Helping Those Doomed to Annihilation as a Source of Destruction – On the Basis of Brandla Siekierkowa’s Personal Documents
Helping Those Doomed to Annihilation as a Source of Destruction – On the Basis of Brandla Siekierkowa’s Personal Documents

Summary/Abstract: Brandla Siekierkowa’s occupation-time diary and her 1949 memoir describe experiences, which do not fit the main currents of Polish historical narration. After the liquidation of the Mińsk Mazowiecki ghetto in August 1942 the author, her husband and two sons found shelter in the Żwirówka village on the Bylickis’ farm. Brandla’s testimonies reveal a non-heroic dimension of the long-lasting and disinterested help, which occasioned mutual aversion. They fit neither the “positive” model of narration about the Righteous and the helpees nor the “fringe of the Holocaust” model where the Poles hurt the Jews. Brandla’s notes give us insight into the sphere situated between these two types of narration about the Polish-Jewish past.

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