Mydło – mięso – opał. Granice fantazji polskich świadków Zagłady
Soap, Meat, Fuel: The Limits of the Fantasies of Polish Witnesses to the Holocaust

Summary/Abstract: Tomczok offers a close reading of Tadeusz Borowski’s short story “Farewell to Maria” [Pożegnanie z Marią] in the context of works by Jan T. Gross and Raul Hilberg. She reveals the ideological potential of Borowski’s text and its ideologemes, highlighting above all the Poles’ fears and desires in relation to the Holocaust and the people inside the Warsaw ghetto as it was being liquidated. She also considers the influence of these ideologemes on contemporary Polish literature (Marcin Wroński’s A na imię jej będzie Aniela [And Her Name Will Be Aniela], Warsaw 2011; Krystian Piwowarski’s Więcej gazu, Kameraden! [More Gas, Comrades!], Warsaw 2012). The most ambiguous moment of “Farewell to Maria”, from an ideological point of view, seems to be the culminating point with the motif of yearning for soap and the figure of Mischling. Reflecting on the work of contemporary ironists, Tomczok explores the fact that Borowski remains understudied and quasi-witnesses’ fantasies about being perpetrators of the Holocaust.

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