List należy do życia… Listy prywatne jako źródło badań nad Zagładą
A Letter is Part of Life… Personal Letters as Source Materials for the Study of the Holocaust

Summary/Abstract: The objective of the article was to discuss the factors determining the content and form of wartime letters from persons who found themselves in the position of Jews during World War II. This concerns both the rules governing the “postal” traffic involving these people but also other circumstances influencing the message in each instance, ones connected with the wartime context of writing (concerning the moment, the place, the situation in which the authors were, etc.), or, finally, about conventions used in epistolography of those time that have not been investigated to this day. The author sought to achieve more than just present a map of the contexts to which one could relate the conclusions from the studies of the letters from persons considered as Jews in light of German law, mailed from the areas occupied by the Germans. While pointing to the singular role of letters at the time, she also sought to show that although they do not as a rule provide the contemporary reader with too much information about the realities in which their authors lived, they can be an invaluable source of knowledge about the formation of postures that were not always realized and about the nature of interpersonal relations in extreme circumstances. Despite the inevitable limitations, the work with this source widens the scope of matters available for analysis, while also opening vast, still not fully utilized opportunities. The studies presented here are in practice limited to the letters from the years 1939-1942, sent by official letters sent from channels (although it ignores letters sent from labour camps or P.O.W. camps, which were subject to special restrictions). It concerns texts written in the period from the start of the German occupation of Poland until the so-called Aktion Reinhardt started in successive General Gouvernement ghettoes.

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