Images of Bucharest Pogrom (21st - 23rd January 1941)

Author(s): Anca Tudorancea (Ciuciu) / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2010

This research is set to analyze and reinterpret the image of the Bucharest pogrom: both as documentaries and photos that become a symbolic code. Working at a visual data base of the event reveal that this is the most visually documented event of the Holocaust in Romanian context, changing the known facts till 5 years ago1. A Jewish viewpoint in capturing the Holocaust on film is extremely rare (e.g. the ghetto in Lodz photographed by Mendel Grossman), and the Jewish evidence - photographs of the Bucharest pogrom should be reinterpreted from this perspective.

„Nie śmiać się, nie płakać, tylko rozumieć”. List Hersza Wassera do Ludwika (Eliezera) Hirszberga

Author(s): Katarzyna Person / Language(s): Polish Issue: 04/2015

Introduction to Hersz Wasser's letter to Ludwik (Eliezer) Hirszberg

Mechanisms of Anti-Semitism in 20th-Century Bukovina

Author(s): Anca Filipovici / Language(s): English Issue: 09/2016

Romanian anti-Semitism in the 20th century can be explained not only by the clash between the real and the imaginary Jew, but also by a proper contextualization of facts. In individual cases, such as that of Sociologist Traian Brăileanu, my interpretation of his biography and of the socio-political context of the time enabled me to sketch some founding mechanisms of Anti-Semitism. Thus, by studying his biographical path, his sociological work and other publications of Brăileanu, my intention is to show certain mechanisms of his anti-Jewish ideology. Brăileanu built his discourse upon cultural and economic considerations that described the Jew as Otherness, as someone who would never integrate within Romanian society. He also supported the perception of Jews as the embodiment of Bolshevik danger. Furthermore, his views were determined by specific features of nationalism in a multi-ethnic province: Bukovina.

Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945

Author(s): Dariusz Libionka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

The review of: Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945, New Jork: Cambridge University Press 2015, 454 s.

Pamięć i trauma dziedziczona w Krajobrazie z dzieckiem Romana Grena, Oskarżam Auschwitz Mikołaja Grynb erga oraz Pensjonacie Piotra Pazińskiego

Author(s): Sylwia Majdosz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 47/2017

On the basis of three literary texts quoted in the title of the article, the author analyses and interprets the categories of postmemory and inherited trauma. Roman Gren and Piotr Paziński create fictious nostalgic prose, whereas Mikołaj Grynberg uses a feature genre, i.e. recorded conversations with the Auschwitz survivors’ children. The focal idea and a starting point of the discourse is Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory. The authors of the selected texts attempt to face those experiences. Though differently emotionally and artistically loaded, the texts focus on searching for the traces of ancestors and reconstructing family stories, frequently shrouded in a veil of mystery. Recalling childhood memories, the characters reveal family secrets (Jewish ancestry, the Holocaust experience and repercussions) and gradually begin to understand vague and problematic family relations. All three texts aim at reconstructing the identity of the descendants of the salvaged from Extermination, which allows them to recognize themselves in social, psychological and historical dimensions.

Útek z pekla

Author(s): Gábor Csanda / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2018

Juraj Šebo: Útek z pekla. Životný príbeh Arnošta Rosina, väzňa, ktorému sa podarilo ujsť z Osvienčimu. Bratislava, Marenčin PT, 2017,184p.

Wspomnienia ks. Aleksandra Romana Konopki z obozu koncentracyjnego w Dachau (cz.1)

Author(s): Jan Związek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 9/2009

Siedemdziesiąta rocznica wybuchu II wojny światowej ma szczególne znaczenie dla ziemi wieluńskiej oraz dla jej centrum – miasta Wielunia. Pierwsze bomby zrzucone przez Luftwaffe na Polskę spadły na ten średniowieczny gród, dokonując zniszczenia miasta i powodując śmierć wielu jego mieszkańców. Miasto nie było obiektem wojskowym, ale to tutaj hitlerowskie samoloty, rozpoczęły okres zniszczeń, śmierci i terroru okupacyjnego, który miał trwać ponad 5 lat. Symbolem terroru hitlerowskiego stał się zbombardowany szpital powiatowy (mimo że był oznakowany międzynarodowymi symbolami Czerwonego Krzyża) oraz prastara kolegiata wieluńska pw. św. Michała Archanioła. Nawale barbarzyńskiej zza zachodniej granicy Rzeczypospolitej nie zdołały przeciwstawić się bohatersko walczące oddziały Wojska Polskiego, pod dowództwem generała Juliusza Rómmla. Dzieła zniszczenia miasta dopełniły wkraczające oddziały Wehrmachtu, które nie tylko w bestialski sposób spaliły Wieluń, ale także wymordowały wielu jego mieszkańców.

Instead of negationism. The symbolic topography of the former Warsaw ghetto vis-à-vis Holocaust narratives

Author(s): Elżbieta Janicka / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

A comparative analysis of the two monuments erected on one of the streets in the area of the former Warsaw Ghetto, the Umschlagplatz monument (1988) and the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (Pomnik Poległym i Pomordowanym na Wschodzie) (1995), shows how the equation of Nazism with Stalinism, if not with communism, has become inscribed in the symbolic topography of that place. The stake in this operation is the ‘Holocaustisation’ of the “Polish fate,” epitomised by deportations into the interior of the USSR and the massacre in Katyń. The anticommunist discourse with a still un-defused anti-Semitic potential (the myth of Judaeo-communism, the double genocide theory) constitutes the overall narrative framework. The result is the rationalisation (presentation as a well deserved punishment or self-defence) of the stances of the majority of Polish society and its behaviour toward Jews during the Holocaust. Instead of upsetting the heroic-martyrological narratives about the dominant group’s past, the increasing knowledge about the facts leads only to their mutation and strengthening. The context of this phenomenon is the politics of memory adopted by Poland and the Baltic states on the European forum. Its dynamic consists in shifting the limits of the European memory compromise, that is, in rationalisation of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in an attempt to preserve one’s image as the hero and victim.

“Germans have killed our Jews, so we’re getting rid of them.” The case of Edward Toniakiewicz

Author(s): Barbara Engelking / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

The author investigates how corpses of murdered Jews were hidden in towns during the occupation. She examines the case of Edward Toniakiewicz and his murder of three Jews he was hiding in his cellar, and whose bodies he then attempted to dump into a nearby pond. The crime came to light due to his neighbour’s curiosity. The investigation was conducted by the Polish ‘blue’ police, and its documentation was used during Toniakiewicz’s trial after the war. This revealing paper acquaints the reader with various aspects of the fate of Jews hiding on the ‘Aryan side’.

Christian-Jewish relations. A very short introduction

Author(s): Andrzej Piotr Perzyński / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Since the beginning of the twentieth century the relationship between Judaism and Christianity has changed dramatically and is one of the few pieces of encouraging news that can be reported today about the encounter between religions. The rapprochement in relations and the develop-ment of a new way of thinking were pioneered by a small number of scholars and religious leaders in the first half of the century. However, it was the impact of the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, the development of the ecumenical movement and the work of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) which in combination made the changes more widespread. As a re-sult, Christianity, so long an instigator of violence against Jews, rediscovered a respect and ad-miration for Judaism, and the once close relationship, which had become a distant memory, has been to a large extent restored. For Jews, the traditional view that they were on their own and that Christianity was an enemy has been replaced by a realisation that partnership with Christian-ity is possible and that both faiths share a Messianic vision of God’s kingdom on earth

Rola fotografii w twórczości Hanny Krall

Author(s): Edyta Żyrek-Horodyska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4 (236)/2018

The aim of the research outlined in this article is to discuss Hanna Krall’s works in the context of language, aesthetics and poetics of photography. The analyzes are based on the texts published in the volume „Phantom of Pain” (2017). They lead to the conclusion that photography is used in these texts as a journalistic source of information, a medium of artistic expression, a specific object, and a tool that triggers the work of memory. The journalist uses the photography to present the inexpressible, particularly when she wants to familiarize the reader with the idea of the Holocaust.

Zeilen aus dem Grab. Die Struktur der frühen Radnóti-Rezeption

Author(s): Gábor Schein / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2019

Für die kultische, bzw. hagiographische frühe Rezeption der Dichtung von Miklós Radnóti erwies sich jene Stelle bei Abda unter dem Damm des Flusses Rábca, wo er mit 21 anderen jüdischen Zwangsarbeitern Ende August 1944 von einem ungarischen Soldaten erschossen wurde, als ein bindender Ort. Nachdem der Körper des Dichters in einem Massengrab mit anderen Leichen verscharrt worden war, wurde er noch zweimal exhumiert und neu bestattet. Der traumatische Ort des Mordes schreibt sich durch die letzten Gedichte ins Gedächtnis der Generationen. Die traumatisierte frühe Rezeption von Radnóti besteht auf den Stillstand der Zeit, auf die Nähe zum mehrmals beigesetzten und wieder ausgegrabenen Körper des Dichters. Diese seltsame Art der Rezeption, die die Dichtung von Radnóti der Historisierung zu entziehen versucht, ist als eine Antwort auf die Frage zu verstehen, ob der Holocaust in seiner Außergeschichtlichkeit zu bewahren ist. In der Ästhetik der Zeugenschaft wiederholt sich die Frage, wie man eine einmalige Raum-Zeit-Beziehung in ihrer Form bewahren kann, die sowohl das Trauma der Zerstörung einer historischen Gemeinschaft, der Gemeinschaft der ungarischen Nation als auch die Hoffnung auf eine Therapie, auf eine Neustiftung der Gemeinschaft miteinschließt. Das Gedicht von Radnóti „Nem tudhatom“ stiftete in der frühen Rezeption eine neue Perspektive für die Neubelebung der durch den Holocaust zerrissenen Gemeinschaft der Nation, es konnte aber von der romantischen Ideologie der nationalen Identität nicht Abschied nehmen, und dadurch blieb diese neue Perspektive unvollendet.

Jméno: jeho změna, ztráta a navrácení v rozhovorech s židovskými přeživšími holocaustu

Author(s): Karolína Bukovská,Jakub Mlynář / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2019

This article aims to explore the personal name as an aspect of human identity, based on our analysis of several tens of oral-history autobiographical interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (http://vhaonline.usc.edu). The text reflects on the transformations and meanings of name in the war and post-war period, focusing on the compulsory and voluntary name change, but also its loss and supplementation by the (tattooed) number in the concentration camps. In this context we also pay attention to the tattoo as a component of social identity of the Holocaust survivor and different attitudes. In the concluding parts of the text, we also investigate the post-war commemoration of the Holocaust as a process, which aims to return the lost names to the victims of the Nazi genocide of people labelled as “Jews”. Our research points to the tendency to understand name and identity as an indivisible duality, which is mutually influenced. At the same time, it suggests that the loss of name or its compulsory change is not reflected by the survivors as an especially traumatic experience, in the context of following events. A particular symbolic value of personal name can be seen in the cases of the people murdered during the Holocaust, and in the context of current commemorative activities the naming of Shoah victims is of central importance.

“...Not by the German people, but in the name of the German people”. Adenauer and the Narrative of the Centre Ground

Author(s): Volker Wild,Jan Ferdinand / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2019

The study reconstructs the development of the historical narrative that Konrad Adenauer communicated in his public statements about National Socialism and the role of the Germans in it. It can be expressed in the succinct formula that the misdeeds of the regime had been committed “not by the German people but in their name”. In these few words we see the kernel of a historical narrative that was the general consensus for a long time in West German politics. Up to now no explicit, comprehensive analysis of the development of Adenauer’s narrative has been forthcoming, one that involved an engagement with his key speeches covering the whole of the post-war period down to his death in 1967.

(Nie)poruszeni: O Zagładzie, oglądających, odgrywających i opowiadających historię. Perspektywa afektywna. Grzegorz Niziołek Polski teatr Zagłady

Author(s): Katarzyna Bojarska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2013

Review: Grzegorz Nizio³ek Polish Holocaust Theatre

Difficult Heritage of the 20th Century from the Perspective of the Biography of Things

Author(s): Dawid Kobiałka / Language(s): English Issue: 34/2019

This paper discusses the concept of difficult/dark heritage from a theoretical perspective known as the biography of things. First, I analyse Polish archaeological research on difficult/ dark heritage. Second, I describe in greater detail the biography of things as a tool for studying relationships between people, things and places. The last part of the paper is a case study presenting the biographies of three objects found in the grounds of a prisoner-of-war camp in Czersk. I aim to prove the following theses: 1) archaeologies of the recent past cannot be understood simply as the archaeology of martyrdom; 2) material culture from the recent past allows us to create different kinds of narratives connected with dark heritage.

Stand by Your Man

Author(s): Gábor Szegedi / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The practice of race defilement in Hungary began following the passage of the 1941 Marriage Law, a comprehensive law on marriage that introduced mandatory premarital health checks, marriage loans and the prohibition of marriage between Jews and non-Jews. In contrast with Nazi Germany, in Hungary non-Jewish men were exempted from the provisions of the law, so only Jewish men could be convicted and only if they had a liaison with “honorable” women. The vague non-legal term “honorable” provided the authorities with the opportunity to limit sexual and other contact between “Jews” and “non-Jews” and also to exert control over female bodies through policing and surveillance, as female “honor” was in most cases crucial in order to determine the course of the proceedings. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the history of emotions to reconstruct the types of “honor” that come to light from an analysis of the papers of these court cases and their importance for sexual politics in Horthy-era Hungary.

Book Reviews

Author(s): Benedetta Carnaghi,Ilse Josepha Lazaroms,Enikő A. Sajti,István Pál Ádám,Ferenc Laczó / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

Jewish Histories of the Holocaust: New Transnational Approaches. Edited by Norman J. W. Goda. Making Sense of History: Studies in Historical Cultures Series 19. New York–Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014. 305 pp A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination From Persecution to Genocide. By Alon Confino. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. 284 pp. Perben és haragban világháborús önmagunkkal. Tanulmányok. [In Trial and in Anger with Our Roles in World War II: A Collection of Essays]. By Judit Pihurik. Pécs–Budapest: Kronosz Kiadó–Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára, 2015. 252 pp. Political Justice in Budapest after World War II. By Ildikó Barna and Andrea Pető. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2015. 135 pp. Der Holocaust. Ergebnisse und neue Fragen der Forschung. Edited by Frank Bajohr and Andrea Löw. Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer Verlag, 2015. 342 pp

Az újrakezdés receptjei (recenzió Király Kinga Júlia túlélő receptkönyvéről)

Author(s): Orsolya Péntek / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2019

Mi a probléma a holokauszt jelentéseivel és tanulságaival?

Author(s): Steven E. Aschheim / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 3/2019