![Warszawa międzywojenna w pamięci jej mieszkańców, wybór i oprac. J. Pałka, A. Szamruchiewicz, M. Szymańska-Szwąder, Warszawa 2012, ss.72;
Warszawa okupowana. Relacje mieszkańców, wybór i oprac. M. Szymańska-Szwąder, J. Pałka, Warszawa 2011, ss. 92...](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2015_25951.jpg)
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The works created in a German concentration camp by Gustaw Morcinek — an author well-known to literary circles and present at schools or in academic perception (though today almost forgotten), and recognizable to the Polish readers thanks to “Łysek z pokładu Idy” (“Baldie from Ida Coal Seam”) and “Wyrąbany chodnik” (“Clear Drift”) — prove that the problems shown in them are still of utmost importance. “Judasz z Monte Sicuro” (“Judas of Monte Sicuro”) — a novel by Gustaw Morcinek, on which this article focuses, gives an honest picture of traumatic wartime experiences, devoid of simplifications and distortions. It may become an important commentary on short stories by Tadeusz Borowski and “The Tin Drum” by Gunter Grass. Regardless of these works’ genesis, the attitudes of their protagonists are similar: they follow a subjective hierarchy of values, rejecting moral norms, and — repeatedly — causing conflicts with their surroundings. In school practice, “Judasz z Monte Sicuro” can be considered a significant work from both the historical and literary perspectives. It constitutes a record created by an eye-witness and chronicler of other people’s observations, and at the same time, it is an original work, written in simple language, unfettered by any rigid principles of the genre, and thus attracting attention with its authenticity and frankness. In school environment, reading “Judasz…” — which is appropriate in accordance with the core curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education — can bring a variety of interesting effects. One needs to remember that literature in secondary schools is primarily an event, whose content is unpredictable, diverse and complicated.
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The main goal of this paper is to discuss whether the first President of the Republic of Croatia Franjo Tuđman and the Croatian leadership in the 1990s were anti-Semitic. The minimization of the number of Holocaust victims and Holocaust denial, which includes statements that the Holocaust was a myth or a hoax produced by the Jews, are considered to be driven by anti-Semitism. These theories were present in historiography and later in politics. The outburst of political anti-Semitism, according to Western historians, can be found in Eastern Bloc countries after the collapse of their communist regimes. Croatia began its journey towards democracy and independence within this framework. Even before he became Croatian president, Tuđman was a controversial person due to his book Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy, which some circles described as anti-Semitic. Some of his statements were misinterpreted and his policy of national reconciliation, which meant ironing out the half-century-old political divisions between the Croats, was perceived as the rehabilitation of the Ustasha regime and its Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which carried out genocide against the Serbs, the Jews, and the Roma during World War II. Such widespread perception, supported by Serbian propaganda, prolonged the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the Republic of Croatia and the State of Israel until 1997. The relations between the Croatian leadership, Croatian people in general, and the Jewish community in Croatia in the 1990s were, however, very positive. Some established members of the Jewish community held high-ranking positions in the Croatian leadership. An appeal made by Nenad Porges, president of the Jewish community of Zagreb, to all the Jews in the world, in which he claimed that the Croatian Government was not anti-Semitic, proves the stability of those relations and the support of the Jewish community to Croatia during the Greater-Serbian aggression.
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After the long period of intentional silence surrounding the subject of the Holocaust survivors in the official discourse of Israel, more and more often the Holocaust served as a justification for the Israeli military activity as well as it became a central element shaping the national identity of the Israeli Jews. This situation is directly reflected in the texts of Israeli mass culture but also has been widely criticized with the use of tools it offers. The main objective of the article is to give a brief overview of the history of this dual relationship between Israeli pop culture and the Holocaust memory, as well as to explain the special status it has in Israel from the first decades of the state’s existence until the period of an extensive presence of the topic of Holocaust memory in various kinds of popular media.
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Soon after the collapse of communism in Romania the period of the Second World War became the focus of heated debates with two intertwined issues related to it, namely – the personality of the wartime leader Marshal Ion Antonescu and the topic of the Holocaust. The article traces the emergence and evolution of these debates, while also paying attention to the way in which the European and Euro-Atlantic perspective of the country affected the memory of these particular issues. It comes to the conclusion that the memory of the Second World War was somehow “negotiated” and suited to fit the present-day necessities of post-communist Romania and raises doubts whether the outside pressure on Romania’s revisiting this dark chapter of its history wasn’t in a way counterproductive, leaving the possibility of the existence of two parallel versions of the past – one for internal and one for external use.
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The aim of the communication is to present the different manners utilized in contemporary Bulgaria for facing the painful problem of the participation of Bulgarian authorities in the deportation of the Jews from Thrace and Macedonia during World War II. On the basis of examples from the historiography, textbooks, literature, cinema, museums, memorials and public debate are discussed the difficulties in the construction of one common and indivisible memory on events connected to the theme of responsibility and guilt, throwing the long shadow of the past on the actuality.
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The goal of this article is to examine how different events and phenomena related to the Second World War and the Holocaust are framed via Wikipedia articles written in Polish, Hebrew and English. Departing from the pillars of the theory of framing in mass media, the article conducts a content analysis of three articles, in three different languages. The articles under analysis are the following: “Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp”, “The Pogrom in Jedwabne”, and “Righteous Among the Nations”. The analysis will use the four roles of frames as categories, determined by Entman: definition of the problem/phenomenon, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and treatment recommendation. Analyzing how the articles fulfill each of the roles in the different languages, the research hypothesis is that the framing of the phenomena will differ between the versions, and each version will follow pillars of the collective memory of the Holocaust in its respective country. Findings, however, are not in complete compliance with this hypothesis.
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This article focuses on the basic question of what axiological perspectives are found in Polish and German deportation narratives from the second half of the twentieth century. Chwin also asks what kinds of axiological challenges mass deportation and expulsion has posed (and still poses) for literature. Numerous writers and chroniclers – witnesses as well as participants – have tackled the issue, and their writings continue to be published in Poland and in Germany. Chwin presents a preliminary typology of axiological perspectives that give direction to narratives of deportation in Polish and German literature of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. He isolates the following basic perspectives: 1. the Nemmersdorf axiology, 2. the axiology of biographical recapitulation, 3. the axiology of deportation and of the ‘ideological fatherland’, 4. the axiology of historical recapitulation of deportation and 5. the axiology of ‘alternative history’. The article passes over the axiology of reconciliation in Polish literature after 1989 – a topic that deserves a separate study.
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The anthropological image of criticism (the image of the individual filtering truth from untruth) focuses on the power and meaning of the gesture, which seems more essential than merely ‘conceptual’ philosophical categories. Negative dialectics proposes a new definition of criticism: in view of the catastrophes of the twentieth century we need a vision of criticism that makes it possible to voice our despair and to create a ‘sad science’ in the place of Nietzsche’s ‘gay science’. To make this possible we must draw on the imagination and the image, for it is images that are brittle enough to elude the totalizing power of conceptualization and at the same time strong enough to become agents of criticism.
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The article traces the development of German historiography after the Second World War until the 1980s on the problems of the politics of Nazi Germany. In this connection, the main concepts of the nature and objectives of German policy in Southeast Europe have been considered.
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Reviews of: 1. Charles Wengrov: Haggadah and Woodcut. An Introduction to the Passover Haggadah Completed by Gershom Cohen in Prague. Sunday, 26th Teveth 5287 / December 30, 1528. Schulsinger Brothers, New York 1967. Passover Haggadah, Shmuel Mohr, Bene-Beraq, 1988. 2. Shammai Waks: Grief is My Song (Ma trojer lid) Los Angeles, 1966, 104 pages. 3. Růžena Bubeníčkovi, Ludmila Kubátová, Irena Malá: Tábory utrpení a smrti. - The Camps of Suffering and Death, Svoboda, Prague, 1969, 490 pages. 4. Arnold Pauckert: Der jüdische Abwehrkampf gegen Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus in den letzten fahren der Weimarer Republik. Hamburg, Leibniz-Verlag, 1988, 311 S.
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New Exhibition of the Synagogue Textiles Collection of the State Jewish Museum in Prague; The Exhibition „The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague in the Works of Romantic Painters“; Exposition itinérante des dessins d’enfant de Terezín en Italie; Musik in den Konzentrationslagern; The Results of Two Years’ Work on the Restorations of the Memorial to the Victims of Nazism in the Pinkas Synagogue; Die Restaurierung der Grabsteines von Hendl Bassewi auf dem Alten jüdischen Friedhof in Prag
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The Peace Treaty with Italy, signed in Paris on February 10th, 1947, ended the state of war between Italy and the other States, former member of Anti-Fascist Coalition during the WWII, among which Albania was included. In the preamble of the Treaty and in a number of his articles has been said and proved the Italy’s responsibility for the war and during the war. The Peace Treaty defined explicitly the status of Albania and its juridical position in relation to Italy and in general with the system created by the Peace Treaty. It was précised that every member of the United Nations, at war with Italy and who has not signed this treaty, as well as Albania, may accede to the Treaty, being considered immediately after accession, as Associate State in the implementation of the Treaty. This article gives Albania the opportunity, even though he had not signed the Treaty, to be a part of its general provisions. Treaty of Peace with Italy provided the final arrangement between the two countries in all matters, of economic and financial natures, arising from the provisions of the Treaty of Peace, and settled that the exact reparations and delivery of goods, items, equipment, etc., will be realized after a special agreement that will signed between concerned countries and Italy. On this basis, the Albanian government started the demarches with the Italian government to precise the next necessary measures needed to perform its implementation. After nearly 10 years of the persistent efforts was achieved in the end of negotiations between two countries and was signed in Rome on June 22, 1957, an Agreement which regulate all the matters arising from the Treaty of Peace signed in Paris on February 10, 1947, between the Allied and Associated Powers and Italy
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After the World War II, approximately 11,700 Latvians were held in the prisoners-of-war (POW) camp near Zedelgem, Belgium. In 2018, a monument was unveiled in Zedelgem, commemorating both Latvian POWs and freedom in all its manifestations. However, a few years later the monument was caught in a crossfire of conflicting political interests and social memories. This article intends to explain the issues with the Zedelgem camp by looking at the structure and biographical details of the Latvian POWs and exploring how the tension around the Zedelgem monument were created. The composition of the Latvian soldiers imprisoned in the Zedelgem camp suggests that a very small part of these POWs could be associated with German-organized war crimes in Latvia and other territories. The article explains why the advocates of the monument – the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia and local history enthusiasts of Zedelgem – failed to reframe the history of Latvian POWs. In this controversy, the accusing memory activists outnumbered and outperformed the advocates, thus quickly creating an international resonance around the monument. This “memory war”, among other things, sends a clear message to Latvian diplomats that the history of World War II in Europe has not disappeared from international relations.
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The study starts from Cyril Hovorun's book: Political Orthodoxies: The Unorthodoxies of the Church Coerced and analyzes several concepts present in the book: "Political Orthodoxies", "Unorthodoxies", "Heresies", "Church Coerced", "civil religion", "political religion", "ideology", "conservatism", "fundamentalism", etc.Once these concepts are clarified, it is shown that Hovorun does not define some concepts well, in many situations it is confusing, and the work presents many shortcomings from the point of view of historical documentation. The situation is even more complicated in the case of the Romanian translation, which subtly tries to criticize the Orthodox Church from a Protestant perspective, by manipulating some concepts.At the end, the study proposes a new grid for understanding the relations between Orthodoxy, ideology and political power in the contemporary era.
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Antonín Mádl's comic, titled **"Cesta křížová"**, vividly depicts his arrest by the Prague Gestapo in August 1940 and the brutal interrogations at the infamous Petschek Palace. The comic captures the violence and psychological pressure faced by Mádl and other detainees, highlighting the harsh conditions and resilience required to endure such ordeals. Mádl's narrative intertwines his personal experiences with broader historical events, offering a unique visual testimony of life in Nazi prisons. His work also reflects his commitment to the Czech resistance movement, particularly through his involvement with the illegal magazine "V boj". Despite severe beatings and torture, Mádl managed to withhold critical information, demonstrating remarkable courage. His comic serves as a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought against oppression during World War II.
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The article discusses the controversial history of the Czech resistance group "Pátá kolona" during World War II. Initially formed by Václav Engelmüller and other students in 1939, the group aimed to fight against the Nazi occupation. However, their activities often resembled those of gangsters rather than freedom fighters. They engaged in various criminal acts, including theft and murder, to fund their resistance efforts. The group's moral decline is highlighted by the murder of Jaroslav Sinkule, a member suspected of being a Gestapo informant. Despite their initial resistance efforts, the group's actions eventually drew the attention of the Gestapo, leading to arrests and the group's dissolution. The article also touches on the post-war lives of the surviving members, who faced various fates, including collaboration with the Gestapo to save their lives.
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The article discusses the history and impact of the antisemitic weekly magazine Arijský boj during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Launched in May 1940 by Jan Vladimír Břetenář, the magazine was filled with aggressive antisemitic articles and caricatures, promoting Nazi racial policies. It targeted Jews and their supposed allies, calling for their exclusion from public life. The magazine also attacked "white Jews," non-Jews who opposed antisemitism or were indifferent to Nazi ideology. Contributors included notable figures like Bohumír Lain and the Innemann couple, who wrote antisemitic articles and serialized novels. The magazine's content was monitored by the Gestapo and influenced the lives of many individuals. Despite its limited circulation, Arijský boj played a significant role in spreading Nazi propaganda in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
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Review of: Ruth Leiserowitz, Gintarė Malinauskaitė, Hektoras Vitkus (eds.), Making Justice Visible: War Crimes Trials, Media and Memory after World War II, Osnabrück: fibre Verlag, 2022.
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