Auschwitz i Gulag

Author(s): Ágnes Heller / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 20/2015

Holokaust kao kultura? Naslo nove male zbirke Imre Kertesza (Szazadveg Kiado, 1993.) može pobuditi strah, štoviše može izazvati i negodovanje. Ne bih se začudila ako bi pojedinci spominjali svetogrđe. A još ka da bi naslutili da na pitanje je li holokaust stvorio vrijednosti, Kertesz bez kolebanja daje pozitivan odgovor! Ali ono što uzdiže Auschwitz do zemaljske vječnosti nije kič koji tjera suze na oči ili sve lakše ponavljanje teških riječi poput ≫vražji≪ ili ≫užas≪ ili ≫grijeh≪, nego upravo djela poput onih Imre Kertesza.

An Immovable Property Restitution Legislation Database

Author(s): Kristen Nelson,Rajika L. Shah / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The 2009 Terezin Declaration reflects the will of 47 nations to continue to enhance their efforts to right the wrongs committed against groups persecuted during World War II. These commitments are not only important with respect to bringing justice to those affected by persecution during the Holocaust, but also are important from the standpoint of transitional justice as now understood, including as a way of reducing the likelihood of future genocides or mass atrocities. The European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI) was established to monitor progress and advocate for the principles enshrined in the Terezin Declaration, in particular that of immovable (real) property restitution. ESLI’s latest project – the immovable property database initiative – will provide a much needed and long overdue dynamic tool for claimants, heirs, scholars, governments, NGOs – any stakeholder – to help navigate current property restitution issues by confronting the path through the past which brought us to current state of affairs.. When completed, the online database will be a user-friendly, public-access comparative repository of legislation and international and domestic case law (both past and present) from every country that has endorsed the Terezin Declaration. Using the online database to examine the often thorny and emotionally charged issue of heirless property, in particular, is emblematic of how the content can be used to drive the conversation for solutions forward and possibly give rise to intertwined policy-related questions.

W imię „polskiej większości”: antysemityzm i mobilizacja polityczna w Polsce 1922 roku

Author(s): Paul Brykczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

When Gabriel Narutowicz was elected president of Poland in December 1922, with the aid of Jewish, German, Ukrainian, and Belarusian national minority parties, the city of Warsaw witnessed a series of anti-Semitic riots and violent protests which were only curtailed by the imposition of martial law. Within a week of his election, Narutowicz was assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski, a right-wing anti-Semite who believed that by killing the president he was saving Poland from “Jewish rule.” The murder of Narutowicz has traditionally been seen as a relatively minor episode, perpetrated by a “fanatic” or “madman,” which did not have a significant impact on the subsequent history of Poland. In fact, the assassination is usually seen as an embarrassment and setback for the anti-Semitic National Democratic movement. This paper seeks to present an alternative interpretation of the president’s election and assassination. Specifically, it argues that the specific political context of the presidential election led the right-wing National Democrats movement to formulate the so-called “Doctrine of the Polish Majority,” which stated that only ethnic Poles had the right to rule Poland. It was the transgression of this doctrine which led Niewiadomski to kill the president. More important, the doctrine would continue to play an important role in Polish politics after the president’s murder. As such the latter can be seen as a long-term victory for the National Democrats and their nationalist discourse.

Israeli Youth Pilgrimages to Poland. Rationale and Polemics

Author(s): Nitza Davidovich / Language(s): English Issue: 17-18/2011

The article, which was written based on material collected as part of a project evaluating the pilgrimage trips to Poland by Israeli adolescents as part of the Holocaust curriculum, attempted to provide the reader with the background for these trips. In this context, the authors discussed the evolving national agenda in Israel, and the transition from experiencing independence to experiencing the Holocaust. It was explained that this process began with the Eichmann trial in 1961, but became far more intense after the political upheaval in 1977, when the Labor Party, which had been in power since the 1920's, lost the election. The authors of the article stressed that in the wake of the profound social changes that took place in Israeli society, the memory of the Holocaust gained new significance among the country’s national priorities. While a policy known as “the great silence” regarding the Holocaust prevailed among the first generation after statehood, the Holocaust has now become a factor that shaped the national ethos. In 1979, for the first time, the Ministry of Education commissioned two curricula dealing exclusively with the Holocaust. It was this new attitude to the sources of Israeli identity that led to the commencement of trips to Poland by adolescents in the 1980's. Since the trips began, in 1988, over 300,000 adolescents have traveled to Poland. These journeys have become a sort of rite de passage for the relevant age group (high school juniors and seniors). They can be compared to backpacking by young adults who travel abroad to “clear their heads” after completing their army service, on trips lasting anywhere from a few months to two years. The authors noted that nevertheless, only 25-30% of Israeli adolescents actually take part in these journeys. Inter alia, the article reviewed the evolving goals of the trips defined by the MOE, in accordance with the worldview of the minister in office, and noted that, in accordance with the spirit of the times, there were sometimes differences in the main nuances along the particularism-universality axis. The article further stated that apart from the terms in office of ministers Rubinstein and Aloni, the assimilation of the humanistic, moral, universal and anti-totalitarian lessons of the Holocaust during the trips was minor. The article includes a fairly extensive discussion of the dispute on this issue in Israeli discourse. The article noted that the Holocaust and its lessons can be examined from three different perspectives: The first perspective focuses on presenting the universal significance of the Holocaust and perceiving it as parallel to other cases of genocide (such as the murder of the Armenians by the Turks, the genocide in Rwanda and so on). The second perspective focuses on presenting the national significance of the Holocaust as a unique and unparalleled case of the Jewish People. The perception held by this approach is actually “the whole world is against us.” The third perspective is a synthesis of these two approaches. In this article, the authors noted that the longstanding debate in Israeli society over the various methods for instilling the Holocaust and the journeys to Poland by adolescents expresses these three perspectives. The speakers and writers interviewed in the field research each represent one of these perspectives. The article contains many direct quotations from authors, teachers, academics and others, which support the points made by the authors.

Tabloidyzacja Holocaustu w kulturze popularnej

Author(s): Justyna Czaja / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15-16/2011

The text is an attempt to answer the question about the effects of the collision of Holocaust, recognized as a historical fact, with the mechanism of popular culture and how particular aspects of Holocaust, such as sex, violence and death, are used.

Однос Градског поглаварства у Шапцу према имовини шабачких Јевреја и Јевреја из кладовског транспорта 1941–1944.

Author(s): Sanja Petrović Todosijević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2017

This paper aims to highlight the role of the Municipal Authorities in Šabac, headed by Branko Petrović, the wartime mayor of Šabac which were a part of the collaborationist administration embodied in Milan Aćimović’s Commissariat Administration and Milan Nedić’s Government, in the process of usurping the property of the Jewish people from Šabac and the Kladovo Transport, initially through the Committee for Registration and Evaluation of Jewish Property, and later through the Commissariat for Jewish Property, headed by Jefta Kujundžić.

Kierunki, cele i rezultaty działań Służby Bezpieczeństwa PRL wobec Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (1961–1970)

Author(s): Tadeusz Paweł Rutkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2017

An institution maintaining contacts with foreign scholars and the Jewish Diaspora around the world, the Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, ŻIH) became an object of interest of the Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB) in the early 1960s. The initial objects of surveillance were the ŻIH Director, Professor Bernard Mark, and his Deputy, Adam Rutkowski, for it was established that they maintained contacts with a number of foreigners and transferred information detrimental to People’s Poland. 13 October 1952 marked the registration of investigation code name ‘Kodak’, within the framework of which the SB counterintelligence (MSW Department II Section V) carried out surveillance of the ŻIH. Aside recruiting agents, mostly among the technical employees of the ŻIH, the SB used technical methods of surveillance (telephone and room tapping, correspondence control) towards the Institute and its employees. There were also several instances of secret entering the Institute to photograph documents. In 1965 all those actions led to a proposition formulated by the SB officer who was in charge of the investigation to accuse the Institute’s management of irregularities in employee remuneration so as to tarnish its reputation and exchange the ŻIH scholarly team for individuals of Jewish nationality loyal to the authorities. Those plans were not realized though, with the MSW Department III Section III, which carried out anti-opposition activity, taking over the surveillance of the ŻIH in 1965. The condition of the surviving operational materials does not facilitate a detailed analysis of the 1967–1968 surveillance of the ŻIH, but it was largely unsuccessful. Paradoxically, the SB learned more about the ŻIH’s situation after state institutions took interest in the Institute’s activity (particularly the Supreme Audit Office [Najwyższa Izba Kontroli, NIK]), beginning with the autumn of 1967. Similarly, research conducted so far does not make it possible to determine the SB’s influence on the activity of those institutions and communist Poland’s policy regarding the ŻIH, but it seems highly probable that the actions aiming at liquidation of the ŻIH undertaken in 1968 were inspired by the SB.

Páriák és próféták. Válasz Halmos Károlynak

Author(s): Dániel Bolgár / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 73/2018

ОБРАЗИ ЄВРЕЙСЬКОГО НАСЕЛЕННЯ В ПУБЛІКАЦІЯХ У РЕГІОНАЛЬНІЙ ПРЕСІ ТА СУСПІЛЬНІ ВІДНОСИНИ У МОДЕРНІЙ УКРАЇНІ: ДО ПОСТАНОВКИ ПРОБЛЕМИ

Author(s): Liudmyla Novikova / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 29/2018

At the time of the social modernization in the second half of thenineteenth century in the Russian Empire the conditions have formed,with the events of Jewish pogroms, the ground for attention to the socalled“Jewish question”. Understanding this term despite its certainstability was different, including the relationship between Jews andnon-Jews and the content of the term «Jew». At that time the newspapersof different ideological directions have taken the participationin the discussion on the question, offering contradictory images ofthe Jewish population. A study of the features of complex images ofradical character, that influenced the formation of the value basis forindividual and social behavior is important as analysis of the historicalexperience of interethnic relations in Ukraine under circumstancies ofthe developing modern European Ukraine and existing the need toprevent the manifestations of social conflict. On the other hand, theexisting historiography, which covers certain aspects of the problem,does not highlights its regional aspect, and also has elective character.For example, the mutual perception and understanding of theUkrainians and the Jews is studied, but the perception of the Jewishcommunity in the mass mind of a particular region is not studied, thatis the territorial approach, which allows more comprehensive reviewof the issue is not used much. Therefore, the chosen problem has thepublic and scientific relevance.The subject of this research is the peculiarities of images of theJewish population that formed on the pages of the Odessa newspaper«Novorossijskij Telegraph») in the first half of the 1880’s, from masspogrom in 1881 till the pogrom in the summer of 1886.The analysis of the content of the publications of «NovorossijskijTelegraph», which presented radical anti-Semitic streams, in the firsthalf of the 1880’s. discovered features of so called by us «externalnational identity» or images of the Jewish population, disseminatedthrough newspaper’s publications in Odessa and among the consumers 84of the Odessa press in general. «Novorossijskij Telegraph» presentedthe Jews as the religious and national community, with the selfish interestsopposite to interests of the rest of the population, which mustbe the object of struggle because it was presented as the «source ofeconomic exploitation for the Christians». The image of the Jewishpopulation in the «Novorossijskij Telegraph»was an example of radicalpropaganda, that formed the basis for the further development of theconflict on the base of opposition of Jews and non-Jews in Odessa. Ithas revealed, in particular, in the exacerbation of social relations inOdessa and in the so-called «disorders» in 1886.

Két perspektíva, egy „utazás”

Author(s): Nóra Kecskés / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 74/2018

Huhák Heléna – Szécsényi András (szerk.): Lágerutazás. Holländer Margit feljegyzései a vészkorszakról és az újrakezdésről (1945–1946).Jaffa Kiadó, Budapest, 2017. 204 oldal.

Corpus Christi, corpus delicti – nowy kontrakt narracyjny. Pokłosie (2012) Władysława Pasikowskiego wobec kompromitacji kategorii polskiego świadka Zagłady

Author(s): Elżbieta Janicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 7/2018

Władysław Pasikowski’s 2012 feature film Aftermath recapitulates and works through the existing resources in documentary cinema that deals with the Polish context of the Holocaust (Claude Lanzmann, Paweł Łoziński, Marian Marzyński, Agnieszka Arnold). It is also founded on the knowledge amassed in the wake of the countrywide debate about the 1941 Jedwabne massacre (2000–1). As such, it rejects the majority narrative of the Holocaust, one told under the banners of the Righteous Among the Nations (the paradigm of innocence), the Polish witness to the Holocaust (triggering an unjustified identification of the Jaspersian paradigm of unimputable, metaphysical guilt with unwarranted guilt), and the alleged collective Polish trauma of the Holocaust. Aftermath is analyzed as a treatise on antisemitism which problematizes and narrativizes phantasms that are central to this socio-cultural pathology, visualizing the mechanism whereby the phantasm of the Jew is constructed and imposed on actual individuals. It also touches upon the Christian roots and identitarian dimension of antisemitism, alongside its central figure: the Crucifixion. Antisemitism is a matter of religion as a doctrine but also religion as an institution. By displaying a plexus of discourses and practices, attitudes and behaviors, Pasikowski defends the great quantifier as a legitimate category to describe the Polish context of the Holocaust. He debunks the essential differentiation between pre-modern and modern antisemitism (including notions about the secondary nature of Polish antisemitism in relation to the German Nazi exterminatory projects targeted at the Jews).

Transitions Online - Around the Bloc: Anti-Semitic Incidents on the Rise in Romania – 24 April

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 04/30/2019

Head of Bucharest Muncipality Museum published an article criticized for its anti-Semitic tone, weeks after vandals damaged a Jewish cemetery.

Иудео-христианский казус в романе Людмилы Улицкой Даниэль Штайн, переводчик

Author(s): Zoja Kuca,Aleksy Kucy / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2019

Ludmila Ulicka’s book Daniel Stein, the Translator deals with issues in the field of philosophy, culture, theology, religious studies, sociology, psychology. It is a book about the Second World War, the Holocaust, pogroms of Jews, and the methods of fighting Soviet power against Jews. However, its main meaning boils down to the description of the life and activity of a Polish Jew-Christian who, through his ministry and teaching, in a way promoted a new model of Christianity — Judeo-Christian. The analysis of the Ulicka novel from the point of view of this issue is the main research goal of this article.

Der ‚Judenkönig‘ der Edlgasse. Gustav Hauskrecht und die Verfolgung der Juden in Bratislava 1944/1945

Author(s): Michal Schvarc / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2019

The Holocaust in Slovakia was not only a result of the antisemitic policy of Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party regime headed by the Catholic priest Joseph Tiso, but also an initiative by the lower parts of society – the local aggressors. After the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany in the late summer of 1944, this situation partly changed, with the ‚solution of the Jewish question‘ becoming one of the top priorities of the occupying power. However, without the help of local helpers, this would hardly have been successful. One such case was Gustav Hauskrecht, the head of the so-called ‚Judensammelstelle‘ in Bratislava. This convinced National Socialist and uncompromising antisemite contributed significantly to the persecution of Jews in the Slovak capital at the end of the war and bears a joint responsibility for their deportation to the Nazi concentration camps. This article is an attempt to biographically profile one of the main perpetrators responsible for Shoah in Slovakia.

“That’s for harboring Jews!” Post-Liberation Violence against Holocaust Rescuers in Poland, 1944–1948

Author(s): Alicja Podbielska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This article explores post-war violence against ethnic Poles who had assisted Jews during the Holocaust. Officially praised as representative of the entire nation’s compassionate and generous attitude, they faced ostracism, robbery, and murder by their home communities. Their neighbours envied them the ‘Jewish gold’ they had allegedly received for their assistance,while the right-wing, anti-communist armed underground considered them traitors who had impaired the nationalist ideal of a Poland without Jews. Drawing on early Jewish testimonies,letters sent by helpers to the Jewish Committees, and their testimonies from the1960s, this article examines the consequences of their wartime actions that rescuers faced in the first years after liberation.

Von der Gstättn nach Auschwitz. Jüdische Kinderzwangsarbeiter 1938–1945

Author(s): Johannes-Dieter Steinert / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2019

This article is based on a research project that evaluated – alongside contemporary documents– over 500 autobiographical testimonies in which survivors of the Holocaust reported on their time under German occupation, on ghettos and camps, on the fates of their families,and on forced labour. Jewish children were forced to work in all sectors of industry,mining, and agriculture. They worked in the ghettos, in the concentration and extermination camps, and in the construction of motorways and railways, defensive fortifications, barracks, and airstrips. On the basis of a sample, the article traces an arc from the forced labour performed by Jewish children in the Viennese dump in 1938 to the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz. In summary, the article focuses on the attempts made in the personal testimonies to explain one’s own survival and the lifelong consequences of forced labour in the shadow of the Holocaust.

THE SYMBOLIC APPROACH TO THE HOLOCAUST IN THE PROSE OF BERNARD MALAMUD

Author(s): Shpetim Madani / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2012

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) is one the best known writers of Jewish American literature, which reached its peak in the 1950s. This paper tries to throw light on the treatment of the Holocaust, as one of the most grievous tragedies of the Jewish and world’s history. The paper makes a brief introduction to the Holocaust itself, and how it influenced Malamud. Then the article focuses on two novels and two short stories in which the Holocaust is treated symbolically.

THE JEWISH AMERICAN PROSE AND BERNARD MALAMUD

Author(s): Shpetim Madani / Language(s): English Issue: 5/2011

The Jewish American prose became an integral part of American literature during the 20th century, in adding a new immigrant voice to the literary mainstream. One of these major Jewish American writers is Bernard Malamud (1914 – 1986), who used mostly Jewish characters and themes to convey universal values. This paper makes a short introduction to the Jewish American prose, including a brief comparison of Malamud with Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, and then tries to throw light on the treatment of the themes of humanism, and redemptive suffering, by focusing on the author‟s major novels and short stories.

Fotografia wobec Zagłady. Refleksje o wystawie zdjęć z Archiwum Ringelbluma i archiwum rodziny Eisenbach w Żydowskim Instytucie Historycznym

Author(s): Piotr Kendziorek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2019

no summary

Zadziwiające milczenie polskiego Kościoła katolickiego o Holokauście

Author(s): Stanisław Obirek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2019

This article is an attempt to understand the Polish Catholic Church’s silence on the Holocaust. How did it happen that the radical change in the surroundings of Polish Catholics, that is, the Holocaust, has been passed over in silence? This article consists of two parts. The first one recalls the consequences of research on the anti-Semitic history of Christian theology and the proposals of concrete changes to the Catholic teaching on Jews and Judaism. The other part reconstructs German Catholic theologian Johann Baptiste Metz’s theological conception of ‘post-Auschwitz’ reflection.