Przemoc filosemicka
Philo-Semitic abuse

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses Jolanta Dylewska’s documentary film Po-lin (2008). The authors offer new conceptual categories facilitating the description of the manner in which the objectification of Jews takes place in Po-lin – and in the broader context of Polish narrative of Jews and the Holocaust – under the guise of their subjectification; exclusion under the guise of inclusion. The described symbolic practices include: 1. Organising a narrative of the Holocaust by means of exteriorisation; universalisation; locating outside the history; considering the Shoah as a natural disaster, and finally as part of the divine plan. 2. Constructing the image of “a Jew” by: homogenisation of the group, folklorisation, aesthetisation and separation. Examining the case out of the context allows for omitting the wider sphere of interaction, in which the exclusion as well as symbolic and physical abuse carried out by the majority group came to light. 3. Creating a figure of “the good Jew”, which shows gratefulness to the domineering group and full understanding of anti-Semitic discriminatory practices. The function of “the good Jew” is to legitimise the majority story and to discipline or repress anyone who undertakes actions to change the status quo. The above-describe devices produce the effects of eliminating real experiences of real people who suffered the anti-Semitic abuse, blocking afterthoughts while preserving the heartening image of Poland and Poles.

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