive in Kraków, it was possible to present its interior. However, already at the start of the 20th century, the building’s condition was so poor that it was decided to replace it with a new one, erected in 1908 in the north part of the property of the Talmud‑Torah Association. The mikvah was still used by the community during German occupation, and after the war, it became the public bath house, used by Bochnians until 1976; the photograph presented in the exhibition came from the post‑war period. Another place of importance, due to the Jewish rules of kashrut, was the poultry slaughterhouse in Bracka Street, established in 1926. The building was shown in a photograph from the 1990s. Together with this photograph, as well as one of butcher’s shops, closed by order of occupying forces, knives used for ritual slaugh‑ ter were exhibited. During the few decades of the Bochnia Jewish community’s existence, rabbis and assessors, seen as figures of religious authority, took care of the spiritual aspect of life. We are familiar only with the image of one of them, Rabbi Szyja Halber‑ stam (1886–1942), who was murdered in the Bochnia ghetto.15 An important token of remembrance of Szyja Halberstam presented in the exhibition is a stamp with his name and position.16

158  Iwona Zawidzka In many Jewish yards, Sukkahs, indispensable in the celebration of Sukkot,17 were constructed. As photographs and blueprints of houses show, this need was taken into consideration by architects, who placed Sukkahs in balconies in the process of designing new houses. Next to a blueprint of a tenement house with a Sukkah,18 many other items related to prayer and holiday time were displayed, as well as elements of synagogue equipment. A unique item was a book from the Halberstam Association’s library in Bochnia, with a stamp of “Hasidim House of Learning Synagogue ‘Sącz’ of the Holy Community in Bochnia”, submitted for the exhibition from Israel. Family Life Family life was yet another subject explored. Here, two register books of the Isra‑ elite Registry District from the museum’s collection,19 a wedding photograph from the ghetto, a ketubah from 1935, and wedding invitations (including those to the wedding of the daughter of Rabbi Scheim Klingberg and the son of Rabbi Sim‑ che Fränkel, which was to take place on December 22nd, 1931 in Kraków) were presented. This was complemented by telegrams of greetings and good wishes for newlyweds from the mid‑1930s. Next to a register book containing the names of newborn babies, characteristic elements of holidays most beloved by children were displayed, including Hanuk‑ kah (various Hanukkah menorahs, dreidel) and Purim (Megilat Ester). Photographs of the youngest of Bochnia’s residents, from events such as Purim performances, constituted an important part of this section, and were completed by a Simchat Torah flag,20 carried by children in processions. The exhibition would not have been complete without a mezuzah, an object placed on the door frame of every Jewish house, as well as a gabardine and kippahs (everyday, holiday, and bar mitzvah ones), worn by Orthodox Jews. Education Education was a vital part of everyday life. Jewish children acquired knowledge, religious, and otherwise, not only in cheders but also in public schools. The exhibi‑ tion presented a catalogue of one of girls’ primary school classes with the names of students of Jewish faith. An important document, portraying, among other things, the process of learning in a public school, is a diary of a student of the Women’s District School, Chana Aussenberg (1901–?), written between 1917 and 1918, painting a picture of school classes, lessons of Jewish religion, relationships with teachers, classmates, and family members, as well as leisure activities. A large number of Jewish youth attended the local grammar school, although this form of education was criticised by the town’s rabbi,21 and was frowned upon by more orthodox of their fellow community members.22 A copy of an annual grammar school report was displayed, demonstrating the variety in the students’ creeds,23 together with a school‑leaving certificate of Markus Fischler, who later became a doctor. The interschool magazine Echo, whose editor was Wilhelm

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  159 Teodor Lichtig, son of lawyer and entrepreneur Dawid Lichtig, was also included among the exhibits. Many graduates continued their education at universities. In 1903, Berl Zim‑ mermann, architect, passed his school‑leaving exams in the Bochnia grammar school; later he designed, among others, the Tachkemoni High School building in Kraków, which was displayed in the exhibition. Among graduates of Jewish ancestry were doctors (e.g. Abraham Desser and Zygmunt Lamendorf), lawyers (e.g. Gustaw Müller, Tobiasz Schanzer, and Adam Schäftler) and teachers, such as Balbina Lustgarten (1901–?), who taught in the local Teaching School. Thanks to photographs preserved, it was possible to link some of the names to faces. Companies, Businesses... Local Jews ran numerous enterprises in the town and their firms were scattered all over Bochnia. This section of the exhibition consisted of advertisements of com‑ panies, stamps, such as one of the Batheil family manufacture of slivovitz and cor‑ dials, receipts issued to clients by businesses, photographs of companies, as well as products, e.g. stoneware from the factory of Henryk Münzer were displayed, to‑ gether with postcards produced by the owner of a stationery shop, Gerson Gustaw Zimmerspitz (1885–1932) and banker Ozjasz Pomeranz, and also a book printed in the print shop “Secesja”, which belonged to Samuel Silberring (1886–1973). Perla and Awigdor Buchbinder, who ran a small hotel and diner near the railway station, were commemorated by a 1926 yad, funded by them for one of the local synagogues. Additionally, a portrait of Mendel Weinfeld (1868–1939), painted by Stanisław Fischer, showed the builder and owner of the town’s first petrol station. A few photographs of the Gutfreund family reminded of the existence of their ag‑ ricultural enterprise. Several documents spoke of charitable undertakings, including the Report of the “Gemiłus‑Chesed” Interest‑Free Loans Bank24; a letter with the stamp of the Credit‑Cooperative Bank, which participated in philanthropic actions by, for in‑ stance, purchasing coal for the poor25; a request for a grant directed to the town authorities by the Committee for the Care of Jewish Orphans,26 which was headed by Augusta Fränkel, a doctor’s wife. Leisure Time Among places of rest was the Raba River, whose banks were used for strolls and where people would swim – this is evidenced by numerous photographs. Physical activity took place, for example, in the “Liban” sports association,27 while football enthusiasts formed the “Machabi” team, portrayed on one photograph. Reader‑ ship was also on the rise, to which the reading room “Hatechija”,28 established in 1918 and run by Zionist sympathisers, had a contribution. “Hatechija” gath‑ ered around 2,700 books,29 from which one, “Księga ubogich” by Jan Kasprowicz, was presented in the exhibition, as the only known copy bearing the stamp of the establishment.

160  Iwona Zawidzka Zionism Various Zionist organisations operated in the town, including Hashomer Hadati and Hashomer Hatzair. Some of their members had already departed for Palestine before the war broke out. Thanks to that, many photographs and tokens of remem‑ brance have survived, as they would be taken away on departure from Bochnia. One such person was Chaja Ryfka Flaks, whose family remains in possession of documents pertaining to the youth Zionist organisation Hashomer Hatzair, as well as a diary with farewell entries made to celebrate the event by the girl’s friends who were staying behind in Poland; these were included in the exhibition. Cooperative Actions It is obvious that both groups of Bochnia residents, Jewish and Christian, met in the streets, shops, and schools; there were also joint endeavors undertaken for the benefit of the town. The town council was the scene of cooperation, as both groups had their representatives in it – the exhibition presented a list of Bochnia council‑ lors from 1939, where among twenty‑five names, six were Jewish.30 Photographs attached showed the faces of some of them. Some celebrations, such as the 600th anniversary of the coronation of King Casimir the Great in September 1933, were organised jointly. Both the church and the synagogues held prayers for the king, and among many delegations, various Jewish associations were represented, as evidenced by the photographs displayed.31 Photographs also showed Jews who were among the ranks of the Polish Army, both during the fight for the newly regained independence in 1920, and later. For instance, Leon Obstler (1896–1967) served in the 5th Sanitary Battalion of the Polish Legions and was awarded a War Medal “Poland to its Defender”. The ex‑ hibition presented also Jews from the Bochnia area who fought during the Second World War both in the Bering Army (e.g. Bernard Storch, Henek Fischler, and Dolek Zwetschkenstiel), and in the Anders Army (e.g. Wilhelm Knobloch). Offic‑ ers of Jewish ancestry, who together with other Polish officers were captured by the Soviets and murdered by the NKVD in Katyń and Charków in the spring of 1940 (such as Nachum Krumcholz (1896–1940), doctor and Polish Army officer, killed in Charków), should also be mentioned. Holocaust The outbreak of the Second World War, the German occupation and the Holocaust, caused the end of the existence of the Bochnia community. Through documents and photographs, the exhibition indicated the various aspects of the reality of the occupation: the existence of the ghetto since the spring of 1941 (a map of the streets which made up the Jewish district), its everyday life, the Judenrat and the Jüdischer Ordnungsdient, work in the Municipal Workshops, established by Salo Greiwer in the summer of 1941 (e.g. a Kennkarte, a certificate of employment).

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  161 Different ways of attempting survival were also illustrated, such as chang‑ ing identities (falsified documents in the name of Jadwiga Kozłowska, meant to confirm the Aryan heritage of Lola Zimmerspitz), claiming foreign citizenship, or receiving help from outside the ghetto, which were evidenced by the manu‑ script of Josef Wiener’s memoirs; he later became a citizen of Israel, and managed to survive the occupation thanks to, among others, the help of Bochnian Felicja Płachcińska and her son Ludwik.32 In the hospital, opened in the ghetto on January 5, 1942, Henryk (Heschel) Hochman (1881 in Lublin–1943? in Szebnie?), a sculptor, graduate of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts (studied 1900–1906) was employed. A few of his sculptures have survived, also in Bochnia, from which one, “Wiosna”,33 was displayed in the exhibition (Figure 15.3). In Bochnia, the occupying forces carried out three large deportations to death camps. The first of them, in August 1942, was particularly tragic and affected mainly people without certificates of employment. They awaited transport in the courtyard of barracks situated near the railway tracks; this was documented by a photograph. The work of the Jewish Combat Organisation was evidenced by the copy of “Hechaluc Halochem”, published in Bochnia and dated September 3, 1943.34 The last stage of the liquidation of the local ghetto was described in it.

Figure 15.3 Henryk Hochman, The Spring, ceramics, owner Museum in Bochnia, MB‑ AH/6607.  (Photograph by Piotr Duda)

162  Iwona Zawidzka After the Occupation After the war, a small group of survivors returned to Bochnia and attempted to rebuild Jewish life in the town. This is illustrated by various documents and photo‑ graphs, such as a letter of the District Jewish Committee, located in the Synagogue in Trudna Street, in time transformed into the Jewish Religious Congregation in Bochnia, with its headquarters in Kraków; a letter of request to demolish two prayer houses, destroyed during the occupation, from the Jewish Religious Association in Bochnia to the town authorities from 1946; a photograph showing cleanup work in front of Teofila and Naftali Schwimmer’s vinegar factory; a document confirming the acceptance of a few Jews into the Bochnia community in 1946. According to reports of the Bochnia District Government, the number of Jews in Bochnia in June 1945 was 100, and by the spring of 1947, it was only 26. Only a few months later, in July, just 12 people remained, and they – following in the others’ footsteps – eventually left Bochnia and Poland. Among the displayed docu‑ ments was the decision of the District National Committee Board to close the cem‑ etery abandoned by the Jewish community, issued on August 30, 1957. The Union of Bochnians in Israel Jews originating from Bochnia have maintained the memory of their roots, estab‑ lishing the 1950s the Union of Bochnians in Israel. The institution has been led by: Mojżesz Landfisch (former Jewish religion teacher in Bochnia schools), Dawid Lichtig, Menachem Greiwer, and Zew Fischler, present in the exhibition through their photographs or correspondence they kept with the Museum’s employees. Currently, the Union is led by Dr. Rachel Kollender, the granddaughter of Teofila Schwimmer, who worked in the administration of the Jewish community in Boch‑ nia immediately after the war. Dr. Kollender is a musicologist, and her academic papers were presented in the exhibition. People with Bochnian Ancestry The final part of the exhibition presented interesting, important, and creative peo‑ ple whose roots trace back to Bochnia. Through their books, the following figures were commemorated: the mathematician Henryk Fast, whose grandfather, Sachne Stiel, was a town councillor; Alona Frankel, writer and illustrator, who spent her childhood in a modern house in Gazaris Square, erected by her father Salomon Goldman; photographer Zygmunt Gottlieb, whose father Mendel ran a public house in Bochnia; translator and writer Gabriel Laub, grandson to cloth seller Izaak Jakubowicz of Kowalska Street; and Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz, the great‑granddaughter of shop owners Mecha and Menachem Mendel Tydor. Osias Hofstätter (1905–1994), a painter born in Bochnia, was represented by the etching “Piraci”,35 and the contemporary artist Tzvi Ben‑Aretz, the son of Bochnian Regina Zimmerspitz – by pictures of the 1977 live installation from the “Sacrifice” series in New York.

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  163 The name of the Dutch chess master Samuel Landau (1903 in Uście Solne‑1944 in forced labor camp in Grodziszcze), who attended the Stanisław Jachowicz Pri‑ mary School in Bochnia, is included in the school’s catalogue from the school year of 1912/1913. Stefan Schöngut‑Strzemiński (1863 in Bochnia–1932 in Kraków), son of a Bochnia doctor and honorary citizen of the town, laryngologist and president of the Kraków Doctors’ Board, as well as the descendants of Mendel ­Weinfeld – his grandson, professor of medicine, expert in oncology and hematol‑ ogy, Uscher Weinfeld (1920–2011), his great‑great grandson, oboist of the London Symphony Orchestra Olivier Stankiewicz, and his great granddaughter, pianist and photographer Nina Weinfeld, were all portrayed in photographs. One of the latter’s photographs, together with works of Loli Kantor (daughter of Bochnian Lola Zim‑ merspitz), the author of interesting albums about Jews in Ukraine, among others, were reprinted and included in the exhibition. A selection of books by authors with connections to Bochnia and about the town36 were also among the exhibits. Items Presented in the Exhibition The “Windows of Memory” exhibition consisted of numerous and various ele‑ ments. Paintings presenting Bochnia together with its Jewish inhabitants, post‑ cards, documents, as well as some objects illustrating Jewish customs came from the collection of the Bochnia Museum. Many interesting Judaica, demonstrating the richness of Jewish tradition, were loaned from other institutions: the Irena and Mieczysław Mazarski Museum in Chrzanów, the Museum of Kraków, the District Museum in Tarnów, the Castle Museum in Łańcut, and the Centre of Meeting of Cultures in Dąbrowa Tarnowska. Numerous interesting documents came from the National Archive in Kraków. Such extensive loans, and from such large and significant institutions, were pos‑ sible, among other reasons, thanks to the fact that no other town in the area was holding similar events at the time. It should be noted, however, that the memory of Jewish inhabitants of those places was celebrated in other ways on the 80th an‑ niversary of the deportation, for example, through an official meeting by the com‑ memorative plaque (e.g. in Dobczyce), a publication (e.g. in Wieliczka), an outdoor photo exhibition (e.g. in Nowy Wiśnicz), or a March of Memory (e.g. in Brzesko). The Bochnia Museum turned to people with Bochnian roots who currently re‑ side abroad for help in preparing the exhibition. In response, many interesting pho‑ tographs and documents, both private and connected to organisations, e.g. Zionist ones, were submitted. This way, they broadened our knowledge of the local Jewish community.37 The exhibition gained large interest – its opening alone was an important event in the town. Curator’s tours were offered to those keen to acquire a deeper insight, and those gathered many participants each time. It should also be added that a significant group of visitors to the exhibition were youth from the local secondary schools. News of the exhibition was broadcast in media, for instance in the local monthly “Kronika Bocheńska”, the portal fototapeta.art.pl, in the TVP Kraków, and Radio Kraków.

164  Iwona Zawidzka Notes 1 Exhibition curator – Iwona Zawidzka; visual arrangement – Piotr Duda; programme ac‑ companying the exhibition – “Okna pamięci. Żydowska społeczność Bochni”/”Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”, Bochnia 2022. 2 Olga Adamowska from the Jewish Community Centre in Kraków. 3 Bochnia, a town located 40 km east of Kraków, had a population of approx. 12,000 at the time. About 20% of the inhabitants were Jews. 4 The topic was explored by: Fischer, 1928: 3–28; Kiryk, 1980: 23–30. 5 Record of Admittance to Municipal Law in Bochnia, 1591, National Archive in Kraków, Bochnia Branch (later: NAKBB), designation 30/1/71: 92–93. 6 Kiryk, 1979: 14. 7 Kiryk, 1980: 23. 8 Fischer, 1928: 40–41. 9 The original document is located in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków. 10 Minutes taken November 18th, 1972, in the Town Hall Office, 18.11.1872, NAKBB, designation 30/1/103: 197. 11 Zawidzka, 2008: 53–67. 12 Register of offices and associations in Bochnia, 1924–1926, NAKBB, designation 20/1/1077, 16. 13 Contract of donation, 24.03.1922, NAKBB, designation 30/1/1472: 53–54. 14 Register of houses of prayer, 1932, NAKBB, designation 30/1/637: 447. 15 Zawidzka, 2018: 73. 16 Stamp of Rabbi Jehoszua Halberstam with the lettering “Jehoszua Halberstam, Bochnia, chairman of the rabbinical court”, brass and wood; 1930s, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/3863. 17 For example: Letter to Szajndla Ormian, owner of an estate in Kościuszki Street, 02.08.1923, NAKBB, designation 30/1/1500: 26. 18 Blueprint of the Steiger tenement house, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/5514; blue‑ print of the Mandelbaum tenement house, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/5522. 19 Book of marriages of the Israelite Registry District in Bochnia, 1896, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/877; Index of the book of births of the Israelite Registry District in Bochnia, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/878. 20 From the collection of Samuel Roth (died 1995), the last Jewish resident of Dąbrowa Tarnowska, kept by the Centre of Meeting of Cultures in Dąbrowa Tarnowska. 21 Anonymous, 1911: 2. 22 Fischler, 2000: 14. 23 In the school year 1918/1919, 7.7% of students were Jewish, in: Report, 1919: 22. 24 Gemiłus‑Chesed Bank, 1929–1931, NAKBB, designation 30/1/637: 655. 25 Anonymous, 1933: 11. 26 Committee for the Care of Jewish Orphans in Bochnia, 28.12.1932, NAKBB, designa‑ tion 30/1/637: 855. 27 Letter of the Jewish Sports Club “Liban” to the Bochnia Municipal Government re‑ questing the shared renting of a field in “Trybulcówka”, 06.03.1924, NAKBB, designa‑ tion. 30/46/5: 11. 28 Anonymous, 1918: 5. 29 Samsonowska, 2005: 246. 30 Alphabetical list of town councillors, 1939, NAKBB, designation 30/1/9/606: 495. 31 Jewish delegations during Casimir celebrations, photo album, 1933, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/3440. 32 Josef Wiener, Wspomnienia z lat okupacji, Israel, manuscript, 1989, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/4052. 33 Henryk‑Heschel Hochman (1881 in Lublin‑1943? in Szebnie?), Wiosna, ceramics, 1920‑1930, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/6607.

“Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia”  165 34 Hechaluc Halochem, magazine of the Jewish Combat Organisation, No. 32, 1943, MB Collection, designation MB‑H/2209. 35 Osias Hofstatter (1905 Bochnia–1994 Israel), Piraci, etching, MB Collection, designa‑ tion MB‑AH/6896. 36 Fischler 2000; Frankel, Alona, 2007. Dziewczynka, W‑wa 2007; Gutfreund, Amir, 2006. Our Holocaust, London; Kantor, Loli, 2014. Beyond the Forest, Austin; Lieber‑Schwartz, Lola, 2010. A World after This, New York‑Jerusalem‑London; Marber, Romek, 2014. No Return. Journeys in the Holocaust, Nottingham; Powell, Irena, 2020. Córka, która sprzedała matkę, Kraków‑Budapeszt‑Syrakuzy, Romm, Miraim, 2014. Strusie pióra, Kraków‑Budapeszt; Rot, Zehava, 2021. No One’s Child (Hebrew), Petach Tikva; Schönker, Henryk, 2005. Dotknięcie anioła, Warszawa; Storch, Bernard, 2012. World War II Warriors, Baltimore, MD; Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz, Judith, 2009. The Incredible Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Bochnia, Sussex Academic Press; Weitzman, S. Mitch‑ ell, 2016. The Rose Temple, Washington, DC‑Baltimore, MD; Zwetschkenstiel, Dolek, 2001. Z Bochni w świat, Genéve. 37 Tanja Beilin, Alfred Betteil, Tomer Brunner, Tamar Gilboa, Isabelle Grynberg, Talia Drory Haune, Loli Kantor, Rachel Kollender, Telma Nasy, Lusia Navon Elkan, Zipi Porn, Zehava Rot, Shaya and Aron Roth, Bronek Schiff, Bernard Storch, Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz, Nina Weinfeld and Włodek Stankiewicz, Mitchell Weitzman.

Bibliography Anonymous, 1911. “Fanatyzm rabina w Bochni”, Nowiny, No. 233, 1911. Anonymous, 1918. “Bochnia”, Nowy Dziennik, No. 113, 1918. Anonymous, 1933. “Akcja węglowa”, Nowy Dziennik, No. 351, 1933. Fischer, Stanisław, 1928. Wygnanie Żydów z Bochni, Dyrekcja Państwowego Gimnazjum w Bochni, Bochnia. Fischler, Zeev, 2000. Im Schatten der Einsamkeit und der Trauer. Jugender innerungen aus den Tagen des Holocaust, Organisation of the survivors of the Nazi Camps in the British Zone in Western Germany‑Bergen‑Belsen in Israel, Tel‑Aviv. Kiryk, Feliks, 1979. Księga przyjęć do prawa miejskiego w Bochni 1531–1656, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Warszawa‑Wrocław‑Kraków. Kiryk, Feliks, 1980. “Z dziejów Żydów w Bochni”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Histo‑ rycznego, 2–3: 23–30. Samsonowska, Krystyna, 2005, Wyznaniowe gminy żydowskie i ich społeczności w wojew‑ ództwie krakowskim (1918–1939), Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego “Societas Vistulana”, Kraków. Sprawozdanie Państw, 1919. Gimnazjum w Bochni za rok 1918/19, Bochnia. Wodziński, Marcin, 1998. Groby cadyków w Polsce, Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Polonistyki Wrocławskiej, Wrocław. Zawidzka, Iwona, 2008. “Żydowskie domy modlitwy w Bochni”, Rocznik Bocheński VI: 53–67. Zawidzka, Iwona, 2018. Przewodnik po cmentarzu żydowskim w Bochni, Muzeum im. prof. Stanisława Fischera w Bochni, Bochnia.

16 21st‑Century Polish Literature and the Shoah The Struggle for the Memory Sławomir Jacek Żurek

The history of the Holocaust in communist Poland was for a long time under an informal taboo. If at all, the Shoah was treated as one of many German war crimes. The first references to the Shoah initiated in the underground press during the so called “Solidarity” revolution gained momentum between 1985 and 1987 thanks to the screening of Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah (1985) (albeit in a censored version), and then after Jan Błoński’s essay Biedni Polacy patrzą na ghetto, was published in the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.1 Polish attitudes and reactions to the Holocaust began to be discussed. The topic re‑entered the public discourse after Jan Tomasz Gross’s book Sąsiedzi2 (Neighbors) was published in 2000 that deals with the events in the village of Jedwabne, where in 1941, the Polish inhabitants forced the village Jews into a barn and burnt them alive. The first two works about the Shoah by authors of the second generation are Paweł Huelle’s Weiser Dawidek3 (1987) and Piotr Szewc’s Zagłada4 (The Anni‑ hilation, 1987). Both novels attempt to revive the Jewish world in the context of little homelands; both deal with the Shoah by sketching it subtly in the background. One can say, with some simplification, that the year 2000 marks the beginning of a struggle in Polish literature, for the memory of the Shoah and its significance for a new generation of Poles. Post‑2000  literature that deals with these themes is written mainly by authors born in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s. Those post‑memorial reconstructions try to answer two fundamental anthropologi‑ cal questions: who are the Jewish victims of the Shoah for Poles today, and how do Poles view themselves in this context? In post‑2000 literature, Polish‑Jewish relationships in the context of the Shoah is marked by a tension that allows one to discover the gravity and significance of the Holocaust, as well as the enduring presence of its consequences in contemporary Poland. Who Are Jews after the Shoah? According to the Nazi law (or lawlessness), Jews, who had been designated for extermination as a nation and representatives of the so‑called Semitic race, became dead already while alive. The mere fact of being a Jew meant a death sentence. Many photographs of the period, especially in camp documents and from the final DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-20

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  167 stages of the functioning of ghettos, show emaciated living human skeletons that have become iconic representations of Jews during the Holocaust. Another image of Jews common in Polish mentality are the ashes that symbolize them but also ashes in the literal sense – as is the case at Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin, now a mausoleum. Jewish remains in Poland do not only rest in tombs; they are everywhere, in the foundations of stadiums, playgrounds, recrea‑ tional areas, and buildings. They are even in the building material used for their construction – execution and extermination sites of Polish Jews were omnipresent. In recent literary works, Jews are also the ghosts from another world with whom Poles try to make contact. Finally, some Polish authors of the second and third gen‑ erations slowly discover that the multimillion‑strong mass of the Holocaust victims is composed of actual people, with their family histories, private lives, feelings, fascinations, and fears. Jews as Living Dead

In Igor Ostachowicz’s novel Noc żywych Żydów5 (Night of the Living Jews), the main protagonist is an educated blue‑collar worker, living in an apartment block in Warsaw’s district of Muranów, located on the site of the Warsaw World War II ghetto. One day, he discovers that in his cellar there are Jews who have probably lived there since the war. They are referred to in the novel as “the living dead,” “the Jewish zombie,” “creatures,” “ghosts,” “Jewish specters,” “the true corpses,” etc. They are many, although at the beginning one can only hear “an occasional scraping sound,” and “the cracking of the stretching bones.”6 The protagonist soon realizes that these dead bodies, wandering around Muranów’s underground, are all insane wretches, as “nearly all normal ones went to heaven long ago.”7 They have been so traumatized by the Shoah that even after 60 years they are still shocked and “cannot pull themselves together.” Some feel “offended” by God, cannot see any sense in what they experienced, and are afraid they will “have to forgive.” Some are also traitors, having worked for the police or the Sonderkommando.8 The novel’s protagonist is initially afraid of these Jewish dead – and when he has to face them, he virtually panics. These figures are horror‑like: their eye sockets are empty, stumped tongues stick out of their mouths, they are dirty and stink, some lack parts of their faces, others lack limbs. They are wearing worn clothes from before the war. Yet, they decide to go out and “merge into the cities.” This happens not only in Warsaw, but all over the country, with the living dead “coming out of ditches or from under railway embankments, and going to the nearby towns to tell stories of their suffering, have some tea, a biscuit or a buttered challah.”9 This gro‑ tesque vision makes the reader realize the gravity of the problem. In order to get rid of these Jews form Poland once and for all, one must extermi‑ nate them again, as they are generally considered a threat. As before, also today “the Jewish ghosts spread diseases” and once they arrived, “little children began to disap‑ pear in Warsaw.”10 One must therefore kill the Jewish corpses that impersonate the memory of Jews, so that they will disappear “from the past, present, and future.”11

168  Sławomir Jacek Żurek Bożena Keff in Utwór o Matce i Ojczyźnie12 (The Literary Work About Mother and Homeland) tries to reconstruct this mechanism of thinking about the Jewish dead: “Jews, apparently dead but in fact always alive, are so powerful that they reproduce even when dead.”13 This irrational “hiss of antisemitism” in relation to the Jewish dead is audible from time to time but is “not always […] captured by those whom it doesn’t concern.”14 Jews Are Ashes

In book above Keff writes that there is a growing awareness, in Poland, of the enormous amount of ashes of exterminated Jews: “city districts, churches, and apartment blocks are built on their remains, their bones; the city of Warsaw stands on Jewish ashes.”15 Such construction practices took place especially in Warsaw’s graveyard‑like district of Muranów, located on the site of the World War II Jew‑ ish ghetto. Therefore, many contemporary Polish books are set in that location; for example, Beata Chomątkowska’s Stacja Muranów16 (Muranów Station). The non‑existent Jewish district is an “open wound,” full of remains of its former in‑ habitants, a real and symbolic cemetery. Directly after the war, it was only “ruins, ruins, and ruins. Debris sometimes five feet high.”17 Today you can only recognize the former Jewish district “thanks to monuments.”18 Its contemporary layout re‑ veals emptiness and absence. With time, the boundary between the former Jewish residential district with a cemetery within its limits and the surrounding Aryan dis‑ tricts became obliterated. A Warsaw architect and town planner Józef Sigalin says in his collection of thoughts, notes, and memories entitled Nad Wisłą wstaje war‑ szawski dzień (A New Warsaw Day over the Vistula): “The cemetery walls seem redundant: they no longer divide the two worlds” (quoted by Chomątkowska in Stacja Muranów).19 The construction of the whole district after the war “in record time on a shallow platform of debris” may result in the foundations of buildings “yielding to the pressure of walls glued from brick fragments,” and erected hastily from the material ready to use in the location of the ghetto. Pre‑war inhabitants of Muranów and the Jews who were “quartered” there by the Nazis “are still waiting, buried in the cellars, for the end of the war. For the time being, they are sleeping.”20 Chomątkowska repeats after the writer Sylwia Chutnik that contemporary War‑ saw holds the Jewish ashes within itself today one lives in Muranów with the ghetto people. […] The bricks that were made on the site contained not only fragments of buildings but everything that was there, including human remains […]. All that, crushed and pulver‑ ized, served as the building material.21 Jews Are Hungry Ghosts

Muranów is a place marred with tragedy, a place of horror: “it’s ghosts, falling bricks, nightmares, stories oozing out of the mouths of staircases” (Sylwia Chut‑ nik, W krainie czarów22 [in Wonderland]23); it is Jewish specters wailing, “born to

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  169 death,” sitting underground “since 1943.”24 Today’s antisemitic view is that there are “treasures” that they left “in the cellars”25 or even that, even if the Jews are all dead, they are still “sitting on their possessions.” Jews are viewed as a constant threat. Their ghosts are “like scaled dragons” that “breathe harshly and wag their tails.”26 In Chutnik’s grotesque vision, Polish ghosts wander about Muranów as well, and interact with the Jewish ones. This is how it is done by the Polish children victims of the Warsaw uprising, also affected by anti‑Judaic prejudices: They suddenly remembered the vision of the matzah made of their own bod‑ ies. So, they quickly began to crumble their fingers, hands, noses. Scatter the crumbs around them and call the Jews like they were calling chickens: Jeeew, Jeeew, Muranooo! They heard murmurs, smacking of the lips, scattering of the food in all directions. The hungry ghosts ate the children with relish. Ah, well, said the children aloud, go on eating. We will lend you our bod‑ ies, we will share our bodies. They knew they had to win the graces of the unknown demons somehow. They also knew they could not turn back, not now. The dragon is awake, the dragon won’t stop eating.27 Jews are still everywhere in Poland – but dead. The conviction of their omnipres‑ ence stays with the protagonist of Marta Masada’s novel Święto Trąbek 28 (Rosh Hashanah), who says while looking at the landscape around her: “They are here all the time. Their bodies reinforce this embankment.”29 Jews Are People

The whole mechanism of propaganda, both anti‑Judaic (which attributes to the Jews the role of Judas the traitor, the killer of God, and that of a demon) and anti‑ semitic (which denies Jews the status of humans) was very much present among Poles during the Shoah and after. In Anna Bolecka’s novel Cadyk i dziewczyna30 (The Tzaddik and the Girl), the main protagonist, a Polish Jew, subjects the recep‑ tion of the Nazi anthropological manipulation to profound reflection: The Jew – a powerful creature that plans a disaster for humanity, someone not totally human, a demonic and inconceivable creature. Is it possible for her, an educated and thinking person, to succumb to such prejudice?31 Those who survive the Holocaust, like the mother of the main protagonist of Mon‑ ika Rakusa’s novel 39,9,32 know that a Jew who wants to continue living in Poland will be safer with Aryan documents. “Never disclose your origin,” says the Jew‑ ish mother to her daughter, born after the war. “They are all antisemitic here” and sooner or later will “use it against you.”33 On the other hand, if people do learn about one’s Jewish identity, it is “nothing to be ashamed of” but also “nothing

170  Sławomir Jacek Żurek to boast about!” Jewishness, says the mother in the book, can be lived somehow but certainly not in the sense of belonging to Jewish culture (“no‑one spoke Yid‑ dish in our home,” “we have nothing to do with them,” “your grandpa never acted Jewish, maybe except when he told Jewish jokes”), to Judaism (“we have nothing to do with this religion”), or links with Israel. Post‑war Jews should constantly strengthen their self‑esteem by recalling past episodes, for example, “before the war your grandparents were friends with the Skamander”; “your grandma was a real lady, not a Jewish housekeeper!”; “your grandparents spoke Polish better than most Poles; your grandpa knew the whole of Słowacki by heart!”34 In Mariusz Sieniewicz’s grotesque short story Żydówek nie obsługujemy35 (Jew‑ ish Women Are Not Served), a Polish middle‑aged man, when doing his shopping, suddenly begins to be perceived as a Jewish woman. We are dealing here with a peculiar anthropological construction: “You are a person taken away from a man and returned to a Jewish woman,”36 says the narrator. Her presence evokes aggres‑ sion among the other customers, then antisemitic behavior, and it ends in a pogrom. Foolery, black humor, and other forms of expression, seemingly distant from any kind of revisionism, are designed to provoke the idea that the only way for Poles to regain their own humanity after the Shoah is to discover the Jew in themselves. Zula, the protagonist of Masada’s Święto trąbek (Rosh Hashanah), is an adult Polish woman raised by her grandfather, a former concentration camp prisoner, who used to tell her stories of the war and the Nazi terror since she was little. The Jewish nation becomes entrenched in Zula’s mentality to the extent of becoming part of her ego – she decides to do something for this nation, other than cultivating its memory. She is obsessed, as a woman, with the desire to compensate the Jewish community for the children who were killed or could not be born, and so decides to give birth to them. However, according to the religious law, a Jewish child can only be born of a Jewish woman. Zula becomes one in most unusual circumstances, during a business trip to the United States. On a Friday night, as she walks through the street of the Hasidic district of Borough Park in New York City, she meets an old Jew, who start shouting at her: “Gilgul neshamot, gilgul, yo! Dybbuk, dybbuk in your white body, Jewish soul in your body. Dibuk! A dibuk arayn in ayer waysn guf, a Yiddishe neshome in ayer guf!”37 By using a mixture of Yiddish and English, the man diagnoses in Zula’s body the dibbuk of a Jewish woman murdered in the Holocaust, guilty in a rather peculiar and unclear way of failing to pass on life to the next generation. Her redemption can only happen through Zula’s body: I can now clearly feel I’m possessed by a spirit that tells me to love Jewish men and give birth to their lost children. This is Torah’s most fundamental order: “Be fruitful, and multiply!”38 In Piotr Paziński’s Pensjonat39 (Boarding House), Jews are mostly dead people, reconstructed in the narrator’s memory and brought to life in the novel. They figure in pictures that the protagonist‑narrator looks through; they are more than a collec‑ tion of data about prewar Polish Jewry – they are concrete people, each represent‑ ing a different worldview. Chaim is a Zionist, Abram is an advocate of assimilation,

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  171 Leon is a communist, while Jacob is very religious. They are shown in the novel in interaction, in a perennial Jewish debate, and are linked by trying to relate to the Shoah. For Chaim, the only alternative that Jews have in the world marred with the Shoah is Zionism. Abram lost his entire family in the Holocaust – the only sur‑ vivors are him and his son, who stayed in Poland because “someone must look after the bones.”40 Abram reconstructs the Polish‑Jewish world: he writes “a bio‑ graphical lexicon of all Jews who ever lived in Poland,”41 but finds it impossible to cope with the task. Leon the communist argues with everyone about the status of the Jewish world in a post‑Shoah Poland. But this is futile because in the Poland after the Shoah that world is gone… Finally, Jacob, proficient in orthodox Juda‑ ism, reconstructs Talmudic discourses by studying a fragment of the Torah. He is unaccompanied in the task and so cannot fulfill the requirements of the method employed in yeshivas: “It is better to study in twos, they say – the Shekhinah is more likely to come. Or, two heads are better than one.”42 By poring over the Torah and the Talmud after the Shoah, Jacob tries to wrestle with God like the Biblical Jacob. However, what he meets is not God but “an empty space,” the nothingness that was left in Poland when God and the Jews are gone. Jacob is a tragic figure: he knows that his reading of the Torah and its Talmudic interpretation may be a form of restitution of the Jewish world and that meditation over a single page of the Talmud may save the whole world, but at the same time he realizes that conducting these studies in post‑war Poland is simply no longer possible. All the characters in Paziński’s book are constructed in order to find out if the existence of the Jewish world in the post‑Shoah Poland makes sense. This multi‑ tude of “images creates an illusion of memory and, similarly to the multitude of photographs, becomes an ersatz of life.”43 Another book that presents concrete people, rather than an anonymous mass, is Magdalena Tulli’s Skaza44 (Flaw). Unexpected guests arrive in a small town, similarly to Jews who used to be brought to ghettos from abroad. Those people can‑ not rent apartment anywhere so they crowd in the square as more and more “tram transports arrive.” Town authorities issue regulations concerning “temporary solu‑ tions”45 to the problem. These concern pedestrian traffic (“the newcomers are not allowed to cross the tram line,”46 and the location of the “intruders” (“make them move from one place to another, with their luggage or, if necessary, without it”47). The “final solution,” reports the narrator, did not call for “any special measures other than blocking a few ventilation shafts” in the bunker, and then the mere “use of lime.”48 Eventually “the problem was solved the foreign body was removed” and “the primeval state from before the arrival of the refugees was restored.”49 This ironic take on the situation resembles the stereotypical antisemitic thinking and attitudes […] having intruded so violently in the very middle of the town’s familiar space, too limited and not rich enough to hold everyone, they were eventu‑ ally excluded from it, removed from sight once and for all – what a relief to the inhabitants!50

172  Sławomir Jacek Żurek This association also activates, at various levels, the contemporary attitude to ­strangers‑others. The transfiguration being described allows the reader to realize the still active mechanisms of hostility. Jews as concrete living people with names also figure in Piotr Szewc’s debut novel Zagłada (Annihilation). However, their existence is limited to the world from before the Shoah. The story takes place in a prewar Polish‑Jewish town still unaffected by the Holocaust but already under the ominous influence of the coming eschatological hecatomb: Somewhere in the distance, in the north, a storm is raging. But the inhabitants of our town know nothing about it. What tomorrow will bring – no one can tell. Today, the storm is innocuous.51 The inhabitants are Hershe Blaum, the owner of a textile store, his wife Zelda Blaum, his children and other people living in Listopadowa Street in Zamość (now south‑eastern Poland), the Hasidim and other Jewish patrons of the inn “Pod Rogiem.” Who Are Poles After the Shoah? In the case of Judaic topoi, two interconnected tropes can be identified in perceiv‑ ing non‑Jews: “the Unrighteous people” (enemies) and the “the Righteous people” (friends). Poles as the Unrighteous among the Nations of the World

The first image of the enemy in contemporary Polish accounts of the Shoah comes with a demonic creation. These are the antisemitic beasts from Ostachowicz’s “Night of the Living Jews.” It is the devil with a clandestine code name “KZ” (“Ktoś Zły” – the Evil One) and “ZZ” (“Zupełnie Zły” – Totally Evil) that wants to effect “the final solution to the problem of wandering corpses”52 by provoking the outbreak of “the night of the living Jews,” a Jewish uprising that will have to be brutally suppressed. The dead will have to be killed again, this time for good, and so removed from Polish memory. This kind of antisemitism is a political program. Therefore, in anti‑Jewish ac‑ tions, demons (the Evil One and the Totally Evil) cooperate with Warsaw neo‑ Nazis and the average inhabitants of the city that support them. The battle between the Jewish corpses and their antisemitic enemies in the shopping mall “Arkadia” is actually a symbolic battle for the memory of the Shoah. In Włoskie szpilki53 (Italian High‑Heels) Magdalena Tulli shows that antisem‑ itism affects even Polish children. In conversations with them, in March 1968, one hears that “bad people hide” in Poland, that they want to “betray our country, sell it to our enemies and take all the money.”54 Jews are “sly foxes” that “hide their mean intentions.” The protagonist‑narrator is accosted by her school friends for money, and one of them unabashedly says: “Your family must all be burnt. […]

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  173 Your mother first of all.”55 Poles keep reminding their Jewish neighbors: “You eat our bread.” Similarly, in Tulli’s other novel, Szum56 (Hum = H), the protagonist dis‑ covers her Jewish identity and begins to think: “Who am I? Someone that nobody likes. Someone unlikeable.”57 In Krystian Piwowarski’s novel Więcej gazu, Kameraden!58 (More Gas, Kamer‑ aden!) we see how Polish peasants argue about the Jewish possessions that they are stealing. Although all Jews in the town were first deported and then murdered, the peasants still think Jews “are always lucky,” always find a way out, even out of the Holocaust. For example, after the airstrike on the town of Wieluń, there is a lone survivor from a ruined tenement house, a Jewish lawyer called Romek (referred to as “a little Jew” or “scoundrel”) – this is interpreted as a historical injustice: “The whole family have died but he escaped unscathed. No stone unturned – and Romek just shook off the dust and put his hat back on.”59 This kind of reasoning goes deeper: Romek’s survival is viewed as a precedent, God’s error – and God certainly supports the Holocaust if one looks at what is going on: “would the Germans have killed so many Jews if God hadn’t agreed?”60 Monika Rakusa, in her aforementioned novel 39,9, paints an ironic and gro‑ tesque picture of antisemitism that can be found even in her own Jewish ancestors. How could one live as a Jew in prewar Poland? First of all, one had to “cut the side‑ locks and distance oneself from all orthodoxy,” “change one’s name to a European one,” “make a lot of money and master a few languages at least as well as Yiddish” (which it was good to actually forget), and of course “baptize one’s children.” Now [it means: after Shoah] one can only be an “eminent” Jew, “from a respectable fam‑ ily or clan,” one has to “repudiate the policy of Israel all the time,” and “uphold the memory of the Holocaust.”61 This is a grotesque vision – and yet the protagonist as‑ sumes a Jewish identity because “being a Jew means being an intellectual,” which gives one a chance to escape “the emptiness of apartment block districts” and live in “the world of great values.”62 These novels clearly suggest that Polish society is full of radical antisemitism, whose advocates are always ready to act, and who can count on others for support. People of other views are also there but the proportions can be overwhelming. Poles as the Righteous among the Nations of the World

The other important Judaic trope in Polish 20th‑century literature is the figure of the Righteous. Who are the Righteous, how are they portrayed? One of them is the narrator‑protagonist in Igor Ostachowicz’s “Night of the Liv‑ ing Jews,” an intellectual who does manual work, previously cherishing antisemitic views, who surprisingly (especially to himself) becomes the leader and savior of the Jewish zombie. At first, he treats this whole matter with a pinch of salt and calls himself “the helper of Jewish corpses.”63 He goes down to the cellar several times and realizes: “This is silly but I feel at ease there, […] I meet some goners who greet me, pat me on the back, shake my hands, I’ve found some company for my‑ self.”64 Much later he says with horror: “like I’m a fucking defender of Jews, what a shame.”65 The turning point comes with a vision he has of being transported to

174  Sławomir Jacek Żurek Auschwitz, when he realizes what befell the Jews, how they were deprived of hu‑ manity, and treated like animals. This is a profoundly shocking discovery that does not allow him to live the way he used to. In his thoughts, he says to his late father: “I won’t be a Jew, Dad, but I’ll be dead, this way or another, and I don’t know why I feel dead more and more.”66 By going through the ordeal of an extermination camp, like nearly a million Jews, he accepts the unbearable truth of what a human being can become (including himself) in extreme circumstances, with which the reader becomes familiar through devastatingly dehumanized and sexualized scenes of a primitive struggle for survival. The protagonist thus becomes a “Jewish warrior” (as he begins to call himself), “the chosen‑one” (the way he is called by the Jewish zombie: the slangy word one means the number one person in a community).67 In the face of the coming fight, he mounts a “huge yellow dump truck”68 like he would a horse, and speeds toward the shopping mall “cracking at it seems with dead adherents to Judaism,”69 in front of which an antisemitic crowd has gathered – he is ready to force the mall open. The Just one carries out a massacre on the gallery square. He is like a Jewish Messiah fighting with Gog and Magog, mythical figures that “impersonate forces hostile to Israel.”70 This side of him is hidden behind the super‑ ficial face of someone permeated with pop culture. In moments of an especially suc‑ cessful attack he congratulates himself with “cool,” just like Beavis and Butt‑head from his favorite American cartoon.71 He sums up his victorious leadership over the army of dead Jews with a rather un‑profound statement: “I’m standing here, nod my head and imagine I’m Kevin from Home Alone 14. Kevin’s Adult Life.”72 He moni‑ tors the progress of his efforts “through a surveillance system” and issues orders “through the intercom, like a general on a battlefield,” he is ecstatic in his “Coool”73 or when he shouts to the mike: “Move! Assume position! Set the escalator by the Leroy Merlin and the home appliances store!” This is a grotesque scene. When he sees, however, how the Jews that have rose from the dead in his cellar succeed to fight, he starts pondering on their earlier presence and today’s absence in the Polish landscape; he realizes what an empty space they have left: “I’m standing here with my mouth open, looking at them all, and say, what the fuck, living Jews. I can see them at last.”74 He is slowly prepared to die by a growing awareness of his mission: “looks like I’m really the chosen one.”75 And when he dies, he contemplates his personal victory “over himself, the devil, Germans, and my own nation,” which he thinks is a “grand finale.”76 He then adds with a self‑mocking ironic humor: “I’m feeling great, looking around for the others, thinking already what life a hero like me will have, what laurel wreaths, rewards, admiration await me.”77 Finally, he dies in the battle between the Jewish zombie and the antisemitic, nationalist crowd of Warsaw people – he “gives up his own life for the Jews,”78 becoming one of them. * Jews and Poles are the main protagonists of newest Polish narrative after 2000. Maybe this prose will be the first step to purification of the Polish memory and build a new relationship between these nations without historical prejudice.

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  175 Notes 1 English translation: Błoński, 1990: 34–48. 2 Jan Tomasz Gross published his book in Poland in 2000 and in US in 2001. See Gross, 2000; Gross, 2001. 3 See P. Huelle, Weiser Dawidek, Warszawa 1987. English version: P. Huelle, Who was David Weiser? translated by M. Kandel, New York 1991. 4 See P. Szewc, Zagłada, Warszawa 1987. English version: P. Szewc, Annihilation, trans‑ lated by E. Hryniewicz‑Yarbrough, Normal 1999. 5 See Ostachowicz, 2009. 6 Ostachowicz: 35. 7 Ostachowicz: 63. 8 Ostachowicz: 87. 9 Ostachowicz: 184. 10 Ostachowicz: 116–117. 11 Ostachowicz: 229. 12 See Keff, 2008. 13 Keff: 32. 14 Chutnik, 2009: 98. 15 Keff: 32. 16 Chomątowska, 2016. 17 Chomątowska: 9. 18 Chomątowska: 110. 19 Chomątowska: 110. 20 Chomątowska: 6. 21 Chomątowska: 226. 22 Chutnik, 2014. 23 Chutnik, 2014: 184. 24 Chutnik, 2014: 206. 25 Chutnik, 2014: 185. 26 Chutnik, 2014: 203. 27 Chutnik, 2014: 203. 28 See Masada, 2016. 29 Masada: 606. 30 See Bolecka, 2012. 31 Bolecka: 37. 32 See Rakusa, 39,9, 2008. 33 Rakusa: 12. 34 A Polish poetic group whose members were also assimilated Jews. 35 See Sieniewicz, 2005. 36 Sieniewicz: 197. 37 Masada: 156. 38 Masada: 158. 39 Paziński, 2009. English version: Paziński, 2018. 40 Masada: 41. 41 Masada: 42. 42 Masada: 63. 43 Masada: 103. 44 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b; English version: Tulli, 2007a. 45 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 119. 46 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 72. 47 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 91. 48 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 159. 49 Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 153.

176  Sławomir Jacek Żurek 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Tulli, 2007a, 2007b: 153–154. Szewc: 72. Ostachowicz: 230. See Tulli, 2011. Ostachowicz: 230. Tulli, 2011: 20. See Tulli, 2014. Tulli, 214: 113. See Piwowarski, 2012. Piwowarski: 232. Piwowarski: 236. Rakusa: 154–155. Rakusa: 154. Ostachowicz: 98. Ostachowicz: 188. Ostachowicz: 230. Ostachowicz: 238. Ostachowicz: 165. Ostachowicz: 238. Ostachowicz: 215. Doktór, 2003, V. 1: 494. Ostachowicz: 238. Ostachowicz: 241. Ostachowicz: 232. Ostachowicz: 243. Ostachowicz: 159. Ostachowicz: 250. Ostachowicz: 250. Doktór, 494.

Bibliography Błoński, Jan, 1990. “The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto”, trans. Anna Zaranko, in: Antony Polonsky (ed.), My Brother’s Keeper? Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust, London: Routledge: 34–48. Bolecka, Anna, 2012. Cadyk i dziewczyna, Warszawa: Czarna Owca. Chomątkowska, Beata, 2016. Stacja Muranów, Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne. Chutnik, Sylwia, 2009. Kieszonkowy atlas kobiet, Kraków: Ha!art. Chutnik, Sylwia, 2014. W krainie czarów, Kraków: ZNAK. Doktór, Jan, 2003. “Gog i Magog”, in: Zofia Borzymińska and Rafał Żebrowski (eds.), Pol‑ ski słownik judaistyczny. Dzieje, kultura, religia, ludzie, vol. 1, i 2, Warszawa: Prószyński i S‑ka: 494–495. Gross, Jan Tomasz, 2000. Sąsiedzi: Zagłada żydowskiego miasteczka, Sejny: Pogranicze. Gross, Jan Tomasz, 2001. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jed‑ wabne, Poland, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Huelle, Paweł, 1987. Weiser Dawidek, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Morskie. Huelle, Paweł, 1991. Who Was David Weiser? Trans. by Antonia Lloyd‑Jones, London: Bloomsbury. Keff, Bożena, 2008. Utwór o Matce i Ojczyźnie, Kraków: Ha!art. Masada, Marta, 2016. Święto Trąbek, Warszawa: W.A.B. Ostachowicz, Igor, 2009. Noc żywych Żydów, Warszawa: W.A.B.

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah  177 Paziński, Piotr, 2009. Pensjonat, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Nisza. Paziński, Piotr, 2018. Boarding House, trans. by Tusia Dąbrowska, Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press. Piwowarski, Krystian, 2012. Więcej gazu, Kameraden!, Warszawa: W.A.B. Rakusa, Monika, 2008. 39,9, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo W.A.B. Sieniewicz, Mariusz, 2005. Żydówek nie obsługujemy, Warszawa: W.A.B. Szewc, Piotr, 1987. Zagłada, Warszawa: Czytelnik. Szewc, Piotr, 1999. Annihilation, trans. by Ewa Hryniewicz‑Yarbrough, Chicago, IL: Dalk‑ ery Archive Press. Tulli, Magdalena, 2007a. Flaw, trans. by Bill Johnston, New York: Archipelgo Books. Tulli, Magdalena, 2007b. Skaza, Warszawa: W.A.B. Tulli, Magdalena, 2011. Włoskie szpilki, Warszawa: Nisza. Tulli, Magdalena, 2014. Szum, Kraków: ZNAK.

Part IV

Family History, Family Memory

17 In Search of the Lost Tydors An Exercise in Holocaust Documentation Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz

Introduction Life has been likened to ever‑shifting sands, a changing landscape with few unde‑ viating characteristics. Rare constants may include names and numbers, particu‑ larly of close family members, and their dates of birth and death. But are they truly constant? Not always, it seems. This chapter focuses on how a constant or certainty can suddenly become a question mark. Based on the intricacies of Hol‑ ocaust documentation, it charts and analyzes how family stories and eyewitness testimonies of Holocaust‑related events, even concerning names and numbers, can clash with written sources that become accessible decades later. From the circum‑ scribed perspective, it is the story of how I tried to reconstruct my family’s past. In the broader sense, it is a case study of how contemporary historians cautiously navigate a never‑ending labyrinth of emerging evidence, during their Sisyphean attempt to reconstruct what actually happened. The Documentary Dilemma Ever since history became a scientific discipline, historians have debated the reli‑ ability and validity of oral versus written documentation. Oral documentation has been criticized for its inaccuracy, inappropriate representations, memory devel‑ opment and embellishment, vulnerability to manipulation, subjectivity, and data reliability (“and those are its good points!”, some die‑hard historians add). Alice Hoffman describes it as an imperfect window into imprecise recollections, com‑ promised by individual agendas,1 yet these issues exist in archival documentation as well. My college history teacher would remark how amazing it was that Euro‑ pean generals found time to fight the Great War, when after each battle they spent days revising protocols and correspondence they had previously drawn up! Oral history also has its benefits. Written sources describe an event’s mechan‑ ics, while oral documentation explains its emotional, human aspects, particularly with pre‑literate groups and children.2 Although it may contain factual errors, oral history often encompasses broader truths about subjective experiences.3 Lauded for its “humanizing potential” and democratization of history, it is extremely use‑ ful in cases of survival and flight, such as those discussed here. Used together with DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-22

182  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz archival research at the level of individual case studies, it enables us to view a story from different angles. Holocaust historians face unique challenges when utilizing oral history, often encountering documentation pools composed solely of oral testimonies and mem‑ oirs, some written long after the war. Saul Friedlander actively integrated wartime testimonies, particularly diaries, into his massive Holocaust history, to illuminate individual experiences.4 Lawrence Langer analyzed the complex layers of memory in postwar Holocaust testimonies, negating criticism about the imprecision of “re‑ awakened” memories or methodological concerns regarding the nature, location, and timing of interviews, or selection of informants.5 In our case study, however, most of these criticisms are irrelevant. The main piece of oral history that I utilize is not a postwar testimony or wartime written impression, but a chance, wartime, oral testimony from one eyewitness‑informant, imparted at a location that was no one’s choice, not long after the events described occurred. What about memory reliability or the informant’s willingness to be can‑ did? The informant apparently had no reason to alter or conceal facts, and the testimony’s recipient had no reason to be skeptical. Besides, in view of the general situation being described, at the time, it all made sense. How It Began Our story begins in Bochnia, 40 km east of Kraków, with a small Jewish family, mother, father, young son, and baby daughter. Like many Galician Jews during the Great War, they fled westward, settling permanently in Germany. However, the term “permanent” is often rather impermanent when it comes to Jews, and their sojourn in Germany was indeed impermanent. After Hitler’s rise to power, parents and daughter returned to Poland, where the father was offered a position managing a factory in Łodz. The position never materialized, and they were supported by their now‑adult son, who had married a woman from Bochnia, and was living in Frankfurt with her and their two children. In October 1938, the original nuclear family temporarily reunited under tragic circumstances when the Nazis deported 17,000 Polish‑born Jews to Poland (Po‑ lenaktion). For nine months, the son lived in Łodz with his parents and sister, while his wife and children remained in Germany. In March 1939, the children were dispatched to Belgium on a Kindertransport, and in late August, he was permitted to re‑enter Germany to await a British immigration visa that arrived only after the war’s outbreak, making it unusable. On September 9, 1939, he was arrested by the Gestapo, and sent to Buchenwald. In October 1942, he was deported to Auschwitz III (Buna‑Monowitz). On January 18, 1945, he left Buna on the infamous Death March, and was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. By then, he had lost his parents, wife, and sister. His children, rescued and sent to America in late 1941, survived. He met them there in 1946, eight years after last seeing them. Eleven years later he finally remarried, and eventually had another daughter who he named Esther Judith, after his mother and sister.

In Search of the Lost Tydors  183 A Clash of Sources Up to now there are no conflicting historical narratives. The man was my father, Chaskel Tydor, and he certainly knew the details of what he had experienced. Doc‑ uments in the Arolsen Archives (International Center on Nazi Persecution) confirm his recollections, listing names, dates, incarceration sites, and liberation locale.6 However that is only part of the story. The rest, more complicated to corroborate, concerns his family’s fate. Paths of Holocaust survivors are often easier to trace than victims’ journeys. Survivors can answer questions; victims are silent. When uncertain about specifics, survivors can provide an outline of their personal narrative; victims’ stories de‑ pend on eyewitness testimony, hearsay, or written documentation if it exists. When sources clash, survivors may recall details reconciling the contradiction; Victims lack that privilege. As the war progressed, most entering the Univers Concentrationnaire,7 were cut off from the outside world. When arrested by the Gestapo, Chaskel knew that his parents, (Yehuda) Leib and Ester, and sister Ides (Judith) Malka were in Łodz, his wife, Berta (Beile), née Greiwer was in Frankfurt, and his children Manfred‑­ Menachem and Camilla‑Zipporah, were in Brussels. Then everything changed. Berta smuggled a message into Buchenwald, informing Chaskel that their children were now in France and might be sent to America. Luckily, he was still in Buchen‑ wald; in Buna, smuggling messages to Jewish prisoners was almost impossible. There, incoming prisoners brought news, and if from one’s hometown, possible information about the fate of one’s friends or kin. During his incarceration in Buna, Chaskel learned of his family’s fate from a newly arrived prisoner from Bochnia. According to this prisoner, his mother had died in a Łodz ghetto epidemic during the winter of 1941. Subsequently, his father and sister reached Bochnia. So did his wife, who escaped from Frankfurt when warned of an upcoming roundup. In Bochnia, she assisted her brother, Salo (Solo‑ mon) Greiwer, whose workshops provided employment for 3,000 Jews. During the major action, on August 25, 1942, Salo, his parents, and uncles were arrested. Listed as “Tidor”, Berta was ignored, but seeing her parents arrested, she ran after them, was taken with them to a Bochnia prison, and then to Montelupich prison (Krakow) where all were shot.8 Chaskel’s father, hiding in the ghetto, was shot three days before Rosh Hashanah. His sister Ides Malka was deported, probably to the Szebnie forced labor camp, and murdered. “That night, I was in shock”, Chaskel recalled. “I wanted to ‘go to the fence’ (electrocute oneself). But my friends stayed with me, and eventually I realized I must live, in case my children were still alive somewhere”.9 Chaskel commemorated his family’s yahrzeits (death anniversaries) on two dates – the 27th of Elul for his father, and the tenth of Tevet (“Kaddish day” for Holocaust victims with unknown death dates) for the others. None had graves, none had tombstones. This absence of information continued the lacunae in his family story that became evident when I questioned him about ostensibly simple

184  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz matters that he couldn’t answer. His parents’ and sister’s dates of birth. The name and date of death of his older brother who died as an infant. Names and dates. Twice a year, on these dates, he would light a memorial candle and recite kad‑ dish for his loved ones. Although he visited Germany for work, he never returned to Poland. After his death I commemorated his family on those dates, but unlike him, I visited Bochnia, Łodz, and Auschwitz. By then, I was a Holocaust historian, yet I never questioned the stories he had been told about his family members’ fates. Then, in 2019, a good part of those narratives was suddenly turned upside down. A Changing Story In spring 2019, I took a late‑night break from writing, to surf the internet. Explor‑ ing new material on JewishGen, the global home of Jewish genealogy affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I entered ancestors’ names to see whether something new would pop up. Indeed, it did, with surprising results. When registering my paternal grandmother, Ester Tydor, there was an entry from the Piotrików Gubernia (administrative division) for Ester Tyder: a burial record from the Łodz cemetery dated February 20, 1941. Listed as 64‑year‑old daughter of “Chuma”, it included section, row, grave, side, and original cemetery register page number.10 Could this be my grandmother?! The one who my father was told had died in the Łodz ghetto during winter 1941? Name, age, and date fit, but her father’s name had been “Sinai”. A glance at the Łodz cemetery website showed an Estera Tyger buried in that section.11 Cemetery authorities subsequently claimed that Jewishgen or JRI (Jewish Records Indexing  –  Poland) often made mistakes when copying cemetery records into databases.12 On a lightning visit to the Łodz cemetery that summer, I saw a small metal plaque that Israeli army officers, on a volunteer com‑ memorative mission, had left on this grave and others. There, her name appeared as Ester Tyger, daughter of “Chone” (Yiddish diminutive of “Elhanan”), aged 64, who died on February 29, 1941. “How did ‘Chuma’ become ‘Chone’? How could she have died on February 29 when February 1941 had only 28 days?” I asked.13 Sloppy copying, claimed cemetery officials, reiterating that their records were in Latin, not Hebrew letters, while suggesting that I consult a genealogist to deter‑ mine if this was indeed my grandmother.14 Oral history regarding my grandmother’s place and year of death coalesced with written records, except for names: hers and her father’s. Were there two women with similar names, Estera Tyger and Ester(a) Tydor, both of whom died in the Łodz ghetto in 1941? How could I find out? As director of the Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar‑Ilan University, I had numerous experts in our “Poland Forum” with whom to consult. Dr. Kamila Klauzinska and Dr. Ewa Wiatr were es‑ pecially helpful in locating relevant documents, including my grandmother’s death certificate from the Łodz ghetto, showing that she died on February 20, 1941, aged 64.15 Her daughter, Ides Malka, whose particulars appeared on the certificate, gave the ghetto officials Estera’s date and place of birth (I hadn’t known the date), her parents’ names (Cińa and Chaja Laufer), and their ghetto address (I knew their

In Search of the Lost Tydors  185 pre‑war address). Looking at the flowery German and Polish script on the docu‑ ment, one could understand how Cińa metamorphosed into “Chune” and “Chuma”. Having a picture of my aunt as a young woman, I could imagine the newly or‑ phaned 29‑year‑old, providing information documenting her mother’s death, so that her father could arrange the burial. Were Estera Tydor (Tidor on the certificate, using German spelling) and Estera Tyger the same person? Was that my grandmother’s grave? Here was a clash be‑ tween two forms of written documentation (death certificate\cemetery listings), with oral history (the story my father was told about his mother’s death) – being the determinant. It became even more complicated as an extended “Tyger” family was buried in Łodz, and cemetery officials insisted that their records were correct. They even tried to convince me that my grandmother’s name might have actually been “Estera Tyger” and not Tydor!16 Finding answers involved a process of elimination requiring more written docu‑ mentation. An exhaustive search of the comprehensive Łodz ghetto death certifi‑ cates corpus unearthed no death of an Estera Tyger, nor did she appear on ghetto inhabitants, ration cards, or labor lists. The name appeared twice in official cem‑ etery records (not the website), as the 59‑year old daughter of “Jakub” (d. 1934), and as the 64‑year‑old daughter of “Chune” (d. 1941).17 However, Estera Tydor did appear on the list of ghetto inhabitants of Brunnenstrasse 16, along with husband Leib and daughter Ides Malka.18 Thus, the grave in the Łodz cemetery was almost certainly my grandmother’s. The first “lost Tydor” had been found! Even before examining the family’s wanderings after my grandmother’s death, archival searches unearthed another clash between oral and written histories. Be‑ fore his bar mitzvah, my father (b. 1903), learned of a nameless older brother who died as an infant. Why nameless? He probably died before his bris (circumcision) when he would have been named, my father thought. Why inform him only then? To explain his being exempt from the Passover eve “fast of the firstborn”, ­observed from Bar Mitzvah age. The story was corroborated by my father, ­Yechezkel (Chaskel) Shraga, being named after the Hassidic Rebbe (Rabbi) of Sieniawa, Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam. After losing her firstborn and not conceiving, my Hassidic grandfather took his daughter‑in‑law to this medical wonder worker for a blessing. “You will have a son”, Halberstam blessed her, and thus, my father, born almost five years after the Rebbe’s death, received his name. So stated family lore. Everything made sense until I found online documentation from newly scanned Bochnia archives about this ostensibly short‑lived infant. Apparently, my father’s older brother not only had a bris, and a name (Samuel), but lived for over 15 months (April 26, 1901–August 15, 1902).19 A second “lost Tydor” had been found, along with a new mystery. Could this “mystery” be based on imprecise listings? Archival dates sometimes reflect listing, not occurrence, but the dates were corroborated by detailed docu‑ ments (birth, death) in chronological order. Names can be imprecise, copied incor‑ rectly to genealogical websites, and one should always check original handwritten records, as I learned regarding my grandmother’s grave. The handwritten register listed Samuel, son of Leib and Estera Tydor, dying of gastroenteritis at a year and

186  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz three and 2/3 months. This information had been added later, in different ink, to his birth registration, which was so precise that it named his mohel (circumciser) and midwife.20 Everything appeared genuine. Questions and conjectures far outnumbered answers, as family oral history clashed with official written documentation and simple mathematics. The Sieni‑ awa Rebbe passed away in 1898, so he couldn’t have blessed my grandmother after Samuel’s death (1902) and before my father’s birth (1903). My grandparents were married for 14 months before the Rebbe’s death. Did they have had difficulty conceiving? Could that explain the blessing? Then why was Samuel not given the Rebbe’s name? Did my grandparents try to atone for that after Samuel’s death by giving it to their next son? Parallel to oral and written documentation, there is “per‑ formative history”. My father certainly saw his parents light a yahrzeit candle for Samuel and heard his father recite the mourner’s Kaddish annually on 12 Av. Did he never question who it was for? With my father’s generation gone, no one could explain the mystery emerging from the clash of sources. Or maybe they wouldn’t have known either, and my questions would have just bewildered them. My foray into the lost Tydors saga turned online data mining into my nightly pastime. Finding relatives, seven generations back, whose names I had never heard, I encountered additional mysteries where oral testimony clashed with writ‑ ten sources that often contradicted themselves. Why was my father’s grandfather Mendel (Menachem) for whom my brother was named, listed as “Aron” at birth (1843), “Mendel” at his Wisnicz wedding (1866), “Aron” at his official Bochnia marriage registration (1889), and “Mendel” at his grandsons’ births in Bochnia (1901, 1903)? Living with his grandparents, my father certainly heard his grand‑ father called up to the Torah when full names are used. Why had he never men‑ tioned “Aron” and only “Menachem‑Mendel”? Were both correct? Was one added later? Was one a “Jewish”, as opposed to German name, as Bochnia was part of the Austro‑Hungarian empire? More oral\written documentation mysteries, even before tackling contradictions between dates listed in various documents about the same person. Continuing the Search for Lost Tydors But I am digressing. Let’s return to the story of my father’s parents where our lost Tydors began. While my grandmother rested in peace in the Łodz cemetery, it appeared that there would be no peaceful resting place for my father’s father, sister, or first wife. Jews shot during\after an Aktion or murdered in Nazi camps, rarely received Jewish burials, but I could at least trace their paths to the Boch‑ nia ghetto. Here, too, I would encounter major conflicts between written and oral documentation. To chart those paths, I had to prove that all three were present in the Bochnia ghetto by 1942, when they were ostensibly shot or deported. It was impossible to reconstruct Berta’s journey from Frankfurt to Bochnia (her last mention in Ger‑ man documents was March 21, 1940),21 but she appeared in the January 1942 list of Bochnia Jews,22 and we have a photograph of her wearing an armband, with

In Search of the Lost Tydors  187 “Bochnia ghetto 1941” written in back in my father’s handwriting.23 Written and visual documentation therefore supported the oral testimony my father had been given about Berta being in the ghetto. But Leib and Ides Malka weren’t listed anywhere.24 Could they have entered Bochnia illegally, remaining unlisted while Berta’s family cared for them? How did they leave Łodz? There were stories of people leaving the ghetto after bribing David Gertler, head of the Jewish police special unit, but there were no documented cases of successful illegal escape. Looking for the last mention of my family’s presence in the Łodz ghetto to frame their timeline, I found written documents chronicling their wartime exist‑ ence: an index of their building’s inhabitants (Brunnenstrasse 16) from early 1941, listing Leib, Estera, and Ides Malka, including ages and birthdays,25 and a later listing with only Leib and Ides Malka, including birthdates, professions, and ra‑ tion card numbers.26 Updated until late 1942 to add tenants’ fates or whereabouts, Leib’s and Ides Malka’s names had been crossed out, with Ausg. (deported), and dates (May 1, 1942, and April 1, 1942) added respectively. As Łodz ghetto Jews were being exterminated in Chelmno, was that brief addition in German script ac‑ tually the timeline of their deaths? How could my grandfather have died in Chelmno, four months before his mur‑ der in Bochnia? Had my grandfather and aunt not reached Bochnia and spoken of my grandmother’s death, how would the informant have known of it? A clandestine letter from the Łodz ghetto to Bochnia? I ran through possibilities in my mind. Could the addenda be a blanket listing for all building inhabitants, chronicling a general roundup? Impossible, as each tenant’s fate was listed separately, some dead, others having moved, or been deported. With no corroborating documenta‑ tion from Bochnia, oral and written sources appeared unreconcilable. I resigned myself to another mystery. Once again Ewa Wiatr of our Poland Forum came to the rescue, referring me to an entry in the Chronicle of the Łodz ghetto from March 1942. “120 people left for Warsaw on March 25 […]. Everyone envied those who left for Warsaw of their own free will”.27 Why was this entry significant? Because archival documentation listed Leib and Ides Malka in that group.28 We had found our lost Tydors. Why were they included in this group? Had they paid Gertler to be included? With what funds? Had they reached Warsaw, somehow leaving that closed ghetto for Bochnia? Did they bribe someone enroute to reach Bochnia directly from Łodz? Like Berta’s journey, precise logistics were untraceable, but here was proof that they had left Łodz a week before Ides Malka’s supposed deportation to Chelmno. Finally, I attempted to chart the testimony’s chronology. The Bochnia ghetto’s liquidation began on September 1, 1943, when almost all remaining Jews were transported to Auschwitz or Szebnie, the only Bochnia transport to this labor camp. A small group from Szebnie reached Auschwitz two months later, and most likely included my father’s informant. Had he been from a group sent earlier to Płaszów, he wouldn’t have known about Ides Malka’s deportation. Knowing the unnamed informant’s identity could strengthen his credibility, but with my father and his generation long gone, few clues were left. Historians are often detectives, but serendipity also helps. Going through my father’s books while

188  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz writing this chapter, I found a letter from his Bochnia‑born, Frankfurt‑raised friend, Shimon Kempler, deported to Poland in 1938, who lived in the Bochnia ghetto until its liquidation. A Yiddish memoir describing the wartime travails of Moshe Zanger confirmed that Zanger and Kempler were deported together to Szebnie.29 Kempler’s letter to my father mentioned Auschwitz, and Kempler’s nephew in Brooklyn confirmed his being in Buna. I had a copy of a 1946 letter from a rab‑ binical court in the Bergen Belsen DP camp citing Kempler’s eyewitness testimony regarding the Greiwer family’s fate.30 Being a close family friend, it made sense that Kempler would have been in touch with Leib and Ides Malka in the ghetto. He could have witnessed Leib’s murder, and certainly knew whether Ides Malka had been deported with him to Szebnie. Could he have been the informant? Strongly possible, but even with oral testimony, that answer is based mostly on circum‑ stantial evidence and conjecture. There are many kinds of oral testimony, some are more definitive than others, and the best is backed up by eyewitnesses. With my father and the informant both gone – two eyewitnesses to that information ex‑ change who could have provided definitive oral documentation about the inform‑ ant’s ­identity – we will never know for certain. Thus, our story ends with answers, but also with unanswered questions. Discussion What does this case study teach us about the intricacies of navigating between oral history and written documentation? First, that not all oral history is created equal. Contemporary paradigms highlight typology, with different forms of oral history raising different sets of problems.31 One type of oral history, passed down for generations, lacks details or corre‑ sponding written sources, but no contradictory information exists. This form should be treated as unsubstantiated family legends, based on true historical events. Such is the story of my father’s unnamed ancestor having been the shamash [beadle] of the famous Hassidic Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk. Unverifiable, but historically, rather harmless. Another type of oral history is detailed, but corresponding written sources tell a tale that is incompatible with the oral one. Such is the story of my father’s name and the Rebbe’s blessing, in light of written documentation regarding his older brother. Unverifiable documentation discrepancies can include multiple (and con‑ tradictory) written sources, some substantiating and others invalidating the oral ac‑ count. Such is the discrepancy regarding my father’s grandfather’s name (Mendel\ Aron). Does written documentation take precedence? Not always. Written documenta‑ tion may be faulty (and not always harmless, such as the Central Organization of Jews in Germany’s card catalogue, erroneously listing my father as having died in Auschwitz on January 25, 1943),32 but oral history may also have been passed down imprecisely. Unless verifiable, this form leaves room for much conjecture and very little certainty.

In Search of the Lost Tydors  189 Other types of oral history clash with written documentation, until ultimately negated or corroborated by detailed written sources, or more definitive oral docu‑ mentation. Supplementary source verification, such as that necessary to find my grandmother’s grave in Łodz or validate my family’s journey to the Bochnia ghetto, often requires serious sleuthing, expert historical assistance, and good luck. If one has all three, the puzzle can at times be solved. Or at least part of it. A second lesson from this case study is a reminder of the powerful and complex connections between oral history and memory. Not just “memory based on biased interviewing”, “popular memory”, “collective memory”, “repressed memory”, or “ideologically based memory”, but simply the validity of memory, which, as we have seen, is not so simple at all. A final lesson is personal. If you still have living sources, utilize them. Gather as many names, dates, and facts as possible, even if you don’t know when you might need them. One day you may by grateful for your foresight. Had I met with my father’s newly found, elderly cousin 30 years ago when he first contacted me, he might have solved some of my mysteries. Today it’s too late. Don’t be lazy. Don’t put things off. Epilogue Not only did my search for the lost Tydors bequeath me archival lists of hundreds of Tydor ancestors; it also had a tangible outcome. At the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic, together with my half‑sister and half‑brother in America, I arranged for the Łodz gmina (Jewish community) to erect a tombstone on our grandmother’s newly found grave. On it, we also commemorated our grandfather and aunt, as we had on our father’s tombstone in Israel, where their mother is commemorated. Receiving pictures from the gmina, I send them to my siblings and wrote: Yesterday, in the Łodz cemetery, they put up our grandmother’s tombstone. Our beloved grandmother, who knew the two of you and loved you tremen‑ dously, (in her wildest dreams she would have never been able to imagine me existing…) now has a final resting place, and a stone with everything on it. Our father would have been very proud of all of this. We have closed a circle.33 One is not lost if someone is still looking for them. One is not obliterated if some‑ one still remembers them. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of the lost Ty‑ dors who live on in our hearts, our names, and those of our children. Notes

1 2 3 4

Hoffman and Hoffman, 1994. Clifford, 2018. Laub, 1992: 59–60. Freidlander, 1998; Friedlander, 2007.

190  Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz 5 Langer, 1993. 6 Undated Buchenwald registration card Chaskel Tydor, document ID 7317918, Deep‑ link: https://collections.arolsen‑archives.org/undefined; Auschwitz entry card Chaskel Tydor, October 17, 1942, document ID 7317920; Buchenwald Arbeintskommando card Chaskel Tydor incarcerated October 10, 1939, document ID 7317921; Document from Auschwitz, Chaskel Tydor, stating having been sent out of Auschwitz on January 26, 1945 Document ID 7317922; Buchenwald reception card Chaskel Tydor stating his be‑ ing picked up by the Gestapo on September 9, 1939, reaching a main prison September 16, 1939, Document ID 7317923; America Military Government of Germany Con‑ centration Camp Inmates Questionnaire Heinrich Chaskel Tydor listing incarceration dates, Document ID 7317927; Entry list to Auschwitz listing Chaskiel Tydor Document ID 130582465. 7 A term coined by Buchenwald survivor Rousette, 1946. 8 Dagmara Swałtek‑Niewińska, 2016: 255; Manchester Beit Din, June 28, 1965, copy of evidence no. 140 dated 16 Tevet 5806 (1946), listed May 29, 1946, given by Shimon Kempler of the Bochnia ghetto to a rabbinical court in Bergen Belsen DP camp regard‑ ing Salomon (Shloime) Greiwer and family’s fate. 9 Baumel‑Schwartz, 2009: 91. 10 https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_PIOTRKOW_ 0035622 and https://legacy.jri‑poland.org/databases/jridetail_2.php, retrieved on Sep‑ tember 1, 2022. 11 www.jewishlodzcemetery.org/EN/CemeteryPlan/Default.aspx retrieved on May 29, 2019. 12 Author’s correspondence with Gmina Żydowska, October 11, 2019. 13 Author’s correspondence with Gmina Żydowska, September 4, 2019. 14 Author’s correspondence with Gmina Żydowska, October 31, 2019. 15 Author’s correspondence with Kamila Klauszinska, October 17, 2019. https://legacy. jri‑poland.org/databases/jridetail_2.php retrieved September 1, 2022; Author’s corre‑ spondence with Ewa Wiatr, December 16, 2019, Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim, 953a, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi. 16 Author’s correspondence with Gmina Żydowska, October 11, 2019. 17 Photo of cemetery listing, author’s correspondence with Gmina Żydowska, November 3, 2019. 18 Prezełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w getcie Łódzkim, Brunnen, file 1018, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi. 19 Księga zgonów, Akta Stanu cywilnego izraelickiego okŗegu metrykalnego w Bochni, Fond 228 (sygn 30/228/0/‑/18), Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Bochni. 20 Akta Stanu cywilnego izraelickiego okŗegu metrykalnego w Bochni, Fond 228 (sygn 30/228/0/‑/3), Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Bochni. Początek. 21 Documents found in Divisenakten M\55\JM\29438 Hessische Hauptstaatsarchiv in Wiesbaden. 22 Verzeichnis der Juedischen Einwohner in Bochnia am 30. January 1942, Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem. 23 It is not known how the photograph survived the war. 24 Author’s correspondence with Dorota Szymczyk, archivist, Bochnia archives, June 1, 2020. Spis mieszkańców dzielnicy żydowskiej z 1942 r. (sygn. 30/1/938), Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Bochni. 25 Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim, 1018–1694, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, 26 Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim, 1019–1511, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, 27 The Chronicle of the Łodz Ghetto, 1986: 395.

In Search of the Lost Tydors  191 28 Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim, wykazy imienne osob ktore wyjechaly indiwidualnie z ghetta X.1940–X.1942, 21, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, microfilm L 18639. 29 Zanger and Fleischer, 2015. 30 See note 8 above. My thanks to Raphi Bloom of Manchester, Salo Greiwer’s grandson‑­ in‑law, who provided me with this letter. 31 Thompson, 2007. 32 Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, Arolsen Archives, ADeepLink: htpps:// collections.arolsen‑archives.org/en/document/12676789. 33 Author’s correspondence with Camilla Maas and Manfred Tydor, August 13, 2020.

Bibliography Baumel‑Schwartz, Judith Tydor, 2009. The Incredible Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boch‑ nia: The Story of a Galician Jew, Persecution, Liberation, Transformation, Sussex: Sus‑ sex Academic Press. Clifford, Rebecca, 2018. “Families after the Holocaust: Between Archival and Oral Docu‑ mentation”, Oral History 46, no. 1: 42–54. Friedlander, Saul, 1998. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution 1933–1939, New York: Harper. Friedlander, Saul, 2007. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Elimination 1939–1945, New York: Harper. Hoffman, Alice M. and Hoffman, Howard S., 1994. “Reliability and Validity in Oral His‑ tory: The Case for Memory”, in: Jaclyn Jeffrey and Glenace Edwall (eds.), Memory and History, Lanham, MD: University Press of America: 107–135. Langer, Lawrence L, 1993. Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Laub, Dori, 1992. “Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening”, in: Shoshana Felman and Dori Daub (eds.), Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, New York: Routledge: 57–74. Rousette, David, 1946. L’Univers Concentrationnaire, Paris: Éditions du Pavois. Swałtek‑Niewińska, Dagmara, 2016. “Salomon Greiwer i Warsztaty Miejskie w Bochni”, Zagłada Żydów: Studia i Materiały, 12: 242–261. The Chronicle of the Łodz Ghetto, 1986. vol. 1 (January 1941–May 1942) (Arie Ben‑­ Menachem and Joseph Rab, trans.), Jerusalem: Yad Vashem (Hebrew). Thompson, Alistair, 2007. “Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History”, The Oral His‑ tory Review 34, no. 1: 49–70. Zanger, Dovid E. and Fleischer, Benjamin Z., 2015. Farshpeiten di Schif, Brooklyn, NY: Self‑Published.

18 “My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them” History and Personal Memory Lea Ganor

Introduction “There is so much talk about memory because there is no more memory”, writes Pierre Nora, a French historian and intellectual, in his groundbreaking 1989 arti‑ cle. “Everything known today as memory […] is already history”. There are only “memory arenas” left: pieces of memory that are no longer alive and still not dead, like seashells left on the sand after the tide receded. Memory is one of the most topics spoken about in recent years, and our lives seem to be saturated with it: Pictures, holidays, meetings, museums, days of remembrance, political speeches, personal documentation of almost every moment using mobile phone cameras, and daily reminders from our past and more. Since I was young, I always wanted to know more about my Polish family’s roots, about their prewar past, and Holocaust experiences that were not spoken about at home, at least with me. Even the past wasn’t mentioned, although it was present in the atmosphere and Poland was part of it. Therefore, my memory from my childhood is connected to Poland through pictures, items, and conversations in Polish which, many years later, became part of my history. This chapter is an ego‑document that deals with my parents’ memories of Po‑ land during three periods (their prewar Polish childhood, their Holocaust memo‑ ries, and their postwar memories of Poland), how these memories were transferred to me and became my personal memories, and the way they affected my work with Poland. During my first visit to Poland, I felt as if I had already been there. Every visit evokes memories of my parents and my interest in Poland grows. This process led me to link historical material with a type of social activism, emphasizing the power of dialogue between Israelis and Poles. This chapter does not intend to be a psychological study, but rather to show how my personal memories of my parents are implemented in my work as the founder and director of the Mashmaut center where I deal with the Holocaust, the heritage of the Jewish people, and the history and culture of Polish Jewry. I will focus on the following questions: Is there too much memory in my work? Why do I feel obligated to implement the memory of the Holocaust among students, teachers, and the community in general and deal with the history of Polish Jewry, their present and future, in particular? Does my work in some way express Nora’s claims: Is DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-23

“My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”  193 there no memory at all in the present age, or am I producing something new like “memory arenas”, memory which is not memory but a new kind of history? Nar‑ rative history? My Family’s History – War Memories behind the Door I was born in Israel and named Lea after my great‑grandmother on my mother side. I know almost nothing about her, other than two facts: she was born in Poland and was murdered by the Nazis when she tried to escape them. I never knew my grand‑ mothers, they died before I was born, and hardly I knew my grandfathers – they died when I was very young. Most of the information about my parents’ childhood during the Holocaust comes from what I have heard from them as a child, listening from behind the door when they spoke in Polish among themself or with friends or relatives. My parents were born in Poland. When the war broke, my father Leon (Liebel) was 11 years old, and my mother Sara (Sonia) was six years old. Sara and her an‑ cestors were from Ostrołęka northeast of Warsaw where 4,300 Jews lived before the war and were almost one‑third of the population, Leon and his ancestors were from Włodawa, East Poland, where approximately 6,000 Jews lived before the war and were one‑third of the population. At the beginning of the war, Leon’s brother escaped to the Soviet border and was taken to the Red Army from which he never returned. Leons’ two sisters escaped to Siberia. Along with his parents and two other brothers, Leon was in the Włodawa Ghetto. Eventually, they were all taken to Adampol – a slave‑labor subcamp of the nearby Sobibor extermination camp. From there, they managed to escape to Siberia. I know nothing about their life in the ghetto when they managed to escape and what happened in Siberia, only that they were hungry and lived under horrible conditions. After the war, Leon, his par‑ ents, two brothers, and two sisters who were already married returned to Poland in 1946 among 200,000 Polish Jews who begin to return from the Soviet Union and were resettled in the former German territories, lower Silesia what is now western Poland. Leon and his family settle down in the city of Wroclaw. I do not know if they want back to Włodawa after the war to find someone, Leon never talked about it, and I never asked. Later I found out that it was not unique in my family not to talk with my parents about their past. It was a kind of silent agreement in families of Holocaust survivors with their children. I as other children of the survivors sec‑ ond generation usually become sensitive to this need of our parents. After World War II, Poland was restored to its independence, but as a com‑ munist successor of the Soviet Union. Wroclaw became a place of settlement and transit for 70,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union and the rest of Polish Jews who replaced the German‑Jewish community that disappeared from the city. The city was annexed to Poland and its name changed from Breslau to Wroclaw. It had four synagogues, a kosher restaurant, a mikveh, a Torah Talmud, printing houses and two cemeteries. My grandparents received information that all their extended family from Włodawa was murdered at the Sobibor death camp, which was close to Włodawa, and that no one survived. The only meaningful thing that survived

194  Lea Ganor was the beautiful synagogue where that my father used to sing as a child. The syna‑ gogue served the Nazis as horse stables. The tragic information about the death of all their extended family broke them. My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and died three months later, in 1950, and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Wroclaw. The only memory I have from her is her wedding ring which she received from my grandfather in Włodawa in 1920. My mother received this ring from my father on their wedding day in 1954, and I have worn it since my mother’s death 29 years ago. It is very meaningful to me because the ring symbolizes the connection between my grandparents, my par‑ ents, and the connection to their homeland, Poland, where they were married and where my grandmother’s grave is located. In 2015, I found her grave and broken gravestone in the Jewish cemetery in Wroclaw Poland. My mother Sara (Sonia) and especially her mother Hinka’s (my grandmother) personal history represents the tragedy of the Holocaust’s aftermath and the special difficulties that women had during those periods. Sara (Sonia) did not talk much about her childhood in Poland before the war. She was the youngest in a family of four children. She told me that her parents (My grandparents) were much in love although they married without their parents’ permission. Their families would not accept the social and financial gap between them. Later I understood how her strong love of my grandfather affected my grandmother’s life. My mother Sara (Sonia) spoke about the Holocaust with my father or relatives, emphasizing her fear of the Nazi bombs, the persecutions her family experienced, the tragic murder of her grandmother Lea (for whom I am named), their period of wanderings, the escape to Siberia, the separation from her father who was taken to serve in the Soviet army, her survival alongside her mother, sister, and two brothers in difficult conditions of hunger and cold. My mother (Sara‑Sonia) always spoke to me with admiration for her mother’s struggle for existence in protecting her children. In our conversations, she always emphasized how important it is for woman to be educated, independent in her ca‑ reer even she is married with a family. Later I understood why my mother empha‑ sized these points, as they paved my way in life. The crucial message they received about her father being killed during the war was very difficult for the children, and she particularly remembered that my grandmother was nevertheless obsessive in searching for her husband, still believing that he was alive. During the war in Si‑ beria, my mother Sara came down with arthritic diseases that weakened her heart. She later underwent open heart surgery to replace a valve at the age of 48 due to arthritis, explaining why she died young. After the war, my mother, her two brothers, her sister, and my grandmother remained in the Soviet Union. In 1954, my mother and grandmother returned to Poland and lived in Wroclaw. In the late 50s, they found out that my grandfather was alive, married with a child, and lived in Israel. My grandmother was broken after making this discovery. When they finally met in Israel, my grandfather begged her to forgive him and asked her if they could get back together, despite his new family and the fact that he was willing to divorce his second wife. My grandmother couldn’t accept his explanation that he survived the war in the Red Army and didn’t

“My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”  195 stop for looking for them, but he couldn’t find them. When he received incorrect in‑ formation that they were all murdered in Treblinka, he was devastated, met a lonely woman, a Holocaust survivor who also lost her family, married, and left on a ship to Palestine. The ship was deported by the British Mandate to Cyprus, where their son was born. My grandmother was very sad and angry to hear all of this, she couldn’t forgive him. She accused him of not looking for them enough. She couldn’t accept that she struggled to survive alone during the war and didn’t give up for looking for him. A short time after the meeting, she had stroke and died two weeks later. My grandparents’ case was indeed unusual, but not one of a kind. After the Holocaust, the problem of agunot (“Chained Women”, “Grass Widows”, married to husbands who had disappeared) arose and immediately after the war Rabbinical tri‑ bunals were established in certain Displaced Persons camps, such as Bergen‑Belsen, that made great efforts to reach witnesses to untie married women. It was enough to find witnesses who could testify that a person was taken in a shipment to some‑ where and it is known from people in that place the entire transport went to the crematoria, to free such a woman to remarry. The problem was with those men who were not sent to the extermination camps, but with cases like my grandfather, men who were deported to a place where some Jews survived, or who were taken to the Russian army, and so forth. In Judaism, there are legal loopholes allowing men to have a second wife under very specific circumstances, but no such leniency regard‑ ing women. Thus, whether in the DP camps or elsewhere, rabbis were particularly careful about allowing women to remarry when their husbands had not come back from the Holocaust, as without proof of the husband’s death, children of such a marriage would be illegitimate by Jewish law. As my grandmother did not ask to remarry, there was no need to bring witnesses or receive rabbinical sanction no at‑ tempts were made to permit her marriage from a Halachic point of view. One of the ways that Holocaust survivors in Israel found family members, in‑ cluding spouses who they had been unable to trace, was through the “Search Bu‑ reau for Missing Relatives”, a Jewish Agency department that was active between 1945 and 2002 with the purpose of helping Holocaust survivors locate lost relatives and acquaintances. For years, there were daily radio broadcasts with lists of names of new arrivals in Israel, and survivor requests for information about their missing relatives. Israel and Poland, Mixed Memories, Mixed Identity My parents married in Poland in 1954. My older brother was born in Wroclaw in 1955. In 1957, they immigrated to Israel during what was known as the “Gomulka immigration” (1956–1960), named after the Chairman of Poland’s Commu‑ nist Party, Władysław Gomułka, who was effectively the country’s leader. The “Gomulka immigration” was the first legal immigration from communist Poland to the state of Israel, after the Holocaust. About 35,000 Jews received permits to leave Poland, on the condition that they immigrate to the state of Israel only, and keep the arrangement a secret from Arab countries. Gomulka’s government demanded that the Jews sign a document revoking their Polish citizenship and that of their

196  Lea Ganor minor children. They received a transit document from the authorities, the “blue card”, which was not a passport but a temporary transit document allowing them to identify themselves at the border crossings. In 1958, my second brother was born. I was born some years later. My parents hardly spoke Hebrew with me, but rather Yiddish, which was my first language. Ever since I was a child, I knew that although my parents lived in Israel, loved the country, and were proud of their Jewishness, they missed Poland and had a mixed identity. I recognized this feeling not only at home, but outside as well, as the whole street where we lived was full of newcomers from Poland who immigrated during the “Gomulka immigration”. The adults’ conversations were always full of longing for Poland. My parents brought objects from Poland, some of which they had to later sell due to their economic difficulties as new immigrants in the young state of Israel. I learned a lot about my family’s life in Wroclaw from the items and the pictures. My parents spoke to us with nostalgia about the period when they were a newly married couple in Wroclaw. They may have put aside the past, but still had strong Jewish identity and connection to Polish culture. They were very active in the Jewish community. My father sang in a Jewish choir and they were financially comfortable. Neverthe‑ less, they felt antisemitism from the communist government and were afraid to express their Jewishness. They married in a secret Jewish wedding at home and registered as a couple in the municipality. My older brother was born at home, not at the hospital, because my mother was afraid to give birth to Jewish child at a Pol‑ ish hospital. My brother was secretly circumcised at their apartment in Wroclaw. My father always emphasized that they were Zionists and wanted to immigrate to Israel during the postwar years, but the communist regime didn’t let them leave. In Israel, my parents made great efforts to integrate in terms of work and daily life, but when speaking about language, culture, food, books, music, clothes, friends, manners, and music, they acted as if they were still in Poland. When I was younger, I couldn’t understand why my father would wear a suit and a tie during the hot summer. But my father was a “Polish gentleman” – that is what he called himself. Until his final days, he cared about elegance and good Polish manners. On Saturday and holidays, we children were dressed as if we were living in Poland, not like Israeli children who wore shorts and sandals. In addition, my parents were very hospitable, and our home was always filled with guests. They welcomed those who needed help and would open our home to them. My father kept repeating “I still remember myself as a refugee, so helping is my duty”. I was raised on statements that are familiar to children of Holocaust survivors such as not throwing away food, to be always carful where I go, “always take your identity card with you”, “you must be always kind”, “be a good person, help people if they need help, share with others”, “read books because a book is one’s best friend”, “If you read books, you are never bored”. I also heard statements that were common among my friends of Polish origins such as: “be educated, have good manners, dress well, be somebody”. Classic music was an integral part of my daily life, and my father always sang cheerful songs in Polish, Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew, until we visited his hometown in Poland in 1997.

“My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”  197 My parents’ story represents that of the Polish Jews who for the third time in their lives started everything anew. They began their lives in Poland, then again as refugees in Russia or deportees in Hitler’s ghettos and camps, and for a third time, in Israel. They never even complained. My father shared few memories with me about the pre‑war period. The first time he spoke about his life in prewar Włodawa was when I was in sixth grade and had to interview my parents about their childhood for a school project. He told me with admiration about his childhood in Poland and about his hometown Włodawa, describing the beautiful synagogue in where he used to sing in a choir. He empha‑ sized that even his non‑Jewish neighbors came to hear him sing, and spoke about it with much nostalgia. Years later, this memory led me to find out more about his hometown Włodawa, and especially why he used to emphasize that non‑Jewish neighbors came to hear him sing. I even discovered a church nearby that looked re‑ markably like the synagogue as both buildings were designed by the same person, the Italian architect Paweł Antoni Fontana. I first visited Poland with my father, brother, and a group of teachers in 1997, exactly 25 years after I interviewed my father about his childhood. I organized this group as the founder and director of the Mashmaut Center. My former sixth‑grade teacher participated in this group, bringing along the yellowed pages on which I had written about my father, following the interview I conducted with him about his childhood in Włodawa. When we arrived in Włodawa in April 1997, it was already dark. We had a difficult time finding the synagogue. The custodian opened the door for us: My father was right; it was the most beautiful synagogue I had ever seen. And then he stood in the middle and started singing songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, the ones he knew from his childhood which I never heard him sing, especially the sad song in Yiddish about the burning small shtetl that had been written by the Jewish poet Mordechaj Gebirtig in 1938 following the pogrom in Przytyk. It was the first time I heard him sing these sad songs. Neighbors came from nearby houses to listen. The entire group cried with excitement. This visit it was also the first time he spoke to me about things that happened during the Holocaust. That was when I understood that the memory of my parents’ Polish past had metamorphosed into party of my own memory and had become my history in the present. After this visit my father became incredibly involved in my work and he began singing Yiddish songs about the Holocaust and performed in Holocaust Remem‑ brance ceremonies I organized. Sadly, four years later, my father passed away. Since that time, Poland and Włodawa became a very important chapter in my life. “Arenas of Memory” – The Role of My Parents’ Polish Memory in My Life In 1994, three years before my breakthrough with Poland, my mother passed away and I initiated the “Mashmaut” center in Kiryat Motzkin, Israel. “Mashmaut” is a Hebrew acronym standing for “heritage”, “Holocaust”, “tradition”, “values”, and “rebirth” (of the State of Israel). Established with the cooperation of the Kiryat

198  Lea Ganor Motzkin Municipality and the Haifa District’s Ministry of Education, the Center aimed to teach students, teachers, and the entire community about the Holocaust, using informal methods, and to create international projects with teachers and stu‑ dents from Poland and Germany, while establishing educational exchanges. As an educator, I had long felt that the way we taught history was inadequate, that imparting facts was not enough to explain the complex Jewish past, which should be studied from a broader perspective. Today, the “Mashmaut” center spon‑ sors numerous meetings, seminars, and workshops, and has become a real platform for dialogue. It is a place where Holocaust survivors can tell their stories, and provides an opportunity for the younger generations to hear these stories. Topics discussed include the Holocaust and Jewish life before and after the war, human‑ ism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli and Jewish future. About 10,000 students visit the center every year. The Mashmaut center was not created in a vacuum. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were a growing number of children of Holocaust survivors (Sec‑ ond Generation) in the fields of art, music, history, and education, who began to com‑ memorate the Holocaust. These were the years of the Demjanjuk trial (1987), the second major trial of a Nazi in the State of Israel, the “March of the Living” (1988), and the first groups of organized school missions to Poland. Survivor testimonies were now being given a place of honor, corresponding to the change in Israeli at‑ titude toward understanding Jewish behavior during the Holocaust and Jewish re‑ sponses to the Nazi regime. These years cemented a process that had begun earlier, leading to the Holocaust becoming a very meaningful and part of Israeli identity. Like other creations of the Second Generation, the Mashmaut center reflects a certain degree of tension with the First Generation’s past, along with the desire to preserve continuity as a form of condolence to one’s parents on their loss. It is therefore no surprise that I initiated the center one week after my mother passed away. When my father passed away, I began leading groups to Poland to build an Israeli‑Polish dialogue. After the first trips, something unexpected happened: I started to speak Polish. I had a passive knowledge of the language but had never really learned it or spoken it. Everything I did, including my sudden command of the Polish language, was related to my activism in creating a partnership between my town, Kiryat Motzkin, and Włodawa, a partnership that took different forms. At times, I would talk about my family’s story from Włodawa. Students in Włodawa began learning about the city’s Jewish history. In recent years, the Włodawa synagogue, which had fallen into disrepair, is being renovated and serves as a museum about the city’s Jews. Włodawa is branded as multicultural city that emphasizes tolerance between three cultures: Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Pravoslavic Christianity that had been kept there before the war. Every year there is a three‑day Cultural Festival, with each day being dedicated to one of those cultures. In 2016, I visited Włodawa with my mayor’s delegation to sign a partnership agreement between the cities. It took place on the Jewish culture day of the festival in the synagogue. It was full of people, and a Polish singer was singing in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish just where my father had stood and sang when he was a child,

“My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn’t Leave Them”  199 and when we visited there in 1997. A chill gripped me, my thoughts took me to my father’s childhood, and I felt that his memories were mixed with mine. I had to pinch myself to return to reality, to look around and realize that my father’s memories had returned with me, especially his memories about relations between Jews and Poles in his hometown. This issue became important to me, and I am trying to explore Polish‑Jewish relations and discover stories of survivors from Włodawa County. I find it important to build relations between Poles and Israelis, to change images and erase stereotypes on both sides. When Polish pupils and teachers visit the Mash‑ maut center, they engage with Israelis in workshops, their perceptions of Israelis and Jews change, and numerous stereotypes are debunked. At the beginning, young Poles and Israelis write down what they think about each other. At the end of the project, they read their first notes and see how much their feelings have changed over the course of a few days. It is a wonderful experience to see how easily they integrate and how much they connect. They form lasting bonds and maintain contacts with each other long after they leave. Similarly, young people from Israel also visit Poland. In the course of my work I often face animosity toward Poland among members of the Second Generation and survivors, and the same feelings among young Poles regard‑ ing Jews and Israel. The issue is still very tangible despite the fact that so many years have passed. There are also members of the second and third generations who are forbidden to go to Poland because of the attitude of their parents or grandparents. I note is a difference in attitude between survivors who were children when they left, those who did not go through camps and more, and the adults who went through difficult things there in the war. There are Polish Jews with a more positive attitude toward Polish culture while the attitude toward Poland itself as a country is negative. There are different options, and this depended on the experiences that Jew had, his age during the war, and his memories of the war, as well as his experi‑ ences in Poland after the war. My activity and command of the language is burdened with an additional factor. Not only does one hear good things, but also things one would rather not hear. I have a rule: do not be surprised at anything, be ready for any situation. During one of my school visits to Poland, the teachers told me directly: do not enter this class‑ room, there are students who say bad things about Jews and Israel. I went there even more willingly. I talked about Israel, about the Jews, about the history and memory of the Holocaust that still plays in our consciousness. After the lesson, the teacher said: the student who said the worst things about Jews asked you the most questions. I felt my work makes sense. I believe that changes take place thanks to ordinary people and their person‑to‑person contacts. One cannot think about the future without knowing what happened in the past; memories of the past have a significant impact on who we are. Epilogue – Following a Picture and Memory Five years ago, I found some pictures of my father standing with a group near the Rapport memorial in Warsaw, and in the background of the picture were the ruins of Warsaw. It looked like the picture was from 1948. The Rapport monument was

200  Lea Ganor created by the artist Natan Rapoport, in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The monument, placed in the center of the old Jewish ghetto in the city of Warsaw, was inaugurated on April 19, 1948, on the fifth anniversary of the uprising’s out‑ break. A replica of the monument is in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem where it symbol‑ izes the legacy of the Holocaust and heroism. I wondered about this picture and found out from a woman Holocaust survivor who knew my father from Wroclaw that they had performed with the Jewish choir in 1948 during the ceremony when the Rapport Memorial was inaugurated. I couldn’t find other references for this information. This information made the picture come alive for me and motivated me to create a special joint project with the Warsaw Ghetto Museum for the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The project included a joint performance of two youth choirs, Israeli and Polish, at the ceremony near the Rapoport memorial on April 19, 2023, and to enable the youngsters from both choirs to get to know each other, to have discussions, workshops, trips in both countries, joint rehearsals, and joint per‑ formance in both countries. The organizers chose the song of the Jewish Partisans “Never Say”, written in Yiddish by Hirsch Glick in May 1943 in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto, to be sung in three languages: Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish. My father used to sing this song at the ceremonies on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The moment that both choirs performed together in Poland at the ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was an unforgettable historical moment. For me, it was once again a mixture of memory creating history and reality, a product of my work at the Mashmaut center with youngsters from both countries. In fact, this event expressed the creation of new memory and even new history. At these moments I felt how much of my work is imbued with memory and understood why I feel obligated to my work. As Nora claimed: “Everything known today as memory […] is already history […] There are only “memory are‑ nas” left. I feel that my “memory arenas” produce a new kind of history which is based on my parents’ memories and connections to Poland. This article is dedicated to my parents who raised me with much love, human values, and made me the per‑ son I am. May their memory be blessed!

19 Dis‑location Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town Ruth Weyl Geall

Introduction My research describes the 20th‑century history of a town in Silesia that was called Reichenbach in Germany before the Second World War, and is now Dzierżoniów in Poland. The Jewish history of the town is unusual. Before the war, as the Ger‑ man town of Reichenbach with 20,000 inhabitants, there were never more than 150 German Jews. However, postwar, in 1947, there were 17,500 Polish Jews, and it was called the “Polish Jerusalem”. Since 1986, Dzierżoniów, like much of the rest of Poland, is almost completely Polish Catholic, with little of its industrial, social, or cultural history remembered. Migration challenges still continue, however, with about 1,000 Ukrainian refugees. This chapter is less about the results of my research into the town’s recent his‑ tory and more about my motivation and journey of discovery. I will describe: (a) why I undertook the project, (b) the “research” journey, (c) the material collected so far, and (d) what I hope to achieve. I am not a historian. I had a career as a social‑care researcher, planner, and manager in London, working for London authorities and social‑care charities. I retired in 2014 and began volunteering on some local history projects, interviewing people from various London communities – people with disabilities, refugees, and members of the LGBTQ+ communities. My Motivation What made the town of interest to me is simple: Reichenbach is the town in which my German Jewish father grew up, but about which I knew almost nothing. I think my father’s survival technique was to block out many of his German childhood memories. As he left Germany in late 1937 and most of his immediate family were also able to leave in 1939, I think he felt guilty for his good fortune and would never have described himself as a survivor. He first went to England alone and was soon joined by his parents and sister in 1939. After a spell of internment for the males (including him at 16), they then obtained visas and migrated to the US. I knew he had lived in Reichenbach before the war; however, he mostly buried himself in his work as a scientist, becoming a professor of oceanography. He never DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-24

202  Ruth Weyl Geall lost his heavy German accent or love of German food, but I never heard him speak German. Sometimes, visiting German scientists would come to our house and they would speak to him in German, but he always answered in English. We were a Jewish family: my mother, born in America, was from an orthodox Polish/Russian family who arrived in the US at the turn of the 20th century. My fa‑ ther, a scientist, was not religious, and my mother was not a believer either. We cel‑ ebrated only Hanukah, ate European Jewish delicacies, and sometimes discussed Jewish traditions and heritage. The fact that my mother did not share my father’s background, language, or experiences enabled him to avoid discussing his past. When my father aged and began to lose his memory, he decided to write a family history. It is confused and unfinished, but it describes Reichenbach, tells of the forced sale of his grandfather’s factory, names some family members, and describes some deaths. Like his scientific writing, it is written factually, with little emotion. He does not tell of his own experiences of antisemitism, of being forced out of the local school, of travelling alone to England, of internment, or any effects on himself. The stories only come more to life during the war when he was in the US Army (as an interpreter), and later. He wanted those of us who read it to know and appreciate each other, and the happy experiences he had had in later life. As his dementia got worse, I worried that it would bring back upsetting events from his past, but this did not happen. Near the end of my father’s life, when his dementia had progressed, we were driving with my parents through a small town in the UK, and my father suddenly asked with a big smile, “Is this Reichen‑ bach?” At first I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was having a happy memory. My project in Poland began in 2015 when I received an e‑mail from an Israeli stranger. He was researching the history of the Jews who had lived in Reichen‑ bach and came across my maiden name, Weyl, a number of times. He looked for descendants in the hope that they could help his research and found me. Hoping to help him, I began by looking through my father’s papers and piecing together our family’s history. I phoned and e‑mailed family members I had never met, or not seen in decades, and I found new material including home‑movie footage, let‑ ters and photographs, and heard stories about the family’s past that I did not know. I also discovered material about the town’s industrial past, a site of the German industrial revolution. My father’s family were textile‑mill owners. For me, one of the most poignant items I found was the German Bible my father was given for his bar mitzvah. As I have already stated, my father was a scientist and adamantly anti‑religious, yet there, amongst the other books in his study, was the Bible that was given to him for his bar mitzvah in the synagogue in Reichenbach in May 1937, which dates my father’s departure to late 1937. The synagogue survived the war, one of only three in Silesia to do so. The syna‑ gogue was founded in 1875 and I was told that there was going to be a celebration for the 140 years of the synagogue in 2015, to which we were invited. For that event, I put together a book of all the information I had about my family who had lived in Reichenbach for four generations and presented it to the synagogue, along with the German Bible my father had received for his bar mitzvah.

Dis-location: Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town  203 We travelled to Dzierżoniów and visited some sites associated with my father’s family, and then were told by my Israeli contact about the post‑war Jewish history of the town, the “blossoming of the Polish Jerusalem”. This post‑war history to me was totally unexpected, and I realised how little I knew about the history of Poland and the major post‑war political changes, migration, and turmoil that took place in this central European region. Back in London, researching in a range of Jewish archives and libraries, I found how little information there was about post‑war Pol‑ ish Jews in Poland. What I did not know then, but soon learned, was how little the people who live in Dzierżoniów know about the town’s past, and how interested they are to discover more. Almost everyone living in Dzierżoniów after 1947 was a new arrival. While the medieval walled town still encloses its original German town square, town hall, churches and the synagogue, there is little known of its industrial or multi‑cultural past. I decided what I wanted to do was to tell the story of the town’s recent past. Having enjoyed carrying out oral histories in London, and believing these were an effective way of conveying the emotion related to historical events, I felt this was the best way to capture the stories of what took place. My objective was to create a local exhibition of the history through the personal stories of current and past residents. There was, however, a major barrier: I only speak English, and there was clearly a need to carry out interviews in German, Polish and Hebrew. (I later also needed Macedonian!) Therefore to begin with, the project was only a dream. My Journey Initially I did not think my dream was achievable, but I was given a few names and phone numbers of some German Jews who had lived in Reichenbach before the War and now lived in the UK and US. I began meeting them by phone, Skype, and in two cases in person, and writing up their stories. I also began reading Polish 20th‑century history and attending courses on that history. Then I had my first lucky break. Through one of the people I interviewed, I discovered that the town of Crewe in the UK was twinned with Dzierżoniów and that a delegation of senior town officials was coming for a visit in a few weeks. I begged the organiser to let me do a presentation, and I spoke to the group from Dzierżoniów about the Jewish community before the war, showing them pictures of the pre ‑war factories and town that I had found in my family photo albums. I had assumed that they would know about the town’s industrial history, but they did not. (Only more recently have I realised that one reason was because the industrial machinery was taken to Russia shortly after the war, with little remaining.) I also talked about the pre‑war Jewish history: again, while they knew there had been a post‑war Jewish community and were keen to know more about it, they did not know there was a pre‑war community. (Even the date on the synagogue had been changed post‑war to imply that it was built then.) At the end of my talk, I suggested we might do an oral history project together. They liked the idea and asked whether secondary‑school pupils could be involved in doing the interviews, and I agreed we could do that. About six months later,

204  Ruth Weyl Geall they invited me to Dzierżoniów. A colleague and I went, and the town paid for our accommodation, food, local transport, and a guide/interpreter. They set up meet‑ ings at the school, with the local historical society and the local press, and a radio‑ station interviewed us. The next part of the journey involved gaining new knowledge and skills. I have always loved going to museums and exhibitions, but I began to approach this with a critical eye, and it became an excuse for visits to museums and exhibitions that I might not have normally gone to, to study their layout and impact. I also attended curator tours when they were offered, and took courses in biographical writing, photographic story‑telling, curating, and museum design. In the UK, I began visiting Polish centres, exhibitions and talks, as well as Pol‑ ish Jewish talks and groups. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I began collecting people who might help and advise me on my journey and the project: a German oral historian and photographer who carried out the German interviews; new Polish friends who advised me and carried out interviews; and via e‑mail, I met academic researchers at a range of universities. My Israeli mentor (the man who originally e‑mailed me) carried out interviews in Hebrew in Israel, prior to my follow‑up meetings in person with the former residents in Israel. A tour guide in North Mac‑ edonia, with a Masters in Rural Sociology, carried out research and interviews there for me. My contacts at various universities in Poland and the US advised me on books and databases to consult. I also found some autobiographical accounts, self‑published books and diaries, and worked with the Wiener Library in London on some material. The project was also an opportunity to travel. It was a joy to combine holi‑ days with oral history collection opportunities, which gave a special depth to our holidays. Our travels included to Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Israel, and the US. We had plans to go to North Macedonia but were stopped by COVID‑19, so most of the interviews there were carried out by my local contact, plus a few by myself on Zoom. In addition, there were some unrelated side‑benefits and stories. In the process of doing the research, I found new relatives (unrelated to the research project itself) and travelled to France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland to meet and learn more about them. We also connected with old friends now in Israel whom we had not seen in 40 years, and made new friends tangentially connected to our trav‑ els and the project. Much of the cost of the project was borne by my husband and myself, but this was not much more than we would have spent anyway on holiday travels and personal educational pursuits. Work to Date There are now over 50 interviews in five languages. The interviews were all re‑ corded. The interviewees were asked to bring old photographs with them, which were scanned, and a portrait of the individual was taken. They all gave written per‑ mission for their interview and pictures to be used. The recordings are each about two to three hours long. Each has been written up in summary form in English,

Dis-location: Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town  205 about 2,000 words in length. Where possible, the summary was retranslated into the language in which it was recorded so that the individual could check, change and approve it. The recordings will be archived in the Wiener Library in London and, if desired, in the Dzierżoniów museum archive. The German recordings have already been archived in the Silesia Museum in Görlitz. Some additional material came from memoirs, archive collections, diaries, and self‑published autobiographies. The collection includes: German Jews – Reichenbach pre‑war; Germans – Reichenbach pre‑ and post‑war; Reichenbach concentration camp prisoners (a sub‑ camp of Gross‑Rosen); Polish Christians post‑war (many living there today); Polish Jews post‑war (both those who left for Israel in the 1950s and for the US and Scan‑ dinavia in 1968); and Macedonian‑speaking refugees from the Greek Civil War. The stories include Poles (both Jews and Christians) who had hidden in Poland or come back from exile in Russia (many in Siberia). Others came from regions that had been in pre‑war Poland but were no longer in Poland after the War, or they had left devastated areas in Poland with no employment opportunities. In addition to the German Jewish stories of the years during the war, there are terrible stories of the forced migration of Germans from Dzierżoniów post‑war, alongside memories of Polish migration to the town. Most of the oral histories have been collected from people who were young during or just after the war, so they highlight the period of the 1950s and 1960s Communist regime, now an era that is rather neglected by historians. There are also the stories of refugees from the Greek Civil War who settled in Dzierżoniów and later went to North Macedonia. The town has very few people with a family history of living there before the war. I am now working with museum designers and sound composers (with British, German and Polish backgrounds) who hope to create a “sound sculpture” of the voices from the recorded interviews in a variety of languages. The Dzierżoniów Cultural Centre is working with me and is keen to show the exhibition. We are in the process of working together to apply for funding, although this is not easy at the moment. My Objectives My main objective is to enable a broader knowledge and wider understanding of the history from the perspective of individuals. Telling the history though oral ac‑ counts adds a human dimension to the stories of journeys, traumas, and successes. While there are many traumatic memories, there are also happy ones of the beauty and life of the place: the town square, the surrounding mountains, the schools, thea‑ tres, community centres, summer camps, and holidays. The town needs celebrating for its role in the education, particularly in science and technology, of a generation of engineers and technicians (including women) who, through the diaspora, helped to develop industry and science across Eastern Europe, Israel, and beyond. Another objective is to enable current and former residents to share their life experiences, especially with their families. We know from the interviews that many because of the traumatic nature of these, have not done so but want to. Telling their stories as part of the research seems to have has made them more willing to do so.

206  Ruth Weyl Geall The people interviewed have had rich experiences, which in part may have been traumatic, but also include their lifetime achievements. Telling their own, and un‑ derstanding the stories of others from different perspectives, may also help them to deal with feelings of anger at injustice, and may alleviate some of the emotional cost of their own past. As mentioned above, there are now about 1,000 refugees from Ukraine living in Dzierżoniów. I hope that being able to see this exhibition and learn how others lived through their experiences as refugees will give them hope to look beyond their current situation to a brighter future ahead. I hope to carry out these objectives by creating an exhibition in Dzierżoniów, in addition to a website and book or booklet of the stories. Ideally, I hope to translate the material into four languages: English, Polish, German, and Hebrew. If possible I would like to show the exhibition in Germany and Israel and have had discussions about this, but it all depends on funding. Spending a number of years working on this project is in some way to person‑ ally reclaim an aspect of the town for myself and my family, to be able to say, “we were here too”, and that the town is part of our heritage and story. I found my great‑grandfather’s the house in Dzierżoniów, where my father grew up. When I first saw it I was reminded of the story of Ishi, a Native American who in the early years of the 20th century (!) was the last member of his tribe, all the rest having been massacred. An anthropologist with whom he lived helped to reha‑ bilitate him to the semblance of a normal life. One day, the anthropologist took him to a museum to see Native American artefacts, to show him how well regarded his culture was, and there in one of the cabinets he saw his mother’s jewellery, which she had been wearing when she was murdered. The house is now the town’s music school, which is a good use for the property. It has recently been refurbished with EU funding, and I have been welcomed in to see around it, tell them about its history, and have had the pleasure of hearing some of the students and staff play for me. During the depression after World War I in Germany, it is said that my great‑grandfather continued to employ his workers despite the slump in the busi‑ ness. He used some of these workers to build this art‑deco style house. Along with the textile factory, this would have been a way at that time of securing the future generations of his family within the life of the town. My father would have been the male successor to this legacy, but we now live in a very different world. Of course, this “inheritance” was lost, but it was my fa‑ ther’s gain, to be free to study science, and for our family to live in a more vibrant and multi‑cultural environment and to pursue a variety of different careers. It is the town that has lost out, not just from my grandfather and father’s generations, but also from the other German and Polish residents that lived there and were forced or chose to leave. I have little more to learn about my family in Dzierżoniów, but I can and would like to help the town understand its past, and to enable them plan and shape a future that is more understanding of the range of cultures and perspec‑ tives from its past, and open to building broader perspectives for a more inclusive multi‑cultural future.

20 My Jewish Kraków Michał Niezabitowski

I have to admit that this text was not easy to write. I wrote it in conflict character‑ istic of a scholar who suddenly finds himself in the realm of personal memories. In 1986, I graduated from the Faculty of History at the Jagiellonian University, believed by some to be the best one. I had good teachers. One of the main rules that they taught me was the rule of objectivity in academic work – or at least striving to achieve it. Historians should be detached from the described and interpreted reality. They have to chronicle it dispassionately and avoid relating personal experiences. The further historians, as human beings, remain from what they describe as schol‑ ars, the better it is for science. And yet, as a historian, I was invited to write about my own experiences of working to uphold Jewish heritage, especially to commemorate the painful history of the Shoah. Those experiences are connected to my city, Kraków. That is why I entitled this essay “My Jewish Kraków”. If my chapter is to describe my own experiences, it must be personal. Neverthe‑ less, I would like it to be as impartial as possible. The only way to achieve this im‑ partiality is to attempt to describe not only my own experience, but also that of my generation, which I can approach as a research problem. I write of the “post‑war” generation; the people who were born at the height of the Polish People’s Republic, in an autocratic country, ruled according to real socialism. We belong to the genera‑ tion that is now middle‑aged. Our parents, as children or teenagers, lived through the Second World War. We were raised on their stories, which brought fear and strengthened anti‑German and anti‑Russian sentiments –characteristic elements of the Middle European Nations’ collective memory. What strongly influenced my own experience was the vast age difference be‑ tween my parents. My father, Andrzej Niezabitowski (1922–1998), was a young man during the Second World War and actively participated in the anti‑German resistance movement. My mother, Anna Niezabitowska (1938–2019), was a small child during that time. That is why my heritage is the sum of a child’s fears and a young Home Army soldier’s determination. Because of the decisions of the great powers, made in Yalta (1945) indepen‑ dently of Poland, it was counted amongst Soviet Russia’s “allies”. This influenced the ideological and educational profile of our upbringing. Since kindergarten and primary school, we were subjected to aggressive anti‑West and anti‑American DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-25

208  Michał Niezabitowski propaganda. Despite this, many of us grew up opposing this attitude. Anti‑Soviet beliefs were mostly present in the big cities, and my city, Kraków, belonging to the intellectuals and artists, was perceived by the communist power as particularly dangerous. Yet, what must be objectively admitted is that our worldview and perspective was influenced by the duality of the official state propaganda and the unofficial sources of information, such as family, the Catholic Church, “Free Europe” radio, and the still existing underground opposition. I was part of the latter one as a stu‑ dent, bringing persecution and trouble on myself and my family. The worldview that we had behind the “Iron Curtain” was influenced by global politics. The alli‑ ance between Israel and the USA caused the Polish media and political narration to present Israel as an opponent, one that supported the USA’s imperial business. After the Six‑Day War (1967), the anti‑Israel propaganda in Poland began to re‑ semble antisemitic hysteria. The antisemitic atmosphere, deliberately fuelled by the communist power, became ever more present in the country, similarly to the period before the Second World War. Consequently, over 20 000 Polish Jews left the country in 1968. One of them was Józef Lewandowski (Lipszyc, 1923–2007),1 an eminent historian, descended from an orthodox Jewish family in Konin, my father’s sister’s husband. He settled in Sweden and his academic work played a special role in my own growth. It is not the goal of this chapter to describe the events of 1968. I only wish to explain in what kind of a country and at what times my generation was raised. However, as a Pole, I must devote a part of my text to the difficult problem of an‑ tisemitism. When I was a boy, imputing antisemitism to my nation was something that brought me great pain. I rebelled against it. It might be due to the fact that my family never yielded to such a mindset. After many years, I can recognise that it is thanks to my father, Andrzej Niezabitowski. He came from an intellectual Lviv family. In the stories that he told us, Jews appeared frequently, always shown with a trace of sympathy. They were often to be found in the marketplaces or as passers‑by, on their way to the synagogues. My father liked the Jewish sense of humour and also appreciated anecdotes that highlighted Jewish cleverness and wisdom. His father and my grandfather, Czesław Niezabitowski (1888–1961), was a left‑wing member of the People’s Party, highly engaged in politics. During the Sec‑ ond World War, he was a representative of the Polish government, which temporar‑ ily functioned in London2 after Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany. Whereas in my family there was a tradition of respect for patriotism, there was also hostility towards all nationalist movements. There was also distance towards the Catholic Church. Grandfather’s heart was on the left side and he saw each “anti….ism” as foolishness. My father went to school with many Jews, and the stories about them were ordinary – they were his friends from the sports grounds or from trips to the cinema. My father did not witness “ghetto benches”. Can I characterise my father’s attitude towards Jewish traditions in a concise and accurate manner? Towards Jewish heritage? I think so. It was both respect and distance. More “next to” than “together”. I also think that the attitude of most of Polish urban intelligentsia towards Jewish heritage can be characterised this way.

My Jewish Kraków  209 Things looked differently from the perspective of my mother’s environment. She came from a small village near Żywiec, a small town in the mountains. For her mother (my grandmother), the Catholic Church was the only point of reference. My grandmother was very religious, and she had an important influence on my upbringing. I am searching through and “digging” in my childhood memories to find the moment when Jews first appeared in the narration of this side of my family. The only thing that I can remember is a Nativity Scene in the local church. A Jew was present in it, stereotypically dressed in a black rekel (Hassidic coat), with a long beard and payot (sidelocks). His attitude towards the newborn baby was rather cautious. But he was more similar to king Herod, who was plotting against the child’s life, than to the shepherds who bowed to it. The second image is the Holy Sepulchre, equally ceremonially mounted during Easter. In this portrayal, Jews were explicitly the antiheroes, responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Such an interpretation was unquestioningly accepted by the highlanders and, more widely, the Polish village. As a history student and a mature man, I had to confront these family codes with the reality of historical sources. In this light, I had to admit that strong antisemitic tendencies were present, especially in the villages in Galicia and East and Central Poland. These attitudes were taken up by the newborn right‑wing national political parties and during the interwar period (1918–1939) that brought a wave of terri‑ ble antisemitism. As a history student, I had to admit that the stereotype of wide‑ spread antisemitism, often ascribed to my nation, had its source in history. At the same time, my conviction grew stronger that each stereotype, even the one whose genesis is explainable, distorts reality and truth, and these stereotypes are mostly shaped by radical attitudes. Even though I read antisemitic slogans used by the Pol‑ ish right‑wing parties in the political narration before 1939, I cannot agree with the accusations that as a Pole, I took in antisemitism “with my mother’s milk”.3 What is true about part of Polish society is not true about its entirety. What I can and must do is show that the noisy and harmful minority that manipulates the masses does not express the truth about me and my country. The war and post‑war fates brought my parents to Kraków – my father, who between 1944 and 1955 was a prisoner in labour camps in the Soviet Union, and my mother, much younger than he was, who came here to study Polish literature. That is where they met and in 1958, married. That is how I came to this world in 1962. Growing up in Kraków, I did not know much about the heritage of Kraków Jews. Through the eyes of a child, I again looked at the figurines of Jews in Kraków Christmas Cribs and wooden figurines of Jews bouncing on springs at the Emaus fair in the Kraków district of Zwierzyniec. In this urban narration, they were a harmonious part of the cultural landscape of the city. The Jew in Kraków Cribs was not part of the story about the murderous king Herod. He was part of the procession to the Holy Child, alongside kings, citizens, and peasants. The general knowledge about the fact that Jews lived in the Kazimierz district was common amongst us, the youth growing up and attending schools in Kraków. Yet, it did not generate fascination with Jewish culture and a will to explore Kazimierz – it generated ap‑ prehension. It was directly connected with post‑war migrations in Poland.

210  Michał Niezabitowski After the Jewish population was murdered during the Second World War, Kazimi‑ erz became settled by new inhabitants, mostly poorly off and of the social margins. Therefore, when as a teenager whose thirst for life, knowledge, and experiences was great, I started to explore the city on my own, my mother would warn me: “don’t go to Kazimierz, it is a very dangerous place!”. In the summer of 1976, I disobeyed her. I was beaten up near Gazowa Street and returned home with bruises, but with‑ out my wallet. My mother was right. Kazimierz in those times was a bad spot. It was also a peculiar place. Not only because it was extremely neglected and inhab‑ ited by unfriendly people. The architecture, the relicts of illegible inscriptions in an unknown language on the walls, tall synagogues supported by massive buttresses –  were all unlike anything that I knew from other districts of Kraków. Various circumstances made it so that after I had finished elementary school, I continued my education at the VI High School, located in the Christian part of Ka‑ zimierz, on Skałeczna Street. The Jewish part of this district was located 300 meters from my school. And so, for the next four years, I spent time on the border of the Christian and Jewish worlds. I had a chance to get to know the Jewish world, but I did not take it. Because of my unfortunate experience, I was afraid to enter Jewish Ka‑ zimierz. It was completely different from the tourist destination that we know today. And yet, in those times something unexpected and important happened. In Feb‑ ruary 1979, I was to spend the winter break with my friend in the Polish mountains. When I was on the bus on my way out of Kraków, I passed by the Mateczny Round‑ about, and to my left, I saw a massive stone monument – later on, I found out that it was the Monument of the Victims of Fascism, designed by Witold Cęckiewicz. “Do you know what this monument is?” asked Romek, who was sitting next to me. I quickly searched my memory and uncertainly answered: “I think that there might have been a concentration camp here”. I must have heard it somewhere. I think I know when. In elementary school, in seventh grade, we visited the Auschwitz‑Birkenau Museum. This visit was an obligatory part of the school education programme. During this visit, the guide showed us a map of Nazi concentration and death camps. KL Plaszow was also depicted on this map, illustrated by the very monument in question. My surprise with the fact that I lived so close to the place where this genocide was committed was short‑lived. And yet, something still lingered in my memory and did not let me forget. In the spring of 1979, I decided to visit this place in person. Just behind the monument visible from the street, I saw a second one, more modest, made of irregular stone, with a plaque made from black granite and with a menorah on top. The plaque read: In this place, tens of thousands of Jews brought here from all over Poland and Hungary in the years 1943–1945 were tortured, murdered, and incinerated. We do not know the names of the people who were murdered here. Let us substitute them with one word – JEWS. The act of reading this inscription was my first fully conscious encounter with the crime of the Holocaust.

My Jewish Kraków  211 In describing my experience, until now I have not referred to the annihilation of Jews during the Second World War. It was a conscious choice. If the word “Holo‑ caust” is to remain one of the greatest warnings for humankind, I believe that the victims should not be disconnected from their centuries‑old heritage. When we write about the annihilation of Jews, it is necessary to simultaneously write also about their history and roots in the history of Central Europe. My own understand‑ ing of Jewish heritage was also built step by step. Not until I stood in front of that plaque, did I start to weave together various threads. The Lviv stories of my father, images of the village Christmas Cribs, information on the migrant fates of my aunt, and her husband in Sweden… But I am jumbling up the chronology. Journeys through one’s own memory do not always go in a straight line. Soon after I graduated from high school, I be‑ gan my studies at the university. Searching for my own research area, after many explorations and trials, I discovered that what fascinates me most is the city seen as a phenomenon. This wild, random, and difficult‑to‑tame sea, the place where various characters, cultures, and religions meet, where different people who have their own aims learn (or not) that the city is their “common good”. A community –  communitas. Diversity and multiculturalism were always the distinguishing fea‑ tures of Polish and Central European cities. The cities that served as melting pots for various communities. Conflicts and tensions were present, but the history of Central European cities should be seen as a continuous process of growth. Their history shows that despite differences it is possible to live together and collectively promote development. When I write about the shared and long, centuries‑old existence of various com‑ munities, by no means do I have in mind an idyll, Ovid’s aurea prima sata est ae‑ tas. The cities of Central Europe had the scent of life, in which to build something, one has to be able to accept differences. Exercising goodwill requires a lot of work. I must point out that this ability to search for the common good despite difficulties is the one part of Central Europe’s heritage that did not come to the attention of the well‑developed West when Europe began to grow after the fall of communism. But that is another subject altogether. In the long history of Kraków, Poland, and Cen‑ tral Europe, Jews had played a significant role, and their heritage is one of the keys to understanding this history – which, in turn, has a great influence on our present. After completing my studies, I started to work for the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków. It was 1985. I still work in this museum, although nowadays it has a different name – the Museum of Kraków. My new workplace was crucial with regard to the subject of this article. That is because my museum – which since 1959 has a multi‑branch structure – also had a branch devoted to the Jewish heritage in Kraków, located in the Old Synagogue on 24 Szeroka Street. Let me write a few important words about this special place. Already at the end of the 1940s, my older colleagues began to amass a Ju‑ daica collection. Today, it is a valuable and interesting collection, one of the big‑ gest and oldest ones in Poland. It is also a testament to the awareness of Kraków museum professionals that Jewish heritage needed to be documented and saved from destruction. Meanwhile, the Holocaust survivors who represented the Jewish

212  Michał Niezabitowski community in Kraków, especially Maciej Jakubowicz (1911–1979), the long‑term president of the Jewish Religious Community, were considering a decision to do‑ nate the Old Synagogue for museum purposes, thanks to the strong involvement of Jerzy Dobrzycki (1900–1972), the then director of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, who gained the trust of the Jewish Religious Community – the Old Synagogue was leased to the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków for an agreed‑upon sum of “one zloty”.4 As a result, the Old Synagogue  –  a priceless landmark witnessing Kraków’s multi‑cultural past  –  was renovated between 1956 and 1959. The official hand‑ ing over of the Synagogue took place on 30th April 1959, and the first permanent exhibition was opened on 24 April 1961.5 Therefore, when I began to work for the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, I became a worker at the only institution in Poland that was then active in the field of interpreting and documenting Jewish heritage. The first unit in which I worked was located in Krzysztofory Palace on the Main Market Square in Kraków, but very soon I began to collaborate with colleagues who worked at the Old Synagogue. The beautifully arranged permanent exhibition, replete with many cultic artefacts gathered around the bimah in the centre of the main prayer hall, made a great impression on me, but also made me realise that my knowledge of Jewish rituals is very poor. Another thing that I remember from my first visit to the Old Synagogue is the first‑floor hall – on the floor, there was a pile of crushed and broken matzevot, brought there from pre‑war Jewish cemeteries (in Kraków and Podgórze), destroyed after 1942 when Nazi‑Germany occupiers located a labor camp, and then KL Plaszów concentration camp in the area. It was the first place in Kraków where the rough and lifeless stone became a testament to the remembrance of the tragedy of Kraków. For many years, the Old Synagogue was the host of the only museum exhibition in Poland that publicly showed this painful heritage.6 To conclude the subject of the Old Synagogue, I’d like to mention one other cir‑ cumstance. For a long time, the exhibition in the Old Synagogue was the lanterne rouge of the attendance rivalry between different branches of the Historical Mu‑ seum of the City of Kraków. With regard to the lack of tourist interest, it also stood out from other Kraków museums. Only in the 1980s – when along with the changes occurring due to the establishment of the Independent Self‑Governing Trade Un‑ ion “Solidarity” Poland became partially open to the outside world and the state propaganda began to slowly concede with regard to the vision of a socialist society whose nationality and class is uniform – did a narration about multi‑cultural Poland become possible. It soon translated into the attendance rate in the Old Synagogue. In 1981, it was visited by 6,349 people, in 1989, by 24,611 people, and in 1990, by 26,888 people.7 Ever since 2004, the exhibition in the Old Synagogue is visited by 100,000–120,000 people annually. Since this story reached the year 2004, I must point out an important change in my life. After the death of my predecessor, Andrzej Szczygieł (1941–2003), I participated in the competition for the position of director of the Historical Mu‑ seum of the City of Kraków, and on January 1, 2004, I was appointed as such by

My Jewish Kraków  213 Jacek Majchrowski, the Mayor of Kraków. That is how my personal story, which sped up in 2004, became linked with the great story of my country and Europe, as it was that very year when the countries of the former Communist bloc, including Poland, became part of the European Union. One of the results of this event was the rapid growth of foreign tourism in Kraków, which was discovered to be not only an attractive historic city but also a destination with appealingly low prices. Jewish Kazimierz, or, to put it more broadly, the city’s Jewish heritage, quickly became popular as well. This was no coincidence. Once again, I must travel back in time to the beginning of the 1990s, when Ste‑ ven Spielberg’s film masterpiece, “Schindler’s List” (1993), was being filmed in Kraków. Back then, the city was a grey butterfly, only emerging from the cocoon of real socialism, not yet full of colour, its historical phenomenon not yet discovered. The success of Spielberg’s film drew attention to Kraków. Yet only after Poland joined the European Union did the settings of Spielberg’s film become tourist des‑ tinations: the Kraków Ghetto; the pre‑war “Rekord” factory, taken over by Oskar Schindler in 1939; the site of the former KL Plaszow camp. Kraków faced not only an immense opportunity but also an immense responsibility. Thematically, these destinations were connected with another place, which for years had been one of the most important museums in the world  –  the Auschwitz‑Birkenau State Mu‑ seum. The rule of synergy soon began to work, and Kraków tourism grew rapidly each year. For many reasons, Kraków was not at all ready for tourism of such magni‑ tude. One of the main concerns was infrastructure. Kraków – including Podgórze, Zabłocie, and the former KL Plaszów – did not have facilities tailored to the needs of tourists. Lack of lodgings, gastronomy, poorly developed public transport, and lack of airport capacity were all a challenge. Yet, in retrospect, these problems proved to be important, but also secondary. Necessity is the mother of all entre‑ preneurship. In response to the demand, gastronomic and hotel infrastructure was hastily built and grew rapidly within several years. Transport infrastructure, often privately run and poor in quality, just as quickly linked various tourist attractions in Kraków. Tourist carts and used minibuses materialised all over the city and were used to drive tourists around the Old City, the university district, and also to the South side of the Vistula River. To this day, I remember the embarrassment I felt when I saw a brightly coloured bus with a brash advertisement on the windshield: “Auschwitz, Oskar Schindler factory, Kraków Ghetto – only 10 Euro!” Originally, the emerging market had the face of commercial hideousness, but within several years the standard of services for tourists visibly improved. This strengthened the city’s reputation and influenced a further increase in visits. What turned out to be a much more serious problem than logistics and infra‑ structure was the city’s offer with regard to its substantiative and moral dimension. An important part of Kraków’s success was “Holocaust tourism”,8 which requires immense sensitivity, professionalism, and an excellent knowledge of history. An even greater problem was the state of the monuments and memorial sites visited by tourists. The so‑called “Schindler Factory” (4 Lipowa Street) was then a neglected, almost derelict building in the centre of Zabłocie, a former industrial

214  Michał Niezabitowski district. In the summer heat and dust or in the autumn mud, tourists would draw up outside the gate of the locked‑down building, take photos, and then drive to another place, perplexed by the level of neglect of the places so important to them. The site of KL Plaszów was a 40‑hectare meadow, overgrown with self‑sown bushes and trees, where some people would go for walks, and others would organise drunken outdoor parties. Some people would walk their dogs on the meadow, children would play ball, pleasant family picnics were also often organised there. What is crucial is that most of these people only migrated to Kraków after the Second World War and lived on housing estates that began to be built in the 1970s. They were unaware of the tragic history of this lovely and wild meadow in the middle of the city. Tourists who would come here, especially those from Israel, were often shocked and outraged by this. The only institution whose activities were aimed to commemorate the tragic fates of Jews during the Second World War was a memorial museum established in 1983 in the Eagle Pharmacy9 on Bohaterów Getta Square (former Zgody Square), which used to be located within the borders of the Kraków Ghetto. In this very place during 1941–1943, the owner of the Pharmacy, a Kraków pharmacist Tade‑ usz Pankiewicz (1908–1993), undertook the heroic work of helping the Jews living in the ghetto; he hid those who tried to escape and helped them to do so, distributed meds, money, passed on information.10 The activities of this small institution can be evaluated only positively and with approval. Yet, it was only a drop in the ocean of great needs. A historian may sometimes observe that the course of history is the result of many social factors, yet sometimes this course can rapidly accelerate due to the actions of individual people. With regard to commemorating the history of Kraków during the Second World War, an important change occurred thanks to several decisions made by Prof Jacek Majchrowski, who has been the Mayor of Kraków since 2002. The first decision concerned integrating the Eagle Pharmacy into the structure of the Museum of Kraków and entrusting this institution to build a new exhibition inside the Pharmacy that would respond to current needs (2004). The second deci‑ sion concerned donating the buildings of the former enamelware factory called the “Schindler Factory” to the Museum of Kraków (2008). Finally, the third decision concerned the site of the former KL Plaszow camp, which was also to be donated to the Museum of Kraków to become a separate martyrdom museum (2016). Thus, the city authorities decided that the Museum of Kraków was to take over the responsibility for narration, interpretation, and commemoration of the tragic fates of the Jewish people in Kraków during the Second World War. As the director of this institution, I became a “major player” in the arena of this heritage. There‑ fore, the last 20 years of my life were – and still are – devoted to executing the great projects that I have been entrusted with. I often wonder whether people can influence their own fate, or whether a test of their actions is the way in which they undertake tasks that fate unexpectedly entrusted them with. Under my leadership, two new permanent exhibitions were created in the Ea‑ gle Pharmacy (2005 and 2013), and this extraordinary place underwent a major

My Jewish Kraków  215 renovation. I was involved in the creation of a permanent exhibition at the “Emalia” factory (2010). Since 2016, I have been overseeing the creation of the new museum on the site of the former KL Plaszow camp. Each year, over half a million visitors from all over the world visit these places, experiencing the past and great emotion. The staff of the Museum of Kraków that works in the field of the Holocaust legacy consists almost entirely of my younger colleagues who were hired and taught by me, and from whom I also learned. I believe this team to be excellent; one of the best ones in Europe. Yet, the reader will not find in this text an attempt to evalu‑ ate the work that we, as a team, have accomplished. One must not give oneself a mark. I cannot assess my own contribution to commemorating this great tragedy of humanity. And what evaluation could it be? Those who have the right to make judgements are gone, murdered in a most vile way. I dedicate this chapter to them. Notes 1 https://sztetl.org.pl/en/biographies/4875‑lewandowski‑jozef (accessed March 21, 2023). 2 My family’s history was described in two memoirs: Niezabitowski, 1998; Winner, 2017. 3 See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/us‑envoy‑calls‑on‑fm‑katz‑apologize‑to‑poland‑for‑ anti‑semitism‑remark/ (accessed March 21, 2023) and https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/ international/195958‑190225‑israel‑fm‑katz‑not‑apologizing‑for‑polish‑anti‑semitism‑ remarks (accessed March 21, 2023). 4 Sprawozdanie z działalności muzeów za rok 1959 GUS [The Central Statistical Office of Poland’s report on museums’ activities in the year 1959], AZMHK. 1/179: 113. 5 Sprawozdanie z działalności muzeów za rok 1959 GUS [The Central Statistical Office of Poland’s report on museums’ activities in the year 1959], AZMHK. 1/179: 113. 6 More information about the history of the Old Synagogue branch of the Museum of Kraków can be found in my book: Niezabitowski, 2021. 7 Niezabitowski, 2021. 8 I still use this phrase with reluctance, although I also note that it came into usage both within tourism, and academia. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_tourism (ac‑ cessed March 21, 2023) https://www.europenowjournal.org/2017/09/05/places‑with‑a‑ disconcerting‑past‑issues‑and‑trends‑in‑holocaust‑tourism/ (accessed March 21, 2023). 9 Bednarek, 2013. 10 Pióro, 2013.

Bibliography Bednarek, Monika, 2013. Apteka Tadeusza Pankiewicza w getcie krakowskim, Kraków: Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa. “Israel FM Katz Not Apologizing for Remarks on Polish ‘Anti‑Semitism’”, i24NEWS, 25th February 2019, https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/195958‑190225‑­israel‑fm‑­ katz‑not‑apologizing‑for‑polish‑anti‑semitism‑remarks (accessed March 21, 2023). Niezabitowski, Andrzej, 1998. To był tylko etap, Kraków: Wydawnictwo AA. Niezabitowski, Michał, 2021. Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa 1899–1996–2019, Kraków: Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa. Passowicz, Wacław. 1988. “Kronika działalności Muzeum Historycznego m. Krakowa za rok 1987”, in: Krzysztofory, vol. 15, Kraków: Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa: 177.

216  Michał Niezabitowski Pióro, Anna, 2013. Magister Tadeusz Pankiewicz. Biografia, Kraków: Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa. “Places with a Disconcerting Past: Issues and Trends in Holocaust Tourism”, Europe Now: A Journal of Research & Art, 6th September 2017, https://www.europenowjour‑ nal.org/2017/09/05/places‑with‑a‑disconcerting‑past‑issues‑and‑trends‑in‑holocaust‑­ tourism/ (accessed March 21, 2023). POLIN Virtual Shtetl n.d., Lewandowski Józef, https://sztetl.org.pl/en/biographies/4875‑­ lewandowski‑jozef (accessed March 21, 2023). Toi Staff and Agencies, “US Envoy Calls on FM Katz Apologize to Poland for Anti‑Semitism Remark”, The Times of Israel, 20th February 2019, https://www.timesofisrael.com/us‑­envoy‑ calls‑on‑fm‑katz‑apologize‑to‑poland‑for‑anti‑semitism‑remark/ (accessed March 21, 2023). Wikipedia n.d., Holocaust Tourism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_tourism (ac‑ cessed March 21, 2023). Winner, Anna, 2017. Patrzę na mój czas, Warszawa: Aspra.

21 Following My Roots Building the Unknown Puzzle of My Family Roots in Poland Inbal Raz

“I have no roots”, sings Alice Merton in her song “No roots” and continues “I like digging holes hiding things inside them when I grow old, I won’t forget to find them, ‘Cause I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night”. This song went deep into my soul. Once, while listening and singing with Alice, I found myself asking why someone like me, who works so much with family stories, and during the last 25 years has found and built my own family puzzle, feels so con‑ nected to a “No roots” song like this. It took me a while until I understood that this is exactly the reason. The holes in my own story made it easier and natural for me to identify with the feeling of holes in memories, with the need to open many boxes, and with the wish to find boxes no one even knows exist. I remember a conversation I had around the age of 12 with a classmate who came from a big family. I remember telling him how lucky I thought he was, to have a family so big that he doesn’t even know all its members. He laughed at me and answered: “Like you know all of yours! What there is to know?” I answered: “two grandfathers, one grandmother, three uncles from both sides together, and that’s it!”. It took me more than 30 years to understand how right he was, how much I don’t know, and how I grew up with no real or deep roots from the past, only with those that started to bloom for my family in the new life they built in Israel, without taking into consideration the Polish roots that were left behind. This chapter will follow my steps towards revealing and building my family puzzle, to get a clearer picture of the lives of my four Holocaust survivor grand‑ parents, before the war, but especially during, and after the war. This challenging search is an ongoing process that I started by mistake and continued when I real‑ ized that learning about my roots from the past is not only learning about me and my family in the present, but also an additional slice of the broader story of our nation. This chapter combines knowledge that I gained from interviews, personal tes‑ timonies, old documents I received from archives in Israel, Poland, and Germany, visits to Poland, and more. It is interesting for me to note that after each visit to Poland since 1997, I came back with thoughts and questions that encouraged me to keep on searching. As an ego document, it presents difficulties of my grandparents, particularly my grandmothers. It changed my way of thinking about their lives, and also revealed issues I needed to learn more about, especially the unique struggles DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-26

218  Inbal Raz of women refugees from Poland in Soviet camps in Siberia. On the broader level, this chapter strengthens the importance of searching, digging, and asking about one’s family’s past for the sake of pure knowledge, but also to continue family memories. “I have no roots…” I am a granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors from Poland, but I grew up with only a grandmother  –  my mother’s mother. My two grandfathers passed away when I was seven and nine years old, and my father’s mother died when he was a young boy. I’m also a daughter of my father, born during the Holocaust in 1941, and my mother, born in 1946 in Bytom Poland, just after the war. And yet, none of these personal details from my parent’s history were a main part of my childhood or youth. My parents reached Israel as young children. My father was eight and my mother was four, so, for them, they were born “Sabra” and have no other history. I never heard Polish spoken in my family. Many years later, my mother would tell me, “Of course I spoke Polish with my parents!”, but I have no recollection of that. Sometimes I heard Yiddish, but that was only when the adults didn’t want us to understand. My grandmother cooked traditional Polish‑Jewish dishes, but they were served together with humus and tahina or other Middle Eastern foods, and her recipes almost didn’t make it to the next generation. Even if my mother knew how to cook traditional Polish‑Jewish dishes, she rarely did. Our kitchen was Israeli, influenced by the different Jewish communities and cultures that arrived in Israel, and the same goes for my kitchen today. I rarely saw pictures of Poland, and if I saw anything, they were ancient black and white pictures from the Yizkor Book, of Łańcut, my grandmother’s city, com‑ bined with short stories about “Graf (Count) Potozki”, a Polish nobleman with a branch of the family who had a palace in Łańcut. Her main stories were about the time she and her brother visited his palace as young children, the beautiful syna‑ gogue they had, and how they were the first Polish city with electricity thanks to the Graf. I don’t know whether this fact is correct, but my grandmother was very proud of it. The first time I learned a little bit about my grandmother’s town was when I was in the seventh grade and had to write a paper about my family’s Jewish commu‑ nity. I used the Łańcut Yizkor Book and wrote about life in that town before World War Two, their Jewish schools, synagogues, culture, and more. At the end of this composition, I included a short interview with my grandmother, but she spoke only about their preparations after the war to make Aliyah (immigration) to Israel, and the difficulties that came with moving to a new country with no language or work. Poland was never mentioned as a country to visit, I never heard Polish music, I never saw Polish films or newspapers. I don’t remember seeing Polish books on their shelves, and I never heard any of my family members longing for the country in which they were born and lived. Poland and Polish culture were far removed from me.

Following My Roots  219 Despite this absence of Polish artifacts in my surrounding, I found myself slowly searching for my Polish past, as soon after my first visit to Poland in 1997, I understood that whether or not I am aware of them, my roots are very much planted in Poland. When I was in high school, we didn’t have organized heritage tours to Poland. It was only after I started to work in the “Mashmaut” center that I flew to Poland for the first time with a group of educators that we organized. It was clear for me then that I’m going to Poland to learn about the past of the Jewish people in general, a past that is connected to my family, but I wasn’t looking for anything too personal in this trip. One day during the trip we arrived in Łańcut, and there, without prior prepara‑ tion, my grandmother’s words came alive. There was the Graf Potozki palace and the beautiful synagogue she described from her youth in the city. At the entrance to the synagogue, there were some fragments of tombstones, and suddenly, on one of them I saw the name MUHLRAD – my grandmother Bronia’s maiden name. I was very moved and excited by this finding. There were no cell phones then, so I couldn’t call my family immediately. I took some pictures of this tombstone, and we drove away. I remember thinking to myself while we were driving away, that this was the first time in my life, I was so moved by a tombstone, even though I didn’t know who the person was, or how we are connected to them. Impatient, I came back home and showed the pictures of the tombstone to my grandmother, but she didn’t know that person either, and I was very disappointed. I thought I found an opening to the past, but it was closed so quickly and so was my search. In 2002 my grandmother passed away, leaving me with many questions I didn’t ask. Three years later, in 2005, I took my second trip to Poland, during which I realized how the decorations and smells in different places and restaurants were fa‑ miliar to me from my grandmother house. That was when I knew I couldn’t ignore it anymore, that I was like a tree that needs to find its roots. “Like Gypsies in the Night…” Since the late 1980s, as the survivors got older, the third generation started to gather family stories and preserve memories and legacies before they were lost forever. In many cases, members of the third generation felt a sense of disconnection from their own history, prompting a desire to reclaim their identity and understand their family’s past. They started to feel responsible to preserve and transmit the memory of the Holocaust to future generations, to ensure the stories were not forgotten. In those years, there was also an advance in technology, particularly the internet and digitization of archival records, which made it easier and accessible for the third generation to reach historical documents, survivor testimonies, and genea‑ logical resources. Yet, it’s important to note that some third‑generation individuals started their journey for roots earlier, while others (like me) may still be embark‑ ing on it today. The motivations behind their searches are tied to their own unique circumstances and personal histories.

220  Inbal Raz When I was a student in high school, the Demjanjuk trial was held in Israel. I remember following this trial, and feeling strongly how important it is that this memory will continue. Although I studied Psychology in Haifa University, less than ten years later I found myself starting to work in the “Mashmaut” center, a new and developing educational center that deals with the memory and commemo‑ ration of the Holocaust among the younger generation. From my first day at this center, my work became a mission, much more than just a way to make a living. It was an answer to my earlier thoughts and wishes about Holocaust remembrance. When I began working in the Mashmaut center, I had no idea how things would develop, but it became obvious that the Holocaust survivors I spoke with, the peo‑ ple I met, the stories I hear and the opportunities to connect with Polish researchers and friends, influenced my interest and my motivation to continue my search. Everyone who ever searched for their roots will tell you that one needs a lot of patience. The search takes a lot of energy and effort, usually at night, on the computer, going from one site to another, looking for new connected links, hop‑ ing to find threads. Sometimes you find a match, but most of the time, there are no real answers in those links. In other cases, the real turning point comes from a completely different direction. My Mother’s Mother’s Boxes In 2005, we started to talk again at the “Mashmaut” center, about taking a group to Poland. This time my father, brother, and sister decided to join me. My mother, on the other hand, didn’t want to hear about visiting Poland. I guess she was in‑ fluenced by my grandmother who never wanted to visit Poland and wasn’t happy when she knew one of us did visit there. Although I never talked about it with my grandmother, I believe that she was angry and especially hurt when the neighbors in Łańcut didn’t help them, when they were deported from their home. Today I understand how difficult and complex the situation was, and how dangerous it was for Poles to help Jews, but for her, they were her neighbors and friends. When the Nazis entered Łańcut in September 1939, my grandmother, her par‑ ents, and small brother had to leave their home quickly. Her older brother ran away and joined the Polish army. When we grew up, my grandmother used to tell us how they didn’t know what to take from home. Her mother gave her a pillowcase in which to carry anything she wanted to take with her. Of course, they could only take what they could hold in their hands, so it wasn’t much. Most of their belong‑ ings were left behind. They crossed the border to the Soviet area, and after a while, as my grandmother used to say, they found themselves in a labor camp in Siberia, working as woodcutters. My grandmother used to tell me how she and her mother stood for hours on two sides of a tree, holding a very big saw and working very hard to cut the tree and then to move it. This went on day after day. My grandmoth‑ er’s father didn’t hold up and died shortly after they reached this camp. Only lately, for the first time, did I examine the map, realizing the long distance they had to travel, around 3,500 km, from Łańcut Poland to Dzhambul (Taraz) in Kazakhstan.

Following My Roots  221 I have no idea how they made the journey, my grandmother never mentioned it, and I never thought to ask. One day before our flight to Poland in July 2005, my mother showed me a photo I had never seen before of a tombstone, with the name Regina Muhlrad, and said: “this is the grave of my grandmother in Bytom, maybe you could leave the group for one day while you there and go to see it”. I was shocked by this news! I have a great‑grandmother buried in Poland, but I also had no time to gather information and figure out how to travel there. I don’t speak Polish, and I had no idea where Bytom is located. Nevertheless, I said OK we will try, and with this challenge we left for Poland. With the help of a local coordinator, we found out there are two Jewish cemeter‑ ies in Bytom. Since we didn’t know which one we needed, we had to call home and enlist the assistance of my mother’s uncle, my grandmother’s brother who was over 90. Sometimes, in searches like that, we don’t know how much we can trust older people’s memories, but on the other hand, many times, in such cases, we can’t proceed without relying on them. A few days later, we (my father, brother, sister, and I) were on a train from Kra‑ kow to Bytom and found our way to the gate of the Jewish cemetery just as the un‑ cle said. Like a scene in a movie, we found ourselves in front of closed high gates, with the sound of a loud barking dog coming from inside. After a few minutes a woman arrived, opened the gate, and I showed her the picture of the tombstone. She took us inside her office, took out a big map of the place, pointed with her fingers, said “OK, follow me”. Making her way through overgrown greenery, she led us to the grave. Wow! We were standing at the grave of my great‑grandmother. I never believed something like that could happen. She died in 1947 at the age of 61, after she sur‑ vived the war, but couldn’t stand the loud barking of a dog that frightened her to death. We cleaned the grave, lit a candle, recited some prayers, and called my mother. A circle was closed, or maybe just the opposite, the circle just became wider. When I came back home, I was still under the influence of this “meeting” with my ancestors. I decided I need to learn more, so I wrote a search message in the JEWISHJEN site. After a while I received an email with the subject: Making a Match = MUHLRAD, from a man in the USA who was trying to build his family tree. The email was sent to Muhlrad’s in Israel, France, and Sweden. We corre‑ sponded, spoke on the phone, and shared our knowledge. From this experience, I learned that there were numerous Muhlrad families in Łańcut, many of whom lived on the same street, to the point where people began to call it Muhlrad’s street. By then, I corresponded with Muhlrads from the USA and France, spoke on the phone with Muhlrads from Sweden, and drove to Holon to speak with Muhlrads in Israel, but couldn’t find matches between our families. I had no clue how to con‑ tinue from there, so after some intensive searching, I gave my puzzle a break, and honestly, I didn’t know if there would be more details I could find. Years later in 2019, I visited Łańcut once again, during a conference about the Righteous Among the Nations, that was held in Markova, a small village just ten

222  Inbal Raz minutes’ drive from Łańcut. During this visit, I was first exposed to stories about how difficult and scary the situation was when the Nazis entered the area. This was the first time I looked at Łańcut as part of Holocaust history, and not only through the prism of my family story. At that opportunity, I also learned about the coura‑ geous Righteous among the Nations from Markova who hid Jews from Łańcut, and about the informer Pole who betrayed them, informing the Nazis who killed the Polish Ulma family and the Jews they hid. I couldn’t stop thinking about my grandmother who never shared with us if or how frightened she was. In 2019, when my son was 19, and my daughter 16, I brought my family to visit Poland, to see the how remains from the past have become part of contemporary Polish life. During this stay, I took them also to visit Łańcut, to enable them to fol‑ low the story that I was building piece by piece, also for them. Once in a while, in my searches, I share my findings with my children. When I asked them what they think about my search, they answered that they can un‑ derstand my need and curiosity to discover more details about my family. They also said that they would have acted the same way, but they don’t always share my enthusiasm for what I am doing. Nevertheless, they also said that some of my findings, particularly the authentic documents I uncovered, were very interesting and moving for them. Regardless of their answers, from my point of view, I feel obligated to leave them with a better puzzle than the one I began with. I hope that like me, one day, when they will be older, they will also want to know more about their roots. My Mother’s Father’s Boxes My grandfather, Itzhak Krischer, was born in 1913 in Jasło Poland, and then moved with his family to Stryi, which today is a part of Ukraine. His family had a big store in the city, their economic situation was good, and he had a brother and sister. After the war started and Poland was divided, Stryi was on the Soviet side. The Sovi‑ ets arrested my grandfather’s father who owned a big store and was a merchant. When my grandfather heard about that, he rushed to the prison, and told the offic‑ ers: “what do you need an old and sick man for, take me instead…”, and so they replaced his father with him. My grandfather wanted to help his father and family, but then the Nazis came and sent his entire family to death. I think they took them to Belzec death camp, but we can’t know for sure where they were killed. My grandfather survived the war alone. He met my grandmother in Bytom, and they got married. My mother was born in 1946 and in 1950 they immigrated to Israel. My grandfather died when I was nine years old, and although I know and remember that he had a lot of happy moments in his life after the war, I also remember a lot of sadness in his words and eyes. To remember and perpetuate the family that disappeared, my grandfather planted trees in their memory. My mother is named for his mother – Malka Krischer, and my older brother – Sharon ­Pinchas – is named for his sister Sarah and his brother Pinchas. Three years later, when I was born, my parents didn’t name me after anyone from their family. I was given a new Hebrew name with no history attached – Inbal,

Following My Roots  223 but maybe because Inbal is the part of the bell that makes the noise, I found myself carrying the torch of family memory, making the noises, taking these stories out from their long silence. My Father’s Boxes Even though, I became the family memory keeper, for many years, I didn’t dare to ask questions, especially not about the gaps in my father’s history, either because I thought it would be too painful or because I didn’t believe that I would find any‑ thing of value. In 2011, my father celebrated his 70th birthday, and I decided to prepare a pres‑ entation of his life and a family book, but there were many things I didn’t know, and this was a good opportunity to start asking questions. My father and his two brothers were born in Archangelsk, which is almost at the end of the world in Rus‑ sia, to a young couple who had escaped Poland. I started to ask my father and my uncles about various things, but since they were young children when they left, they didn’t know a lot, afterwards they didn’t ask a lot, and when they remembered to ask, they didn’t get too many answers. I knew that my grandfather, Moshe Janiak, was born in Prashka, and we thought that my grandmother, Charna Zylberman, was born in Łodz. She died in 1950, just after they arrived in Israel, and we didn’t have any documents about her. I had one picture of my father and his brothers from the Displaced Person’s camp in Germany after the war, but they didn’t know its name or location, and I knew some stories they had told us about the cold weather in Archangelsk. That was it. With my uncle’s help, I found their date of immigration to Israel and the name of the ship they came on, but I wanted more. It took me a while to go back to the memories, but I decided to dig, and like an archaeologist, I started to search even though I didn’t know if or what I would find. I began at the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, and I found the list of people that were on board the ship Modika that brought them to Israel in March 1949. That was the first time I saw the names of all the members of my father’s family written together. The first time, I had some kind of documentation about my grandmother. Elated with this first success I decided to check if my grandmother was really from Łodz. I wrote to the state archive in Łodz, but to my great disappointment, they eventually answered that they couldn’t find any records about her. When you succeed in your search it motivates you to continue, but when you fail, it’s quite hard to do so, so once again it took me a while until I decided I couldn’t give up on my quest. At some point, I found an email address I once received for the ITS (Inter‑ national Tracing Service) archive, and sent them a request for inquiry, with the names of my father’s family. A few weeks later, at the end of 2021, I was amazed to receive the registration cards of my father family at the Hofgeismar DP camp in Germany. It was such a moving moment. Finally, after 70 years, I could call my father and tell him the name of the DP camp he stayed in for about three years, from their arrival there after the war, until they left for Israel.

224  Inbal Raz When I saw the registration cards from the DP camp, I realized I had spelled my grandmother’s last name incorrectly when I wrote to the state archive in Łodz, so I sent them another request again. This time, to my great surprise, I received a treasure in return. It was a list from a population registry that took place in Łodz, between 1916 and 1920, listing all the members of my grandmother family. Appar‑ ently, there were five brothers and sisters. Without the documents from the Łodz archive, there was no way I could have ever know that. The archive also sent me my grandmother’s birth certificate and those of three of her brothers and sisters. More than once during this research process, I felt as if I’m giving life back to members of my family whose lives were ended too soon. I have this feeling especially about my father’s mother about whom we knew very little. I feel as if I “brought her back to life” after many years of silence. Seeing her name on the pas‑ sengers list of the ship traveling to Israel, or receiving her birth certificate proved beyond a doubt, that she lived and left a mark in the world. I wanted to discover as much as I could about her, and about any other family member I might find while enlarging my puzzle. I am still hoping to somehow find a picture of my grand‑ mother. I know that perhaps I could find it in archives of our Ministry of Interior, but I am saving this for last, while trying to remain optimistic that I will find it. Difficulties Just as in any research project, this lengthy research process was accompanied by various difficulties. First, there is my family, and especially my parents. Although they were supportive throughout the years, even after they received some answers from my search, I’m not sure that they fully understand my curiosity and my moti‑ vation to search. They didn’t cause me any difficulties, but for them, the past is in the past, so why should we approach it today? Time and again during my research, I asked myself if I’m not doing more harm than good. I don’t have an absolute answer, but I do believe that I owe it to those who can’t speak anymore. I owe it to our people, and I believe I even owe it to myself, to know where my family came from and what they went through. I can’t ask others to care, and to learn, if I won’t do it myself. Since this kind of research is full of emotions, successes, and disappointments, it influences one’s motivation and desire to continue searching for information. Luckily, although it took me many years, punctuated by breaking points, I still come up with new pieces of the puzzle and directions to search, which is very helpful when trying to overcome those moments when I think I should give up. The search for information has taken me many years, but although it goes slowly, I have made progress. While today I am familiar with more parts of my family puzzle, the number of missing parts didn’t shrink, but grew. I wish to know more, even though I don’t know if it is realistic, but I’m ready to take the risk, because as we know, knowl‑ edge is power, and in this case, this knowledge fills the gaps in my puzzle.

Following My Roots  225 Summary Anyone who ever put together a puzzle, especially big puzzle, knows that the best way to work, is to start with the frame, and only then, to fill in the different middle areas. That’s exactly what I wanted to do in my search – build the frame and then fill in the details I already have or that I find. Looking back on my process today, I can certainly say that only when I dared to ask the questions, I was afraid to ask, did I find new details. It is sometimes a sensitive issue, but it is also necessary. Twenty‑five years have passed since I began my romance with my Polish roots, following a path that I hoped would help me better understand my personal history. Building this unknown puzzle slowly, piece by piece, I have enlarged and broad‑ ened it. But I still want more. There are directions I didn’t follow, and questions I didn’t ask. I still have the bigger challenge of combining my personal story with historical and academic re‑ search that will give us a better understanding of the unique struggles of Polish‑­ Jewish women refugees and what they had to face in Soviet camps in Siberia. I hope that the ongoing search I described here will give inspiration to others, not to be afraid of long, unknown, independent research, and to dare and desire to ask questions, to know more.

22 Can I Be a Good Historian? Ewa Wiatr

This is not a scientific text. I will not cite fundamental studies on the Holocaust and insert extensive bibliographic footnotes to prove my erudition. I also leave aside historiographical discussions about the historian’s role as a researcher reconstruct‑ ing the past while striving for objective truth or a postmodern narrativist assem‑ bling the past from various stories. Instead, I will share my experiences researching the history of the Lodz Ghetto during World War II. These will include stories of archival research, often beyond the duties of a historian, as well as the relationships I formed through this research.1 During the past dozen years of my work, the gap between the cool eye of the historian and human emotions has deepened. Further aspects came from getting to know survivors and their families. In successive projects, these relationships became friendships. In the collection of my professional experiences, there have been many personal stories, with surprising twists and turns. I am not ashamed to speak about my emotions accompanying the most touching discoveries. I have of‑ ten cried along with families for whom I found documents of emotional value. For others, I had to gently verify family legends that, when confronted with the source, turned out to be fiction. Behind these considerations is the question that is the title of my essay. Do the emotions that I pour into my work, or the way my work affects my behavior, make me lose objectivity? Lodz Ghetto Chronicle In 2006, I joined the team of the Center for Jewish Research at the University of Lodz. The first project I joined was the Lodz Ghetto Chronicle: a five‑volume publication posing huge editorial challenges.2 These were daily texts written in the ghetto by local archivists documenting the lives of over 200,000 people in cramped, confined conditions. Several thousand typewritten pages, hundreds of editorial corrections, and countless footnotes with additional information. Even then, while working 27/4 on texts written in the ghetto, I noticed that this is a subject that does not allow one to remain indifferent. Hidden in these seem‑ ingly reportorial texts is information that, like Velcro, attaches itself to memory. Ready‑made images for scenarios on the verge of banality. Two young people DOI: 10.4324/9781003380245-27

Can I Be a Good Historian?  227 decide to get married; the wedding is officiated by the most important man in the ghetto, Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski. It is already 1942, the rabbis have been evicted from the ghetto, the wedding rite has been reformed, and it has a religious‑­ civil character. The traditional ksubah was abolished, so that people deprived of property would not have additional obligations. So was the drinking of wine as most weddings were performed collectively, glasses were scarce, and could trans‑ mit disease. The shortage of wedding rings had the couple exchanging fountain pens instead.3 Reading ghetto texts for several months affected my behavior. Suddenly, peeled potatoes had to have the thinnest skin possible, disposed of with remorse. Every slice of bread had to be eaten. My children didn’t even try to leave anything on their plate, knowing that I would complain immediately. One day, I picked my seven‑year‑old daughter up from school and she started exclaiming: I’m hungry, I’m hungry. I began to cry loudly, visualizing ghetto mothers who had nothing to give their children to eat, day after day. Rywka, Abram, Minia The following years brought other interesting projects of which the important ones were based on personal diaries, emotionally involving both author and reader. One was the diary of Rywka Lipszyc, written from the perspective of a young girl, de‑ scribing the world of mainly women. And it was mainly women who dealt with it, decades after it was written. My first contact with Rywka’s records was in 2009 when a question came from California asking if I would look into the diary of a then anonymous person. I ap‑ proached it with curiosity, although initially – I admit later with a sense of guilt – I considered the text to be the pretentious notes of an emotionally charged teenage girl, without much significance for expanding knowledge about the ghetto. I couldn’t imagine how much my opinion would change after subsequent readings, and what the diary’s impact would have on my professional standing and personal life. Rywka had a beautiful handwriting. There was no difficulty reading the manu‑ script. I knew that sooner or later her identity would be established as names and addresses were scrolled through the text. It was only necessary, with the help of archival materials (address books, work cards), to connect the data. However, it turned out that the author introduces herself by name in a certain passage: Rywka Lipszyc. At this point, it became simple to collate family members. My dear friend Judy Janec, with whom we conducted a detective investigation, undertook a post‑ war search. We were able to reconstruct the entire family’s fate before, during, and after the war. Unfortunately, Rywka’s fate after liberation from the camp remains a mystery. She was too sick to be sent to Sweden for convalescence, where her cousins went. We don’t know if she died in a hospital in Germany or miraculously recovered, but never found her relatives. Reaching out to family living in Israel, including characters appearing in the di‑ ary’s pages, was a remarkable conclusion to the story. Meanwhile, Rywka’s diary has been translated into numerous languages, becoming a well‑known source for

228  Ewa Wiatr Holocaust researchers. Several years after encountering the text, and after wran‑ gling with copyright laws, I published the diary in Poland. Now I could appreciate the richness of these records. Perhaps this was because I checked the text against the manuscript with my daughter’s help, who was then about as old as Rywka. Looking at the diary through the eyes of a sensitive peer revealed entirely new layers.4 The work on the diary culminated in an unusual ceremony. Anastasia Bere‑ zovskaya, heiress of the Red Army doctor who found the diary in the ruins of the ­crematorium at Auschwitz‑Birkenau, gave the diary to a family living in Bnei Brak. It was the family’s wish that the notebook be placed at Yad Vashem. On this occasion, people connected with the work on the diary – not coincidentally, women themselves – were in Israel. Thus, the diary brought together people from the US, Poland, and Israel. This is certainly not the end of my relationship with Rywka, for her diary would become one of the routes of the Holocaust Literature Atlas, which we were developing for the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos. It would be possible to take a virtual walk in Rywka Lipszyc’s footsteps. I don’t have such a strong relationship with another diary, although I can also count it among my scholarly accomplishments. It is written in Polish, English, He‑ brew, and Yiddish in the margins of an old French book. As a unique artifact, it has become part of Yad Vashem’s permanent exhibition. Its content is also unique: ma‑ ture judgments, penetrating observations, and information about events unknown to the average ghetto resident. The only problem that the diary’s recipients had to face over the years was its anonymity, giving rise to the belief (possibly because the author had a 13‑year‑old sister) that he was a teenager. While preparing excerpts from this diary for an anthology of texts from the Lodz Ghetto,5 I tried to find out who he was. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I started by putting together the addresses and names that appeared into the text. After ten minutes, I discovered that the author was Abram Yitzhak Łaski. I was overwhelmed with grief for the lost opportunities to meet the survivors, who, knowing the name, could relate more about the author. His cousin, Janina Sochaczewska, died in Paris in 1993! She submitted testimony to YV con‑ firming Abram’s death during the war. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to determine where and when he died. His diary, written just before the ghetto’s liqui‑ dation, is a wave of emotions: from hope for imminent liberation and the end of the nightmare to doubt that it would occur in time. The doubting Abram asks whether it wouldn’t be better to die right away. I often think about this question when pon‑ dering Rumkowski’s strategy of salvation through hard labor. I have no answer. Encouraged by finding Abram’s name so quickly, I approached another anon‑ ymous journal with hopes of success. This conviction was strengthened by the numerous facts that the teenage girl included. Her age, her brother’s, mother’s, father’s, and sister’s workplace, and approximate place of residence were known. Her name must have been Esther or Minia, as they are given in the letter cited in the diary.6 Unfortunately, the pieces of this puzzle were not easily put together. I searched for her for more than a year and many people (including my reliable and patient daughter) tried to help. Each hoped that they would be the discoverer. We searched the addresses of all the houses on the street where we thought she had

Can I Be a Good Historian?  229 lived, lists of employees of the Leather Department, where our heroine’s mother and siblings worked, school, and benefit letters. Nothing. The solution came by chance, and not for the first time. I even consider mak‑ ing these chances a research method. It began with a request from Marian Tur‑ ski, a well‑respected figure who spent the war in the Lodz ghetto who I never refused to help, but his request was unfeasible: finding information about a man from the ghetto who bore a new name after the war (“Find me information about Koprowski, but I forgot his real name!”). After a week Marian remembered his original name – Kuper. His year of birth must have been similar to that of Mar‑ ian Turski. It took a while to extract more data from the address database. I then checked family members through the ghetto’s house registration books. More fam‑ ily members appeared every second. Father  –  a painter, mother, two sisters: the elder Esther and the younger Mindla. The apartment – an alley on the street where I located “my” person. The puzzle was complete. Minia got her name back; I got back my peace of mind after searching for her for a year‑and‑a‑half. Esther and Sara This was a request that I received many times. Friends generally know (oh, this constant talking about ghetto history at private gatherings; I am surprised to still be invited anywhere) what my job is. I try not to refuse and find addresses in the ghetto or check on family members. I have already navigated databases practically in the dark. It’s quicker to check it, than to have to explain how to do it. I like to do it, but know it’s a procrastination, an effective way to detach myself from my work with looming deadlines, that I should favor over hobby searches. This request was from a friend who had just returned from Israel. “Please look for information about Esther Szwarc’s family, she is such a wonderful woman”. This time, the request was of a special nature. Esther would very much like a photo of her mother, as she has no memento of her. I knew there are several thousand photos of the ghetto in the archives and private hands. Unfortunately, most are not described, so we only recognize commonly known figures. There are also identity records and work cards, usually belonging to deceased people. I said that the probability was close to zero and asked her daughter not to have illusions. For my peace of conscience, I checked the databases. And what did I find? Sura Szwarc’s work card, preserved along with a photo. A fate won in the lottery! Intuitively, I felt that this could be a great experience for Esther, so I asked Sara to act with caution. I sent a scan of a photo of a tired, emaciated woman, 50 years old at the time. I sent the scan cry‑ ing and knowing that even greater emotions would erupt on the other side. In the evening we spoke on the phone. Both of us cried. “You found my mommy, my dear mommy”. Unfortunately, Esther died before I reached Israel. When I first went to Tel Aviv after the pandemic, I met with her daughter and her entire family. Sara invited me to a Shabbat dinner. I looked with emotion at the picture of Sura Szwarc hanging on the wall. I was even more moved by the similarity of Sara’s daughter to her grandmother. Planning to visit Sara’s home, I wanted to bring a gift from Poland to

230  Ewa Wiatr which Esther never returned. Buying gifts is a nightmare of our times, everybody already has everything. I recalled my conversation with Esther and stories about her hometown Brzeziny, from where the family was deported to the Lodz ghetto. I traveled there to the site of the Jewish cemetery. Hidden in the grass are several broken matzevot and a monument commemorating the Jews of Brzeziny stands. I picked up some field stones there. Wrapped in a black velvet bag, I gave them to Sara as a gift to place on her mother’s grave. The stones closed the circle. David Friedman My contact with Miriam Friedman Morris began with an apology. Years ago, when The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto 1940–1941 was published, we editors used an etching of a bridge on the cover of the second volume. Despite knowing that Da‑ vid Friedmann signed the etching, we failed to credit the artist or reach out to his daughter Miriam about copyright permission. I later contacted Miriam, and, fortu‑ nately, she accepted an explanation and an apology. Early on, I was impressed by Miriam’s commitment to memorialize her father’s legacy. For our next project, the Encyclopaedia of the Ghetto, we used Friedmann’s portrait drawings of the hat factory managers. Friedmann was the author of a beau‑ tiful album of drawings depicting the operations of this factory, men and women working on the machines, the managers, and the nice hats. Miriam had a dete‑ riorated black‑and‑white contact photos most likely by Mendel Grossman of this album, improved by computer. We often discussed this album, and the chances of its survival. We both searched in every institute holding documents from the Lodz Ghetto. And in fact, one day, while browsing the website of a small institution in Israel, I saw “color” photos of this album. The album survived, and many drawings were colorized! The joy was immense, even more so when we realized that it was Holocaust Remembrance Day. What a moving coincidence! The photos were taken contemporaneously. Someone turned page after page of the album and photographed it. Interestingly, no institution staff responded to Miriam’s request about the photos’ origin. Enquiries by Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, titled researchers, were also met with silence. Someone suggested that the pictures were from Poland (taken in Poland or the scenes were in Poland, i.e. in the Łódź Ghetto) but the director of the State Ar‑ chives in Lodz denied that the album was there. From earlier research Miriam knew that the album was not in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. We were helpless: although the album had survived, we didn’t know its whereabouts. We reasoned that it was in private hands and the owner did not want to disclose information. This was the only logical explanation. Then another great coincidence! I told my colleague at the Jewish Historical Institute about unsuccessful attempts to find the album, sharing my concern that such a remarkable treasure would find its way to some auction. I saw her sur‑ prise and learned that the album is in the Jewish Historical Institute, not in the Archives, but in the Iconography section which Miriam hadn’t seen because the

Can I Be a Good Historian?  231 album was not entered into the catalogue record. Miriam is thrilled that today the album of 33 drawings is available online and everyone can see David Fried‑ mann’s beautiful work.7 Maria Ruda The story of Maria Ruda and her family is further evidence of my tendency toward procrastination. Instead of working on my book, I escape into parallel work, obvi‑ ously relevant to the general topic, just to avoid guilt. I then look through applica‑ tions and requests addressed to Rumkowski or other important people in the ghetto. Several thousand of them have survived, a job for years for researchers. These include requests for work, an allowance, referral to summer camps, remission of punishment, complaints against parents for the unfair distribution of food, and thousands of applications for removal from the deportation list. For a researcher concerned with everyday life, it is an inexhaustible source of information about the fate of families, about the drama of mothers asking for their child to be admitted to an orphanage where they have a chance to eat. I go through these applications, page after page, picking up the most characteris‑ tic ones. One day my attention was caught by a folder containing applications from “cultural workers”, whose situation in the ghetto was particularly difficult since tailors and shoemakers rather than writers and painters were needed. For some reason, I thoroughly read the application of Maria Ruda,8 an illustrator of children’s books asking for a job in the Science Department, a very special institution operat‑ ing in the ghetto. It was established with the permission of the German authorities to document the life of the Jews of the East. It was in this Department that figu‑ rines depicting a Hasidic wedding, now in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute, were created. Among those who worked there were the renowned painter Israel Lejzerowicz and Melania Fogelbaum, best known as the author of extremely poignant poems. Maria Ruda wanted to use her skills as an illustrator (according to the application, she had even been the illustrator of a Yiddish primary textbook for schools in the ghetto) to “contribute to the perpetuation in immortal drawings of the life of Jews in the ghetto”. Maria enclosed drawings with her application, which sadly were lost. My continued relationship with Maria Ruda was – again – a coincidence. For years, I have attended the ghetto liquidation commemorations in late August. Every year, Paweł Granicki interprets the ceremonies into English. I knew that Paweł vol‑ unteered for this work, as his contribution to the memory of his parents and family imprisoned in the ghetto. When I was given the opportunity to meet him in person, I did not fail to ask about his family (my insatiable desire to learn another personal story!). Paweł’s parents fortunately survived, but most of his family perished in the ghetto or camps. He began to talk about his father’s sister, a cartoonist and il‑ lustrator; he did not need to mention her name – I knew he meant Maria Ruda. I was surprised myself that the name jumped out of my memory as if waiting to meet Paweł. We were both deeply moved.

232  Ewa Wiatr I came across Maria Ruda again while browsing applications as an escape from “urgent” article writing. This time the request, chronologically earlier, from Maria had a very personal dimension: I earnestly request the Honourable Chairman to graciously honour with his presence the circumcision act of my son Danny Rudy, now 1.5 years old. My son was born in the ghetto; his father, Eng. Moses Rudy went missing with‑ out a trace. As my son does not know and currently does not have his father, I earnestly request Mr Chairman, as our only guardian, to graciously replace the absent father for my dearest son.9 Apart from the emotional value, this letter undoubtedly has for Maria’s family to‑ day, it is also a fascinating contribution to studying internal relations in the ghetto. Unfortunately, we do not know whether Rumkowski came to the ceremony. The pass lacks any endorsement. Many such applications were written to receive an additional food voucher. A few months after writing her request in September 1942, Maria and her son were deported to the death camp in Chełmno on Ner. She left voluntarily, not want‑ ing to leave Danny. Maria’s story is now complete thanks to these accidental findings and Paweł’s commitment to commemorating the family. From pre‑war photographs, I even know what she looked like: a beautiful, educated woman who married just before the war. The war’s outbreak separated her from her husband, who, like thousands of young men, left the city. Danny had already been born in the ghetto in July 1940. Thanks to archival material and a few coincidences, it was possible to reconstruct Maria’s fate, not sentencing her to oblivion. September 1942 I remember Maria Rudy while thinking of hundreds of nameless mothers who volunteered for deportation during the shpera (also written sperra) in September 1942. The colloquial term shpera is linked to the total ban on leaving homes (in German, Allgemeine Gehsperre) announced in the ghetto on September 5, 1942, the most tragic period in the city’s history. Children under 10 and people over 65 were deported. The action was preceded by Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski’s famous speech, known by his statement “Give me your children”; a speech deep‑ ening the “black legend” of the Lodz Judenrat chairman as a person who handed over the youngest and defenseless to death. An unfair opinion, stemming from the belief that Rumkowski could have decided anything in that tragic situation. I am critical of Rumkowski’s model of exercising power, but know that whatever he would have said, the deportation would have been carried out. Rumkowski wanted to avoid interference from the German authorities – it did not work out, in view of the parents’ resistance to surrendering their children.

Can I Be a Good Historian?  233 I have grappled with the subject of shpera many times. I researched documents, prepared an exhibition – one can assume that I learnt the subject in depth. Until I had to tell the story of this deportation in front of a large audience, I gathered infor‑ mation about the preparations on the German side and described the efforts of those parents who, having either the right acquaintances or the means to bribe Germans, sheltered their children in a building located, to my horror, opposite the hospital intended as a rallying point for the deportees. Children who were deported and those who were protected from deportation were separated only by a street. Those protected were written down; the number on the list was the same as the number engraved on a wooden ring hung around their necks. Photos have survived showing children with such necklaces. I had unique material to show, a small notebook in which six‑year‑old Bronek Leider, son of a veterinarian in the ghetto, wrote down in clumsy letters that he “already wanted to go home” and that his friend, Allan Miller, did not want to eat dinner. I wanted to show this horrible moment from all possible angles. I cited two quotes in my speech. The first is the memoirs of Irena Liberman: Our neighbor this morning walked her little son alone to the furor. She knows she will not see him again. But she told the child about a beautiful trip outside the ghetto walls, about flowering meadows, about ploughed fields, gave him a bag of food and planted him next to a friendly old woman. “Grandma will also go with you to the forest, and there you will gather mushrooms, fragrant pinecones and bring them back to mommy,” she told her son. She knows her days are numbered. Her already ailing heart, which has been ailing for a year now, refuses to obey her day by day. But her eyes are dry when she says to us: “I will sing him lullabies all night long, maybe he will hear the vibrations of my voice from afar”.10 Irena Liberman ends the description with two questions: Is this woman crazy? Or she is a hero? I read these words in conscious awareness of the imminent tightness of my throat. What was better? To have the child removed by violence or to make their last moments calm? The situation was aggravated by the realization that I was sitting about 500 meters away from the apartment where a note had been written that I should read: Dear people! I left a card in my child’s purse. Her name is Halinka Frydman […]. She is 4 years old, she is underdeveloped, and always when passing stool, her stool comes out, so the man who will take care of the children may he take pity on my distraught child. I have already lost one, and I may yet see this dear, dear baby of mine. I cannot write any further, because I feel I am sagging and will not be able to endure this. I ask you very much: Watch over my baby, who is helpless and weak. I kiss you dear Halusia – your Mommy”.11

234  Ewa Wiatr The card came back with the belongings of the murdered in the ghetto and someone found it while sorting clothes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read it. I cried in front of all the people who gathered there. The speech was finished by someone in the hall. When I recall the event and the accompanying emotions years later, I think I would have reacted similarly. Bronek and Mira Ledowski Bronek gave me many valuable documents from the war including letters, post‑ cards, and items. The most moving is the aforementioned diary from the time of the shpera. I got to know Bronek because of his stay in the ghetto. I try not to miss the opportunity to talk to survivors, collecting any information that helps me build a picture of life in the ghetto. Sometimes I feel like a Holocaust‑stalker, forcing people to confide in me. From Bronek, for example, I learnt the name of the horse harnessed to Rumkowski’s carriage. Probably insignificant information, although I was even able to confirm it, since all ghetto horses had cards describing their ap‑ pearance and health. I found a horse called Bogdan, matching the description of the one appearing in the photos of Rumkowski’s horse‑drawn carriage. However, these curiosities do not constitute the great significance of this acquaintance. We became friendly and could talk for hours. When Bronek and his wife came to visit me, he walked into the garden (we live in the countryside) and said: if either of us dies, you can live here, Mira. Unfortunately, Bronek soon died. Mira became part of our family. She comes to us from Israel at least twice a year, we can hardly imagine the holidays without her. She is liked and loved by the whole family and neighbors. I also know that I always have a place in their house in Israel. Mira’s presence in my life is a gift, all due to my curiosity to learn about people who survived the ghetto. Traps I have made hundreds of acquaintances during these dozen years, stemming from their search for information about people in the ghetto. Many have faded from my memory. Sometimes I find some notes, scrawled family trees, or names with wartime street names assigned to them. Among hundreds of kind and cordial con‑ tacts, some left a distaste. When the son of someone well‑known in the ghetto who played a significant role in creating rich ghetto documentation wrote to me, I hoped to gain a source of unique information. I was also eager to help establish the fam‑ ily’s fate in the ghetto. But it turned out that my role was to boil down to one thing: to confirm that the gentleman’s uncle, who was in the ghetto, had assumed his wife’s identity after his death (fabricating his own death) thus protecting himself from deportation. This was said to have taken place in mid‑1943, and the uncle was said to have survived in this disguise until August 1944, the time of the ghetto’s liquidation. The situation seemed very suspicious to me, although I could not rule it out in advance, especially since the man’s death was confirmed in the files. During

Can I Be a Good Historian?  235 the two waves of deportations in 1942, everyone who had no “productive” value to the German occupation authorities disappeared from the ghetto. The following year, only individuals left the ghetto, usually to a labor camp. Fear of deportation was not felt. Rather, hope for the end of the war was slowly emerging. Who was there to hide from? Germans weren’t seen in the ghetto on a daily basis. I met people who first saw German uniforms while at Radegast station in August 1944, when they boarded trains bound for Auschwitz. I couldn’t confirm this event with good conscience, even less so when it I learned it was a matter of confirmation for a court dealing with a dispute over intricate inheritance matters. These few situations show the fluid lines between professional and personal activity. Deep involvement entails emotions. Does this prevent one from calling oneself a researcher? Not in my opinion. No historian should lose sight of the hu‑ man being. Meetings with the families of survivors are the most important reward for me. Although they don’t offset the condition described as “sedimentation of sorrow”, a phenomenon that every Holocaust researcher faces. Unfortunately, this conviction is followed by the very sad reflection that we are still unable to learn from our past. Repeated at every commemoration, the words “no more war” are an unanswerable appeal. Notes 1 I owe thanks to Judy Baumel‑Schwartz for encouraging me to write this text. The idea was born while looking for information about Judy’s grandparents. 2 Baranowski, 2009. 3 Baranowski, 2009, v. 2: 563. 4 Lipszyc, 2017. 5 Radziszewska, 2018: 49–68. 6 Radziszewska, 2018: 37–48. 7 “Album Resortu Kapeluszy w Getcie Łódzkim,” https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/1016574/0/. 8 State Archive in Łódź, RG 205, file 282: 39. 9 State Archive in Łódź, RG 205, file 158: 87. 10 Archive of Jewish Historical Institute, RG 302, file 222: I. Liebman, “W kalejdoskopie wspomnień”, vol. 2, sp. 56. 11 The text was reprinted in an article by Kubiak, 1952: 285.

Bibliography Baranowski, Julian (ed.), 2009. Kronika Getta Łódzkiego, Litzmannstadt Getto 1941–1944, vol. 1–5, Łódź: Archiwum Państwowe: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego. Kubiak, Anna, 1952. “Dzieciobójstwo”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 2, no. 4: 285. Lipszyc, Rywka and Wiatr, Ewa (eds.), 2017. Dziennik z Getta Łódzkiego, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Austeria. Radziszewska, Krystyna and Wiatr, Ewa (eds.), 2018. Oblicza Getta. Antologia Tekstów z Łódzkiego Getta, Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego: 49–68.

About the Contributors

Dr. Lior Alperovitch is a lecturer of 20th‑century Jewish thought and history of Europe and the Jewish people, who specializes in the history of the Holocaust and its commemoration in Israel, visual representation of the Holocaust, and halakhic (Jewish legal) rulings and religious observance during the Holocaust. Dr. Alperovitch is the head of the Center for the Study of Holocaust Visualiza‑ tion at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, is a Spiegel Fellow at the Finkler Institute for Holocaust Research at Bar‑Ilan University, and teaches in the Department of Visual and Material Culture and the Haredi Department at Bezalel. Prof. Judith Tydor Baumel‑Schwartz is the director of the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, the Abraham and Edita Spiegel Fam‑ ily Professor of Holocaust research, the Rabbi Pynchas Brener Professor of re‑ search on the Holocaust of European Jewry, and Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, all at Bar‑Ilan University. She has written and edited nu‑ merous books and articles about gender, Holocaust, memory, commemoration, State of Israel, and descendants of Holocaust survivors. Dr. Batya Brutin is an art historian researcher of art during and after the Holocaust and Holocaust monuments in Israel and worldwide. She published academic books and articles and educational materials on these subjects. As a curator, she curated Holocaust art exhibitions in Israel and abroad. From 2000 to September 2018, she was the director of the Holocaust Teaching in Israeli Society Program at Beit Berl Academic College in Israel. Dr. Brutin received the Yad Vashem award of lifetime achievement in the field of Holocaust education in 2018. Dr. Krzysztof Czubaszek has a Doctor of Philosophy in history (1974) and is a member of the Poland Forum (Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar‑Ilan University) and the Forum for Dialogue, the oldest Polish organiza‑ tion established for Polish‑Jewish dialogue. He is a researcher of the history of the Jews of Łuków and guardian of the memory of the Jewish community of his hometown – author of press articles and books (among others “Żydzi Łukowa i okolic” [The Jews of Łuków and Its Vicinity]); initiator and founder

238  About the Contributors of commemorations, such as memorial plaques and monuments; co‑organizer and consultant of exhibitions; creator of the website www.zydzi.lukow.pl; and manager of culture, lives in Warsaw. Dr. Yaacov Falkov is an Israeli‑Latvian historian of World War II, a lecturer in history at Tel‑Aviv University, and a scientific advisor to the Ghetto Fighters Museum (Israel) and the Riga Ghetto Museum (Latvia). He is a former visit‑ ing fellow of Yad Vashem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), and the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (OCHJS). He published a series of books, chapters, and articles about various aspects of World War II and currently is completing a new study on Soviet intelligence knowledge of the Holocaust. Dr. Lea Ganor, a second generation of Holocaust Survivors from Poland, is the founder and director of the Mashmaut center in Kiryat Motzkin. She is also senior scholar and coordinator of the Poland Forum Bar Ilan University. With a PhD from Bar Ilan University, her research focuses on the IDF and the Holo‑ caust. She received a postdoctoral grant from Haifa University for documenting Holocaust survivor Air Crew members in the Israeli Air Force. She has pub‑ lished academic essays and received awards for Holocaust education from Yad Vashem. Recognized for her life achievement, she was honored with the Night Cross Order of Merit by the president of Poland for her contribution to fostering Polish Israeli dialogue. Ruth Weyl Geall is a UK citizen who worked as a senior social care researcher, planner, and manager for a number of London local authorities and national disability charities. After retiring, she volunteered on a number of oral history projects, interviewing and writing up personal histories of people in various communities and supporting the development of exhibitions of these groups. In 2015, she traveled to Poland for the first time and became interested in explor‑ ing her family history and that of other people who lived in the town where her father grew up. Dr. Agnieszka Haska is an assistant professor at Polish Center for Holocaust Re‑ search, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. In her work, she is interested in researching various topics about Holocaust in Po‑ land, especially regarding the problem of escapes from the occupied Poland, social networks, and memory of WWII in the contemporary public discourse. Haska is an author of books and articles, among them I am a Jew, I want to come in. Hotel Polski in Warsaw, 1943 (2006) and Dishonor. Stories about Polish treason (2018). She is also a university lecturer and educational expert. Eliyahu Klein is a PhD student at Tel Aviv University, in the Department of Jewish History. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on the subject “­Jewish – Non‑Jewish Relations in Włodawa County (Poland) under the ­German Occupation, 1939–1944” under the joint supervision of Prof. Havi Dreyfuss and Dr. David Silberklang from Yad Vashem. In 2022, he won the President of

About the Contributors 239 Israel Scholarship for Excellence in Science and Innovation. An article he wrote about the rural society in occupied Poland and the persecuted Jews during the Holocaust is expected to be published in the Yad Vashem Studies. Kamil Kopera is a Holocaust researcher at the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidar‑ ity and Valor. He holds a master’s degree in law and history. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in history faculty in the University of Rzeszów. Mr. Kopera spe‑ cializes in history of wartime crimes against Jews and people who were trying to help them to survive. Over the past few years, he has worked as a researcher in the field of Polish‑Jewish relations in Subcarpathian region of Poland during the war. He has initiated and co‑organized lectures, meetings, and exhibitions popu‑ larizing this topic and facilitating better understanding of complicated history. Dr. Grzegorz Krzywiec is an associate professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Polska Akademia Nauk). He is the author of Chauvinism, Polish Style: The Case of Roman Dmowski. Beginnings (1886–1905 (2016) and other publications on Polish anti‑Semitism, Polish‑Jewish relations, and right‑wing politics in Poland. Currently, he is conducting two major re‑ search projects on the social and cultural history of the Polish fascism in Central and Eastern European Perspective and together with a group of associates on the socio‑political radicalization of the Polish province during the Great Depression and its consequences (1929–1939). Dr. Stephan Lehnstaedt is a professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Studies at Touro University Berlin since 2016. He has lectured at LMU Munich, HU Berlin, and the London School of Economics, and was a research associate at the German Historical Institute Warsaw from 2010 to 2016. Among his books are Der Kern des Holocaust: Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka und die Aktion Reinhardt, München: C.H. Beck, 2017/2nd ed. 2020, Polish version 2018, French and Dutch 2020; Occupation in the East. The daily lives of German occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939–1944, New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 2016/2nd ed. 2019. Dr.  Hab. Witold Mędykowski is a historian, political scientist and archivist, graduate of universities in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as well as the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Kazimierz Wielki Uni‑ versity in Bydgoszcz. He is the author and editor of many books and articles on Polish‑Jewish relations, the Holocaust, World War II, political and economic history, and archiving. For many years, he has been involved in Polish Israeli scientific and archival cooperation. Currently, he is a researcher at the Abraham J. Heschel Center for Catholic‑Jewish Relations at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Dr. Michał Niezabitowski is a historian, museum professional, museologist, and academic teacher. Since 2004, he is the director of the Museum of Kraków, which has 21 branches, including the Old Synagogue, Eagle Pharmacy in the former ghetto, and Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory. Since 2007, he serves

240  About the Contributors as an academic lecturer at several universities in Poland. Since  2010, he is a member of the council of museums of the Polish Minister of Culture and Na‑ tional Heritage. Since  2012, he is Head of the Polish Museums Association. Since 2019, he is CAMOC board member. His research interests include theo‑ ries of memory, interpretations of heritage, and the history of Central European museums. Hana Oren is a third‑generation Holocaust survivor from Poland and a sec‑ ond‑generation to immigrants who were forced to leave Poland in 1968. She works as a teacher and mentor at the Mashmaut Center in Kiryat Motzkin. She is a project coordinator for students who are writing research papers with men‑ tors from the Mashmaut Center, about the Holocaust. She is an MA student at Haifa University studying Polish and Eastern European Studies and a member of the Poland Forum of the Finkler Institute at Bar‑Ilan University. She is also a member of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations committee. Inbal Raz is the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors from Poland. She holds a BA in psychology, the University of Haifa, and an MA in work rela‑ tions studies with a Thesis on Mothers and Daughters from Tel Aviv Univer‑ sity. Since  1996, she is the deputy director and associate in establishing the unique educational center – “Mashmaut” center in Kiryat Motzkin. In addition, since 2005, she is a member of the National Gender and Equality unit of the Ministry of Education in Israel. She is interested in gender issues and the unique struggles of Polish‑Jewish women refugees in Soviet camps in Siberia. Dr. Weronika Romanik holds a PhD in Hebrew studies and literature from the University of Warsaw. She also studied sociology, anthropology, Yiddish lan‑ guage, and culture. She received fellowships from the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. Her doctoral disserta‑ tion was devoted to the legacy of Mordechai Tenenbaum in the context of Mem‑ ory Studies. In 2009–2017 in Israel, she conducted multilingual interviews with the Holocaust survivors from the Bialystok area and the members of the Jewish resistance movement. Promoter of the idea of social archives, she is involved in numerous educational projects. Dr. Rivka Chaya Schiller is a recent PhD recipient from Touro University’s Grad‑ uate School of Jewish Studies program and also holds an MA degree from the same program. She received her MLIS degree from Dominican University and has been a professional Yiddish and Hebrew translator for the past 25 years. Her BA degree from the University of Chicago is in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Formerly, she worked as an archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and a reference librarian at the Center for Jewish History. A native Chicagoan, she is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland. Prof Eli Tzur is a member of kibbutz Zikim. He studied at Tel Aviv University and the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Until his retirement, he taught at the Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts. His

About the Contributors  241 research deals with the Zionist left‑wing and Jewish youth movements in East‑ ern Europe. His last book, Nipped in the Bud: Hashomer Hatzair in Poland, 1944–1950 (in Hebrew), was published by Yad Vashem, and his biography of Mordechai Bentov is yet to be published. Dr. Ewa Wiatr is an assistant professor at the Center for Jewish Research at the University of Lodz. She specializes in the history of the Jews of Central Po‑ land, the history of national minorities in the region, and the history of the Lodz ghetto. In 2018, she received her PhD in humanities from the Tadeusz Manteuf‑ fel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is among the editors of the Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto (five volumes, Polish version), is a member of the team that edited the Encyclopedia of the Ghetto. The Unfinished Project of the Łódź Ghetto Archivists, along with Adam Sitarek, and has edited a number of volumes having to do with the history of the Jews in Lodz before, during, and after the Second World War. Dr. Iwona Zawidzka is an ethnologist, a graduate of the University of Adam Mick‑ iewicz in Poznań. She defended her doctorate at the Institute of Judaism at the Jagiellonian University. She works at the Museum in Bochnia and is interested in the history of the local Jewish community and Jewish cemeteries in Bochnia and the region. He gives lectures on the past of the Jews in region and prepares exhibitions on the culture and history of the Jews in Bochnia. She is the author of various publications, including a guide to the Jewish cemetery in Bochnia. Prof. Sławomir Jacek Żurek is a full professor; the director of International Cen‑ tre for Research of the History and Cultural Heritage of the Central and Eastern European Jews and the head of Centre for Polish‑Jewish Literature Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin; author of numerous academic ar‑ ticles and books; member of the Polish Society for Jewish Studies, the Council of the Polish Episcopate’s Committee for Dialogue with Judaism, and the Polish Council of Christians and Jews; the coordinator of International Research Team (project “21st‑Century Literature and the Holocaust. A Comparative and Mul‑ tilingual Perspective”); and consortium of the University of Antwerp, Bar‑Ilan University, and the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

Index Names

Akhan 151 Alexander II of Russia 8 Alter, Rebbe Yisrael 23 Angrick, Andrej 129 Arlt, Fritz 71 Augustynek, Tadeusz 96 Aussenberg, Chana 159 Barash, Ephraim (Barasz, Efraim) 81–82 Batheil, family 159 Ben‑Aretz, Tzvi 163 Benz, Wolfgang 128–129, 133–134 Berg (Wattenberg) Mary (Miriam) 110–111 Berman, Adolf 77 Besht, Yisrael Ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov 22 Bielski, Jerzy 141 Birenbaum, Halina 93 Birkenfeld, Bernard 157 Biskupski, Maksymilian (Max) 99, 100 Błoński, Jan 166, 175–176 Bolecka, Anna 169, 175–176 Borgen, Lejb Leon 55, 59 Borzymińska, Zofia 176 Broszat, Martin 127, 133–134 Browning, Christopher R. 49, 68–69 Bruder, Franziska 131, 133–134 Bubiz Ignaz 123 Buchbinder, Awigdor 159 Buchbinder, Perla 159 Bürger, Georg 61 Bürger, Josef 5, 61–69 Bürger, Kreszetia 61 Bursztein, Juda‑Hersz 33 Casimir the Great, king 160, 164 Cęckiewicz, Witold 210 Chomątkowska, Beata 168, 176 Chorowicz, Maria 32

Chutnik, Sylwia 168–169, 175–176 Ciechanowski, Rabbi [Mordechai] 148, 152 Cukierman, Yitzhak “Antek” 77, 117–118 Dąbrowska, Tusia 177 Dachs, Sara 53 Danziger, Avraham Chaim 27 Danziger, Shmuel Tzvi 22 Danziger, Yerachmiel Yisrael Yitzchak 22 Danziger, Yitzchak Menachem Mendel 21–30 Datner, Szymon 85, 87–89 de la Penha, Lea Judith 104 Degen, Boroch 37 Demjanjuk, Ivan 198, 220 Desser, Abraham 159 Dieken, Eilert 58 Ditter 67 Dmowski, Roman 12, 239 Dobrzycki, Jerzy 212 Dov Ber “the Magid” 22 Druyanov, Alter 11 Duszeńko, Franciszek 105–106 Dydner, Leja Lea 57 Dylewski, Romuald 103 Dynner, Glenn 26, 26–30 Eder, Mozesz 35 Ehrlich, Jehuda 58 Eichmann, Adolf 129 Einhorn, Berish 55 Einhorn, Jakub 57 Eisenlohr, Georg 55 Eiss, Chaim Israel 111–113, 116–117 Elimelech of Lizhensk 22, 188 Eschwege, Helmut 127, 133–134 Fast, Henryk 162 Feldberg, Mendel 34

244  Index Names Fischer, Stanisław 5, 155, 159, 164–165 Fischler, Henek 160 Fischler, Markus 158 Fischler, Zew 157, 162, 165 Flaks, Chaja Ryfka 160 Folman‑Raban, Chavka 86, 89 Fontana Paweł Antoni 197 Frank, Hans 71 Frankel, Alona 163, 165 Fränkel, Augusta 159 Fränkel, Simche 158 Frenk, Bernard 150 Frieder, Kreidl 56 Friedländer, Saul 131, 133–134, 182, 188, 191 Gebirtig, Mordechai 24, 197 Gerlach, Christian 129 Gertler, David 187 Glick Hirsch 200 Globocnik, Odilo 14 Goldman, Boruch 53, 57 Goldman, Chaim Hersch 57 Goldman, Itta 57, 59 Goldman, Joachim 58 Goldman, Markus 57 Goldman, Mechel 57 Goldman, Mojżesz Fejwel 57 Goldman, Salomon 162 Goldman, Saul 57–58 Gomulka, Władysław 137–139, 140, 195–196 Göring, Hermann 150 Gottlieb, Mendel 162 Gottlieb, Zygmunt 162 Grabski, Wladyslaw 10 Greinfeld, Golda 57 Greiwer, Menachem 162 Greiwer, Salo (Solomon) 160, 183, 191 Gross, Jan Tomasz 123, 125, 175–176 Gruenbaum, Yitzhak 10 Grunbaum, Tanchum 53 Grynszpan, Chil 48 Grzybowski, Roman 96 Guddat 67 Gutfreund, family 159, 165 Haimi, Yoram 103, 107 Halberstam, Szyja 157–158 Halberstam, Yechezkel Shraga 185 Haller Józef (General) 122 Hasselberg, Dr. 62 Haupt, Adam 105–106 Hawro, Stanisław 56–57 Heydrich, Reinhardt 14

Hinka 194 Hitler, Adolf 15, 28, 126–127, 182, 197 Ho., G. 68 Hochberg, Raphael Yechezkel 28 Hochman, Henryk (Heschel) 161, 164 Hoffman, Alice 181, 191 Hofstätter, Osias 162, 165 Hryniewicz‑Yarbrough, Ewa 177 Huberband, Shimon 28–30 Huelle, Paweł 175, 177 Jabotinsky, Vladimir Zeev 11, 13 Jagielski, Jan 95 Jakubowicz, Izaak 163 Jakubowicz, Maciej 212 Janiak Moshe 223 Janicka, Bojana 143 Jasienicy, Paweł 138 Jedlicki Jerzy 124 Kantor, Loli 163, 165 Kaplan, Pesach (Kapłan, Pesach) 83, 87, 89 Kasprowicz, Jan 159 Keff, Bożena (Umińska Bożena) 168, 175–176 Kempler, Shimon 188, 190 Khalfn, Mr. 149 Kieliszek Josef 96 Kieliszek Shaked, Ze’ev 96 Klamerus, Władysław 98 Klapholz, Beniamin 157 Klapholz, Czarna 157 Klauzinska, Kamila 185 Klein, Peter 129, 133 Klieber 67 Klingberg, Scheim 158 Knobloch, Wilhelm 160 Kokot, Józef 58 Kollender, Rachel 155, 162, 165 Königsberg, Józef 157 Korah 151 Korczak, Janusz (Goldszmit, Henryk) 105 Kowalski Jacek 96 Krajewski, Stanislaw 95 Krischer Itzhak 222 Krischer Malka 222 Kroll, Bogdan 79, 79 Kruger, Chaim 150 Krumcholz, Nachum 160 Ksenski, Efroim 36 Kucza‑Kuczyński, Konrad 99, 100 Kühl, Juliusz 111, 116 Kühnberg, Rozalja 34, 40 Kutner, Y. [Jacob] 149 Kwiet, Konrad 127, 133–135

Index Names  245 Lamendorf, Zygmunt 159 Landau, Hersch Meilech 54, 59 Landau, Samuel 163 Landfisch, Mojżesz 162 Langer, Lawrence 182, 190, 191 Lanzmann, Claude 166 Laub, Gabriel 162 Laufer Chaja 184 Laufer Cińa 184, 185 Lawson, Tom 129, 133, 135 Lemle, Dr. 148 Leś, Włodzimierz 58 Lewandowski, Józef 208, 216 Lichtenberg, Moshe 48 Lichtig, Dawid 159, 162 Lichtig, Wilhelm Teodor 158, 159 Lieberman, Chaim 149–151 Lloyd‑Jones, Antonia 176 Löw, Andrea 130, 135 Lubetkin, Civia (Zivia) 127, 132, 135 Lubomirski, Druzus 51 Lustgarten, Balbina 159 Lustiger, Arno 128, 133, 135 Maimonides 29, 30, 149 Majchrowski, Jacek 213, 214 Makosz, Urszula 155 Malmed, Itzchok (Małmed, Icchak) 82–84, 87 Mandelbaum, Szlama 34, 37 Markus, Jakub 33 Marx, Karl 8 Masada, Marta (Sawicka‑Danielak, Marta) 169, 170, 176 Materski, Wojciech 78, 79 Mazurek Wojciech 103 Mazurok, Shmul 32, 33, 37 Merton Alice 218 Michnik, Adam 138 Mickiewicz, Adam 137, 241 Moczar, Mieczyslaw 17, 137 Modrzycer Israel Taub 121 Moses 151 Muhlrad Regina 221 Müller, Binem Beniamin 52, 53, 56 Müller, Gustaw 159 Münzer, Henryk 159 Nadel, Dawid 53 Nadel, Samuel 53 Narutowicz, Gabriel 10 Neuberg, Małka 53 Neuberg, Zelig 53 Neustadt, Leon 70 Niezabitowska, Anna 208

Niezabitowski, Andrzej 207, 208, 215 Niezabitowski, Czesław 208 Nizioł, Aniela 56, 58 Nora, Pierre 192, 200 O’Bretenny, Zofia 138 Obstler, Leon 160 Orlik, Filip 51 Ostachowicz, Igor 167, 173, 176 Pagis, Dan 102 Pankiewicz, Tadeusz 214, 216 Parciack, Rivka 94, 107, 108 Paucker, Arnold 128, 133, 135 Paziński, Piotr 170, 177 Pidek, Zdzisław 101, 102 Piłsudski, Józef 12, 23 Piwowarski Krystian 176, 177 Piwowarski, Radoslaw 143, 144 Płachcińska, Felicja 161 Płachciński, Ludwik 161 Plaisner, Natan 32, 39 Pohl, Dieter 129, 133 Polonsky, Antony 176 Pomeranz, Ozjasz 159 Poper, Joel‑Kalman 33 Potozki Graf (Count) 218 Prus Bolesław 121 Rabinowicz, Emmanuel Gerszon 122 Rakusa, Monika 173, 175–177 Raz, Sharon Pinchas 222 Riesenbach, Józef 54, 57, 59 Rips, Chaja Gitla 54 Rips, Mendel 54 Ronikier, Adam 79 Rosenbaum, David‑Leib 31, 33, 35 Rosengarten, Etla 57 Roszczyk, Marcin 101, 102 Rotem‑Ratayer, Simcha 99 Roth, Markus 130 Rubenfeld, Moses 52 Rydz‑Śmigły, Edward 24 Ryznar, Teofil 56 Sakawicz, Kamila 140 Sapieha, Adam Stefan Archibishop 72 Sauer, Golda 57 Sauerhaft, Natan 53 Schäftler, Adam 159 Schanzer, Tobiasz 159 Scheffler, Wolfgang 129, 131, 133, 135 Schleifer, Henrik 138 Schöngut‑Strzemiński, Stefan 163 Schudrich, Michael Joseph 96, 97, 155

246  Index Names Schwarzbaum, Alfred 111 Schwimmer, Naftali 162 Schwimmer, Teofila 162 Segal, Abraham 57 Siedlecki, Marcys 140–142 Sieniewicz, Mariusz 170, 175 Sigalin, Józef 168 Sigismund III, king 156 Silberring, Samuel 159 Silberschein, Abraham 111–113, 116–118 Simcha Bunim 25 Składkowski, Sławoj 24 Slonimski, Antoni 9 Socheczewski, Czeslawa 48 Socheczewski, Mania 48 Solnik, Szymon 35 Sołyga, Andrzej 101–102 Sommerstein, Emil 16 Spielberg, Steven 129, 213 Stachoń, Anetta 155 Stachow, Mr. 75, 79 Stankiewicz, Olivier 163 Stauffenberg, Claus von 127 Steinbach, Peter 128, 130, 133, 135 Steinhart, Harry 146, 152 Sternbuch Eli 111 Sternbuch Yitzchak 117 Sternbuch, Recha 111, 118 Stiel, Sachne 162 Stoczynski, Kazimierz 42 Stoczynski, Zofia 42, 49 Stoll, Katrin 85, 87–89 Storch, Bernard 160, 165 Strobl, Ingrid 130, 133, 135 Strynkiewicz, Franciszek 105–106 Sugihara, Chiune 111 Szall see Goldman, Saul Szczygieł, Andrzej 212 Szlengel, Władysław 93 Szmalenberg, Hanna 98 Sznajderman, Tema (Schneiderman, Tema) 80 Szpiro, Dawid (Shpiro, David) 88, 89 Szpytma, Edward 53, 54, 46, 60–64 Tau Saul Jedidja Eleazar 122 Tenenbaum‑Tamaroff, Mordechai 89–89 Tomek 141–142 Torn, Halina 137 Torn, Josef 137 Torn, Maurycy 137 Truskier, Judyta 109

Trynczer, Golda 53 Trynczer, Pesa 53 Tsac, Tamara 96 Tulli, Magdalena 171–172, 177 Türk, Richard 76, 77, 79 Tuvim, Julian 9 Tydor Aron 186, 188 Tydor Camilla‑Zipporah 183 Tydor Ester (Estera) 183–185 Tydor Samuel 185, 186 Tydor Yechezkel (Chaskel) Shraga Tydor, (Yehuda) Leib 183, 185, 187, 188 Tydor, Berta (Beile) née Greiwer 183, 186, 187 Tydor, Ides (Judith) Malka 183–185, 187, 188 Tydor, Manfred‑Menachem 183 Tydor, Mecha 162 Tydor, Mendel (Menachem) 182, 186, 188 Tyger Estera 184, 185 Ulma, Józef 57 Ulma, Wiktoria 57 Unterweiser, Beata 42, 43, 49 Walke, Annika 131, 133, 135 Warszewski, Adam 138, 140 Warszewski, Dorotka 141 Waserlauf, Izaak 157 Wasserman, Elchonon Bunim 29, 30 Wattenberg Sylvia 110 Weichert, Michael 70 Weinfeld, Mendel 159, 163 Weinfeld, Nina 163, 165 Weinfeld, Uscher 163 Weingort, Shaul 111–113, 117, 119 Weisblum, Elimelech 22 Weitzman, Asher 53 Weitzman, Moses 53, 54 Welter, Mieczysław 103, 104 Weltz, Miriam 57 Weltz, Mosze Moniek 58 Wiatr, Ewa 185, 187, 190 Wieckiewicz, Roman 140–142 Wiener, Josef 161, 164 Wilner, Israel 33 Willenberg, Samuel 106 Wojciechowski, Czesław 100 Wolick, Colonel Roman 140 Wolicki, Julia 140 Wolicki, Yanek 139–142 Wulf, Joseph 128, 134

Index Names  247 Yudkowski 83 Zak, Deddie 104 Zanger, Moshe 188, 191 Zeyfman, Avraham 146–148 Zeyfman, Leybush 146–151 Zeyfman, Mindl 151, 152 Zeyfman, Motl 147 Zeyfman, Shmuel 148, 151–152 Zimmermann, Berl 159

Zimmerspitz, Gerson Gustaw 159 Zimmerspitz, Lola 161, 163, 165 Zimmerspitz, Regina 162 Zingerevitsh, M. 148 Zuckerman, Itzchak (Cukierman, Icchak) 77, 81, 86, 88–89, 117–118 Zwartendijk, Jan 111 Zwetschkenstiel, Dolek 160, 165 Zylberman Charna 223

Index Places

Adampol 42, 193 Albigowa 51 Alexander 8, 21–24, 27–28 America 13, 113, 150, 182–183, 189–191, 202 Archangel 223 Augsburg 61–62, 64–66, 68 Auschwitz (concentration camp) 15, 81, 101, 114, 147, 174, 182, 184, 188, 190, 213, 235 Auschwitz III (Buna‑Monowitz) 182 Austria 7, 43, 145 Austro‑Hungarian Empire 186 Bamberg 61 Baranowicze 28 Będzin 44, 80 Belarus 38 Belgium 112, 182 Bełżec 56, 63, 76, 101–103, 107, 154, 239 Bergen Belsen 115, 188, 190 Berlin 5, 14, 54, 78, 111–112, 127, 132–135, 239 Bern 111–112, 114–117 Bialystok 5, 24, 80–81, 83–8, 87–89, 240 Biłgoraj 34 Bobrowniki 121 Bochnia vi, 154–165, 182–191, 241 Borough Park (district) 170 Brazil 145–147, 152 Breslau 193 Brest Litovsk 24 Brooklyn 188, 191 Brussels 183 Brzesko 163 Buchenwald 163, 182–183, 190 Buna 182–183, 188 Buttenwiesen 61 Bytom 218, 221–222

Charków 160 Cheliabinsk 37 Chelmno 187 Congress Polin (Kongressowka) 7–8 Cracow 80, 110, 114, 117–118 Crewe UK 203 Czechoslovakia 141 Częstochowa 24 Dachau 54, 59, 64 Dęblin/Dęblin‑Irena 120–123 Denmark 138, 204 Dnepropetrovsk (Dnipro) 36–38 Dobczyce 163 Duisburg 68 Düsseldorf 65, 68–69 Dzhambul (Taraz), Kazakhsta 220 Dzierżoniów 201, 203–206 Egypt 25–26 Falenica 34, 37 France 133, 135, 147, 150, 183, 204, 221 Frankfurt 128, 135, 182–183, 186 Frysztak 79 Galicia 7, 52, 209 General Government 14, 42, 55, 62, 69–72, 74, 76, 78–80, 86, 110, 112, 114 Geneva 111, 113, 115–116, 119 Germany 5, 7, 8, 12–15, 27–28, 31, 36, 54– 55, 62, 70–72, 100, 103, 105, 111, 123, 126–132, 145, 147, 182, 184, 190–191, 198, 201, 204, 206, 208, 217, 223, 237 Gliniany 28 Góra Kalwaria (Ger) 122 Gorlice 94 Grodno 80 Grodziszcze 163

250  Index Places Hadle Kańczuckie 57 Haifa 198, 220, 238, 240 Hamburg 63, 134 Hofgeismar DP camp 223 Holon 221 Hungary 71, 210 Husów 55, 57 Israel i, 4–5, 9, 12, 16–17, 23, 25, 28, 30, 33, 40, 47, 55, 67, 86, 88–89, 99, 103, 108, 111, 121, 125, 127, 133, 137–138, 140, 143–144, 151–152, 155, 158, 161–162, 164–165, 170, 173–174, 189, 193–199, 204–206, 208, 214–218, 220–224, 227–231 Italy 54, 145, 147 Izbica 131, 134 Jagiełła‑Niechciałka 58 Jarosław 55–56, 62, 107 Jasło 222 Jawornik Polski 32 Jedwabne 123–124, 166, 176 Jerusalem ii, 4, 30, 40, 49–50, 78, 86, 88– 89, 105, 107–108, 115, 119, 129, 144, 190–191, 200–201, 203, 223, 237, 239 Kaiserslautern 61 Kańczuga 51–52, 55 Katyń 160 Kazimierz Dolny 94–96 Kielce 16, 95, 137, 145 Kiev 103 Kiryat Motzkin i, 5–6, 197–198, 238, 240 Kock 62, 64, 67 Kraków vii, 6, 24, 33, 36, 48, 60, 71, 74–75, 77–79, 130, 157–165, 176–177, 182–183, 207–216, 235, 239 Kresy 7 Kulmhof (Chełmno and Nerem) 76 Kupiecka Street 82–83 Lamsdorf 36 Łańcut 218–222 Langwasser 65 Latvia 71 Legnica 64 Leżajsk 22 Liebenau 110 Lipnik 53 Lithuania 38, 71 Litzmannstadt 130, 134, 135, 235; see also Łódź Lodz 23, 30, 41, 110, 226, 228–230, 232, 241

lower Silesia 193 Lubartów 64 “Lubliama” 138 Lublin 5, 41, 44, 50, 61–64, 69, 72, 76–77, 120, 124, 134, 161, 164, 167, 239, 241 Ludwigsburg 64 Lukow 238 Lviv 38, 55, 111, 208, 211 Lwów (Lvov/Lviv) 38, 60 Madagascar 13 Majdanek 101, 105, 109, 167 Malcanów 64 Manhattan, New York 149, 150 Markenhoff 51; see also Markowa Markova\Markowa 221–222 Mezhirichi (Międzyrzecz Korecki) 22 Międzybóż 22 Międzyrzec (Podlaski) 62, 66–67 Mielec 77 Mierziączka 123 Minsk Mazowiecki 24 Montreux 111, 116, 123 Moscow 37–38 Munich 127, 131, 239 Muranów (district) 167–169, 176 New York iv, 5, 50, 108, 110, 118–119, 125, 145, 149, 150, 152–153, 162, 170, 175, 177, 191, 239 Niepołomice Forest 55 Nikolsk 52 North Macedonia 204–205 Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki 96–97, 107 Nowy Wiśnicz 163 Nuremberg 65 Ostrava 62 Ostrołęka 193 Ostrów Lubelski 41–42, 49 Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Poland vi, 5, 145–153 Otwock 28, 122 Palestine 9, 11, 13, 110, 113–115, 127, 153, 160, 195 Parczew 41, 44, 45–46, 48, 49, 62 Pechora 37 Peshischa 21–22, 25–26 Pinsk 8 Pionki 77 Płaszów 75, 77, 187 Poland i, ii, iii, iv, vi, vii, 3–17, 27–33, 35– 37, 41–43, 47, 50, 52, 54–55, 62, 65, 69,

Index Places  251 70, 76, 78, 84, 94–95, 97, 99–101, 103, 105–111, 113, 116, 120–122, 124–126, 128–130, 132, 136–141, 143–148, 150, 152, 155, 160, 162, 166–169, 171–173, 175–176, 182, 184, 187–188, 192–205, 207–213, 216–223, 228–230, 237–241 Poniatowa 77 Poznań 42–43, 69, 241 Prashka 223 Przasnysz 94 Przemyśl 32–33, 35, 58–60 Przeworsk 51–52, 54, 59 Przytyk 12, 24, 122, 197 Puławy 120, 123 Raba river 159 Radom 77, 122 Radzin 46 Radzyń (Podlaski) 49, 62–67 Regensburg 65 Reichenbach 201–202, 203, 205 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 145–147 Romania 71 Russia 7, 8, 11, 37, 52, 66, 137, 197, 203, 205, 223 Ryki 123 Rzeszów 33, 56, 59–60, 239 Rzuchowski Forest (Las Rzuchowski) 76 Sachsenhausen 54, 59 San (River) 34–35, 55 Sandomierz 94 Sanok 33 Serokomla 62 Siberia 13, 58, 193–194, 205, 218, 220, 225, 240 Siedlce 94 Sietesz 56–57 Silesia 36, 64, 193, 201–202, 205 Slovakia 42–43 Sobibór 14–15, 42, 46, 47, 63, 76–77, 101, 103, 105, 131, 134, 193, 239 Sosnowiec 33–34 Soviet Union 14, 31–32, 37, 40, 42, 63, 71, 111, 131, 137, 193, 194, 209 Stalingrad 15 Stalowa Wola 7 Straubing 68 Stryi 222 Stuttgart 64 Stutthof 101 Sverdlovsk 55 Sweden 71, 138, 208, 211, 221, 227

Szebnie 161, 164, 183, 187–188 Szlachecka Street 83 Tarnów 34, 130, 134–135, 163 Tel Aviv 5, 30, 79, 86, 88–89, 119, 229, 238–240 Titmoning 110 Trawniki 77 Treblinka 14–15, 28, 42, 47, 48, 63, 64, 76, 80–81, 99, 101, 105, 106, 123, 131, 135, 147, 195, 239 Trzebinia 31, 33 Tsar Empire 121 Ukraine 15, 22, 38, 163, 206, 222 Ukrainian 32, 34–36, 38, 41, 56, 72, 103, 142, 201 United States 8–9, 32, 38, 49, 52, 65, 70, 112, 115, 117, 125, 131, 138, 146, 170, 230 Uście Solne 163 Vienna 42, 54, 62 Vilna 15, 152 Vilnius 80 Vittel 110, 113–115 Vladivostok 52 Wannsee 14 Warsaw 7, 9, 11, 15, 28–29, 34, 41–44, 46– 47, 49, 59, 70–71, 76–77, 80–81, 87–89, 97–100, 107–113, 117, 119, 124–126, 130–132, 136–139, 145, 169, 172, 174, 187, 193, 199–200, 228, 230, 238–240 Wartheland 71 Węgrów 94 Wertingen 61 Wieliczka 163 Wieluń 173 Wiśnicz 156, 163, 186; see also Nowy Wiśnicz Włodawa v, 5, 41–44, 48–46, 50, 103, 193–194, 197–199, 238 Wohyń 62 Wólka Pełkinska 56 Wroclaw 193–194, 196, 200 Wyszków 94 Zagłębie Dąbrowskie 121 Zakopane 62 Zamość 172 Zbaszyn 13 Zurich 111, 113, 116