Recenzje: Świat z deficytem czarów. Sylwia Chutnik: "W krainie czarów". Kraków, Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, 2014

Author(s): Sylwia Karolak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The author discusses "W krainie czarów" (2014), the most recent collection written by Sylwia Chutnik. She indicates that the book features the themes which are familiar from the previous works of the writer: the matters associated with women, the history of Warsaw (its past and present), the Warsaw Uprising. However, the author of the review at the same time emphasises that "W krainie czarów" may be considered a unique entry in Chutnik’s literary oeuvre. It may be so not only due to the personal, almost confessional character of the eponymous story which opens the book but above all due to the fact that in "W krainie czarów" the Shoah assumes the importance of a separate theme, thus becoming apart from the Warsaw Uprising the second war area which is explored by the author of "Łączniczki".

Recenzje: Gry w Holokaust. Yann Martel: "Beatrycze i Wergili". Przeł. Andrzej Szulc. Warszawa, Wydawnictwo Albatros A. Kuryłowicz, 2010

Author(s): Monika Żółkoś / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

In a review of Yann Martel’s novel "Beatrice and Virgil", the work of the Canadian writer is presented through the pursuit of a new language of speaking about the Holocaust. This is a task which Martel as well as the protagonist of his novel, Henry, the author of a work about the Holocaust of the Jews, in which he futilely attempted to go beyond the sanctioned ways of writing about the Shoah, set themselves. In "Beatrice and Virgil" a crucial feature is the interpenetration of two orders – the problem of thematising the Shoah meets an animal theme, which is represented by "Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller", a story about an obsessive hunter, and through the art of preparing and stuffing the bodies of dead animals and transforming them into artistic exhibits. In Martel’s work, the master of taxidermy is also the author of a theatrical play about a sheass and an ape, Beatrice and Virgil, which became the victims of events which bear a striking similarity to the various scenes of the Shoah. The basic problem in the novel is not so much a problematisation of the Holocaust but the means of “linguifying” it and the position which may be asserted by the writers who present their Shoah-related narrations.

Recenzje: „Płacz genów”. M. Grzebałkowska: "1945. Wojna i pokój". Warszawa, Biblioteka Gazety Wyborczej, 2015. A. Janko: "Mała zagłada". Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2015

Author(s): Marta Tomczok / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

In her review the author compares the narrations about the war and the Shoah which were published in 2015: a report by Magdalena Grzebałkowska entitled "1945. Wojna i pokój" and "Mała zagłada" by Anna Janko. The basis of the comparison is constituted by the Shoah of the Jews as the common, although secondary theme of both books, its influence upon the social imagination and the rhetoric of both narrations. Apart from indicating the strong points of the narrations, which include an in-depth study of the archive materials associated with the end of the war (Grzebałkowska) or the presentation of the problem – which was hardly present in the writings devoted to the war and occupation in Poland (the pacification of the village Sochy in the Zamojszczyzna region in 1943, of which Janko’s family fell victim), Marta Tomczok directs her attention to the weaknesses of such discourse, especially in reference to "Mała zagłada". These weaknesses include: the intensification of the suffering of the recipient, effected through the juxtaposition in one book of the greatest massacres of children in the history of the world and the rhetoric of the Shoah transposed into the area of the stories about the war sufferings of the Poles. Janko presents both narrations, the Polish and the Jewish one, as mutually competitive.

Recenzje: (Pop)Historie polskich emisariuszy. Komiksy. "Kurier z Warszawy". Scen. M. Urbanek i M. Palka. Rys. B. Stefanowicz (...) "Jan Karski. Człowiek, który odkrył Holokaust". Scen. M. Rizzo. Rys. L. Bonaccorso. Przeł. A. Hołub...

Author(s): Krzysztof Lichtblau / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The review is devoted to two comic books about Polish emissaries who were active during the Second World War. The first one, "Kurier z Warszawy" by Mariusz Urbanek, Mateusz Palka (script) and Bartłomiej Stefanowicz (drawings), is the history of Jan Nowak-Jeziorański’s mission since 15 September 1939, when the latter was already on the front line, until the press conference with the journalists held in the Ministry of Information of Great Britain in 1945. The second one, "Jan Karski. Człowiek, który odkrył Holokaust", is the work of Italian artists: Marco Rizzo (script) and Lelio Bonaccorso (drawings). From this comic book we also learn about the tasks performed by the Polish war emissary, Jan Karski, until he reaches the United States and makes an account about the state in which his fatherland found itself. In both cases the authors used the memoirs of the emissaries which were published in book form. The aim of the review is to direct the reader’s attention to the changes which occur during the adaptation of such sources to comic books. One of such elements includes the introduction of images and the transposition of the narration from the verbal to the graphical plane. Another important category which is used in the review is the representativeness of the narration of testimony. The entirety of the considerations is summarised by a remark about the transformations of the contemporary comic books about the Holocaust and the location of the comic books which are discussed in this area.

Recenzje: Rekonstruowanie żydowskiego miasta. Nils Roemer: "German City, Jewish Memory. The Story of Worms". Waltham, Brandeis (...) Michael Meng: "Shattered Spaces. Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland". Cambridge, Harvard...

Author(s): Paweł Wolski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The text briefly compares two books: Nils Roemer’s "German City, Jewish Memory. The Story of Worms" and Michael Meng’s "Shattered Spaces. Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland". Both represent fascinating approaches to the process of the reconstruction of the Jewish identity as an important part of the European urban culture destroyed during WWII. By discussing these issues on the examples of Worms (Roemer) and Warsaw, Wrocław, Potsdam, Berlin (Meng) both, albeit in different ways, restore the Jewish identity of these cities not only by approaching the history of historical or architectural landmarks, but also by discussing some less material, discoursive memory markers such as mythology, tourism, politics etc.

The Discourse between Man and God: The Role of Faith in Holocaust Teaching

Author(s): Nitza Davidovitch / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2014

Holocaust teaching is a foundation for deepening Jewish identity. Despite the stated goals of the trips to Poland, studies involving participating youngsters indicate that Holocaust education per se does not significantly affect their sense of Jewish identity. Nonetheless, Holocaust teaching through the journey to Poland enhances participants’ self-concept as Israelis, possibly because their Israeliness is associated with emotions such as power, pride, and hope. In view of these findings, the aim of this study is to examine whether and to what degree faith plays a role in the Holocaust teaching that is part of public and public-religious schools’ efforts to reinforce Jewish identity.

NAZI “DIVIDE ET IMPERA”: COMPARING SOVIET AND YUGOSLAVIAN CASES IN 1941

Author(s): Kiril Feferman / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The article scrutinizes Nazi Germany’s occupation policy in Yugoslavia and in the Soviet Union in 1941. Particular attention is given to the German application of “divide et impera” principle on the territories of formerly multinational states, whose ethnic groups fought to win occupier’s favours with varying success, meeting at the same time Germany’s demands, chiefly wide participation in destruction of the Jews as a condition to partake in Nazi geopolitical rearrangement of Europe.

Na marginesie listów Emanuela i Judyty Ringelblumów do Adolfa i Basi Bermanów. 25 listopada 1943 – 3 marca 1944

Author(s): Eleonora Bergman / Language(s): Polish Issue: 04/2015

Correspondence between the Ringelblum and Berman families remains a little used source of knowledge not just about the letter writers themselves but also about the subsequent fate of the people from the Oneg Shabat circle following the collapse of the April uprising. This collection of letters complements the documents produced by Emanuel Ringelblum in the ghetto, reflects his experience from the Trawniki camp, the assessment of various persons and their behaviour and various reflexions about them. The letters broaden our knowledge of the information encoding system used by Ringelblum required by the clandestine nature of his work. They also explain the origin of the famous letter to YIVO in New York, summing up the activity of Oneg Shabat.

Dwa spotkania z Emanuelem Ringelblumem

Author(s): Genia Silkes / Language(s): Polish Issue: 04/2015

Genia Silkes (1914-1984), a teacher and cultural activist, describes in this text, written in 1948, her two meetings with Emanuel Ringelblum. The first one occurred during a selection on 6 September 1942 and the second in the Restgetto during attempts to organize armed resistance in the ghetto. Genia Silkes’s text splendidly illustrates the evolution of the memory of the Holocaust in the first postwar years and the role played in it by Emanuel Ringelblum, a figure symbolic of both the murdered Jewish intellectuals and of civilian resistance in the Warsaw ghetto and, more broadly, in the time of the Holocaust.

Az emberiség hajótörése. Spanyol és murciai köztársaságpártiak a koncentrációs táborokban

Author(s): István Szilágyi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2016

Around the Bloc: Former Lithuanian Holocaust Site Now a Wedding Venue

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 08/02/2016

Critics say the local NGO running the complex has to do a much better job of marking the past of the former concentration camp.

ČAS REVIZIJE ISTORIJE

Author(s): Slobodanka Ast / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 182/2015

Andrej Pančur, Judovska skupnost v Sloveniji na predvečer holokavsta ...

Author(s): Marjan Toš / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 2/2012

SPRÁVA Z KONFERENCIE „HOLOKAUST NA ÚZEMÍ DNEŠNÉHO JUŽNÉHO SLOVENSKA“, KOŠICE, 22. MÁJ 2014

Author(s): MARTIN ŠROMOVSKÝ / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2014

Conference report from the Scientific Conference “The Holocaust in the Territory of the Present-Day Southern Slovakia” Košie, Maz 22nd, 2014.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Rebellious Consul: A Case Study

Author(s): Daniel Silva Perdigão / Language(s): English Issue: 09/2016

It is the intention of this article to objectively present the motifs and the out standing socio-cultural climate during the first years of the World War II, which determined the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides Sousa Mendes, a Righteous Among the Nations, to disobey the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs regulations by issuing thousands of visas, free of charge, to mainly Jewish war refugees in order to facilitate their flight from Nazi occupied Europe, using Lisbon as their departure harbor.

Several Ideas on Holocaust and Restitution in Historical Overview

Author(s): Nikola Samardžić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The restitution process started in Eastern Europe only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1989–1991). While the Holocaust was the official policy of Nazi Germany from 1941, denials of the Holocaust were associated both with the radical, neo-fascist political right, and certain intellectual circles or individuals belonging to the radical left, generally associated with support or cooperation with communist Cold War regimes, or authoritarian regimes after the fall of communism. The ideological, and especially the revolutionary left was dividing the world into exploiters and exploited, questioning both the values and private property, and human suffering. Public debate on the draft law on the elimination of the consequences of seizing the assets of Holocaust victims and regulation of Jewish heirless property looted during the Holocaust began on December 18, 2015. It was anticipated that the Government of Republic of Serbia should launch a legislative initiative by the end of 2015. Already announced restitution model should be related to the Jewish national and religious communities network. The model applied in the Slovak Republic foresaw monetary compensation paid to the Union of Jewish Religious Communities as a consequence of negotiations between the government and the representatives of the Jewish community.

Restitution of Jewish Property in Croatia

Author(s): Ljiljana Dobrovšak / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This paper discusses the restitution of Jewish property in Croatia from 1990 on, having in mind that the question has not yet been resolved and that progress towards this has been very slow due to sketchy laws which are being implemented only partially. This issue usually receives more attention only when a Croatian government figure meets someone from Israel or the US Administration. Current legislature enables restitution only of Jewish property seized after 1945, while property seized during the NDH (Independent state of Croatia) remained intact, “protected” by laws passed at the time of Yugoslavia. Current restitution of seized property is performed according to the Law on Restitution/Compensation of Property Taken during the Time of the Yugoslav Communist Government, which came into effect in 1997, so the right to restitution or compensation applies only to Croatian citizens of the first order of succession. That property seized between 1941 and 1945 is not restituted is still an accepted practice, despite the fact that it is in this period when the majority of Jewish property was seized. The right to restitution is still limited to the first order of succession, while the deadline for applications remains too short. Towards the end of mandate of the Jadranka Kosor government there were some attempts to change that and enact a new law, but the proposal for that law got stuck somewhere in parliamentary procedure so it is not yet clear when it will be passed. Until now, judging by unofficial data, less than 30 percent of Jewish families of those who perished in the NDH have achieved the return of immobile property, so the government of Prime Minister Zoran Milanović donated a building in the centre of Zagreb to the Jewish municipality, as a kind of compensation for property seized during Ustasha regime.

An Overview of the Law on Rehabilitation From the Point of View of Holocaust Victims and Other Victims of Nazi Terror

Author(s): Radovan Lazić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Law on Property Restitution and Compensation stipulates that its provisions apply to confiscated property provided that the owner of that property is rehabilitated. In this case, the request for the return of property must be accompanied by a court decision on the rehabilitation or proof that the application for rehabilitation was submitted. The first Serbian Rehabilitation Act was passed in 2006. According to the Law on Rehabilitation, from December 2011, persons who have been deprived of a right (to life, to freedom of movement, to property...) because of political activism, ideological or religious beliefs and national origin before the entry into force of this Act can be rehabilitated. However, the question is how the provisions of this law are applied to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi terror. Does this law take into account the victims, does it provide any satisfaction to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of the occupiers and various quisling formations? What consequences the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act may have on the property rights of persons who, in the course of World War II, acquired property that was previously forcibly taken away (factual and legal violence) from their rightful owners? What consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs and what consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust who have no heirs?

Restitution as the Legal Vacuum in the System of Law

Author(s): Jovan Krstić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

One of the clear examples of the existence of legal gaps in the legislation of the Republic of Serbia is the problem of restitution of property of Holocaust victims, which is shown as a separate problem that remains unregulated. The academic community of experts deserves serious scientific criticism for tolerating legal gaps in the legal system. Criminological phenomena of hate crime and hate speech which in the past resulted in the adoption of racial laws, civil rights and confiscation of property and physical liquidation – Holocaust –are such unique instances of evil that they exceede the limits of one life span and affect generations to come, unprepared to deal with them due to the unwillingness of our generation to act preventively regulating social relations based on modern principles and standards in order to prevent recurrence of the past. This is considered to be the essential (symbolic) inadequacy of the security systems from the perspective of knowledge management and diplomacy. Wrong attitude of the academic community towards the problem of increasing the capacity within the security system to protect the public interest and towards thereform of the security system can be critically assessed through present profiling of the security community outside of executive power – in the judiciary, in the status of law enforcement agencies, although the nature of their work and the principle of secrecy is incompatible with the principle of transparency in the work of law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, it is likely that all these problems will be crashing down on the future generations.

"Kretanje" nepokretne imovine beogradskih Jevreja kao posledica Holokausta

Author(s): Haris Dajč,Maja Vasiljević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2014

The focus of this research is the process of arianization of the immovable Jewish property in Belgrade and its fate in the post war years. The introduction is focused on the life of Belgrade Jews in the prewar years, first Antisemitic laws and discrimination of Belgrade Jews. In a course of the few months and years once equal citizens lost their jobs and positions. The worst happened after the German occupation in April 1941. the new authorities made lists of all Belgrade Jews and all of their property. After the Holocaust there were less than 15% of Belgrade Jews left with just scratches of their prewar ossessions. The new Yugoslavia did not help much economical situation of its Jewish citizens, the mechanics of keeping as state property the immovable property that was taken as the result of the Holocaust, remained strong and constant in the decades following 1945. The 4 different case studies describe different cases of nationalization of the Jewish property by the Yugoslav state. Outcome in all of the 4 cases was the same and although the old owners were accepted as the Nazi victims their property was still the property of the old Belgrade bourgeoisie. That is the reason why the Holocaust in Belgrade and its consequences were so devastating and one of the answers why once big and prosperous Jewish community of Belgrade could not escape hard post war years.