O co chodzi w wywiadzie? Próba interpretacji wspomnień o Żydach jako narracji tożsamościowych

Author(s): Sławomir Kapralski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article presents a method of interpreting in-depth interviews regarding the ways in which non-Jewish Poles remember Jews. The intention of the suggested method is to find a new perspective that would be complementary to the two most important ones that can be found in the Polish research on this subject: the ethnographic approach and the perspective inspired by psychoanalysis. The main assumption of the presented method is that an interview is not a recollection of the past but a narrative of identity in which the past is (re)constructed according to the imperatives of the present in which the interview is conducted, and the Jews serve to an interviewee only as a frame of reference for his/her constructs of identity. It is further assumed that narratives of identity are constructed along four main dimensions: sacrum, death, sex, and power/violence, each with its own cultural semantics and binary code that is used to separate practices and beliefs that characterize “Us” from those we attribute to “Them.” These codes, together with stories about “Us” and “Them,” make the warp and weft of the narrative identity represented in the interview, which corresponds to Clifford Geertz’s idea of culture as the webs of significance we have spun and in which we are entangled. Then, a single interview has been selected and interpreted to show how the interviewee organizes his stories about Jews in different semantics and codes to keep his narrative of identity consistent.

Tajemnica Ginczanki

Author(s): Agata Araszkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 01/2014

Anielski naród

Author(s): Miklós Szabó / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2014

Some might say that there seems to be a rising tendency toward historical revisionism in Hungary. The term “revisionism” is used here to describe a negative process, a reinvention, a reinterpretation of historical events in a way that constitutes the denial of historical crimes. This would be an arguably objective statement, but on its own would also create a false certitude that we are facing a simple case of misinterpretation – something that can be addressed and solved by historians, the bearers of objective knowledge, a simple lie that shatters in the light of truth. If existence, as Heidegger claimed, “finds it’s meaning in temporality”, then we can assume that the present is in fact the history of itself, and all social phenomena are questions about the present, and therefore something that is naturally immune to the charms of historical facts. In this case, it can only be fully understood through an anthropological analysis, since historical facts are nonexistent, or at least irrelevant, from this perspective. If we also assume that we all live in “imagined communities”, and can analyze the “cultural stuff” that forms the basis of one’s national, ethnic, or any other group-related identity, then we can discard any observable social events, for it would be easier to label them simply as the product of mere stupidity or a misinterpretation of facts.This ternary can be understood through an analysis of recent Hungarian events, like the scandal concerning a statue presently under construction on Freedom Square (Budapest) that commemorates the Nazi invasion of 1944 and the rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy, the war-time leader of Hungary. The statue portrays Hungary as a victim of the Nazis, while more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, with the active help of Hungarian officials. Nostalgia toward the 1930s goes hand-in-hand with increasing xenophobia and racism. These resent events can be, and are, criticized from a number of perspectives, without any effect, proving again that one should first understand an issue before addressing it.

Zdzieranie masek. Sposoby pisania o żydowskich komunistach

Author(s): Anna Zawadzka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2013

The paper presents an analysis of the contemporary Polish debate on Jewish communists. The analysis was performed in the framework of colonialist theories. I deconstructed narrations about Jewish communists, which belong in the Polish political mainstream, and are regarded as moderate, objective and devoid of any ideology. The tropes shared by the colonialist discourse and the debate on Jewish communists are: orientalisation, eroticisation, infantilisation, presenting the object of research outside the historical context, abolishing the context of social and political inequalities, and declaring the victims guilty of the violence they experience.

Kilkanaście sekund. Z Konstantym Gebertem rozmawiają Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Elżbieta Janicka i Anna Zawadzka

Author(s): Joanna Tokarska-Bakir,Elżbieta Janicka,Anna Zawadzka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3-4/2015

In 2012–2013, Poland was discussing ritual slaughter. Its adversaries claimed that the kind of animal slaughtering that makes the animal meat kosher and halal, causes extra suffering to animals and therefore should be banned. However, the postulate of banning ritual slaughter in Poland is not new and it goes back to the pre-war period. In the Studia Litteraria et Historica’s interview Konstanty Gebert talks about the history of Polish debate on the ritual slaughter, its anti-Semitic applications and about not an­ti-Semitic arguments risen in the discussion. He describes legal solutions for the ritual slaughter in other countries and addresses the issue of animal killing as a moral problem in Judaism. He also discusses the contemporary debate on the ritual slaughter: is it really in the name of the animal rights?

Opowieści żydowskie

Author(s): Sylwia Karolak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 06/2014

You could say that Anka Grupińska liked oral history projects. A significant place in her creative activity was also occupied by Jewish themes. In "Still in a Circle", Grupińska combines her interest in the history of the Warsaw Jews with her consistent commitment to projects based on oral history. "Conversations with Soldiers of the Warsaw Ghetto" is a work that is by any measure unique, representing the beginning of its author’s public interest in Jewish subjects, and a source of self-consciousness-raising research. What is interesting is the way in which Grupińska speaks, how she asks questions, how she confronts different versions of events. The reflections contained in the article are complemented by commentary from Grupińska herself on her work on the book, as well as on oral history in general.

Utazó kiállítások: újraalakuló kiállítóterek a magyar zsidóság reprezentációjában

Author(s): Gréta Süveges / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2016

A magyar arkangyal azt üzente

Author(s): János Kőbányai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2014

Niechciany Auschwitz

Author(s): Marek Rawecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

The heritage of Auschwitz from the local perspective of Oświęcim appears differently − personally. It is a stigma the town residents have to face every day when fulfilling their own needs and life aspirations, both in the semantic sense (a stigmatising name) and in the material sense (the remains of the camp in the city space). Comments, opinions and criticism concerning the city’s development are received from all over the world. The former camp conservation requirements impose development restrictions for the protection of the place which was created without the participation and consent of the local community. The question asked many times in Oświęcim: “Where does the former camp end and normal life begin?” may be incomprehensible from outside, but is painfully valid here. Highly publicised conflicts, unsolved for years, in which the local heritage becomes meaningless, are caused by the coexistence of the memorial place and urban space. The population of Oświęcim living “in the shadow of Auschwitz” become a social minority for the world, marginalised in the face of the atrocities of the genocide committed here. On the other hand – the moral dimension of Auschwitz either paralyses local initiatives or supports extreme attitudes. The worldwide debate about Auschwitz lacks the local perspective, whereas the local community lacks the historiosophical view and the understanding that today you can reach Oświęcim only through Auschwitz.

Predsodki o Judih med prvo svetovno vojno

Author(s): Marko Štepec / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 1/2014

The following contribution describes the anti-Semitism spreading among soldiers and civilians in the hinterlands of the Austro-Hungarian battlefields. On the basis of the analysis of selected examples from diaries and memorial documents, reflecting many stereotypes and prejudices, the author presents the basic characteristics of anti-Semitism during the war. The war between 1914 and 1918 made a permanent impact on the human relations and thinking, and it definitely changed the life in the European space. It also influenced the attitude to the Jewish population and the formation of anti-Jewish prejudice.

A gyűlölet tana. Antiszemita olvasókönyvek a német iskolákban

Author(s): Ákos Béresi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2016

The Sale of Confi scated Jewish Immovable Property in Serbia During World War II for Financing War Damages to Germans

Author(s): Dragan Aleksić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This paper describes two financial operations German occupational authorities in Serbia undertook and performed simultaneously in order to finance German war production. The first one is confiscating and selling Jewish immovable property, at first directly through German institutions, later through Serbian Državna hipotekarna banka Bank. The second one is payment of war damages to Germans in Serbia and Banat, citizens of the Reich and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, personally or to their firms, they incurred between March 27, 1941 and the end of April war.

Wiedergutmachung and its Discontents

Author(s): Adam J. Sacks / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This paper presents and analyses critiques of the post-war West German discourse of Wiedergutmachung from an intellectual history perspective. Focused closely on suggestive remarks of Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, these critiques are mostly concerned with the insufficient care in intentionality, psychological inadequacies and improper self-serving or nature of the process as it emerged in Cold War West Germany. This essay then charts whether any elements of these critiques from the 1960s are echoed in the most recent wave of scholarly literature on reparations. Current critiques view Wiedergutmachung as a foundation for a “communicative history” that forges shared narratives between perpetrator and victim or as the starting point for a culture of victim competition. Contemporary discourse and historiography remains incomplete with the historical acknowledgment of these early intellectual critiques of the process of reparation. The primary elements taken from these earlier critiques include the importance of intentionality, intersubjective care and reconciliation through memory, especially in cultural discourses and institutions.

The Political Role of Financial Institution

Author(s): Vesna S. Aleksić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The article analyses the way in which one of the largest Yugoslav banks, in the wake of WWII, gained exceptional political importance, becoming the property of Deutsche Bank and turning, right after the Nazi occupation of Serbia, into a channel for the systematic aryanization of Jewish movable property in Serbia. At the same time, the article deals with the ways in which the Germans came to accurate data on the ownership of movable property of Jews as well as the role of the Serbian Quisling government of Milan Nedić in this process.

Further Observations on the Restitution of Art, Judaica, and Other Cultural Property Plundered in Serbia

Author(s): Wesley A. Fisher / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Following on the overview presented at the first annual Holocaust and Restitution Conference concerning what is known about the expropriation of cultural property in Serbia during World War II and where that cultural property is presently located, ways in which restitution of art, Judaica, and other cultural property might best be implemented are discussed. Serbia is encouraged to do historical research on the history of cultural plunder during World War II and on what was restituted to Serbia and within Serbia after the War, and to create a listing or database on the internet of what was taken in Serbia, noting what was subsequently returned and what is still missing. An entity should be responsible for provenance research in the country, either one that actually does the research as in Austria or one that oversees the research carried out by museums, libraries, and archives as in the Netherlands. Information should be made public over the internet of the results of such provenance research. A separate entity, as neutral and independent as possible, should be responsible for restitution decisions based on the provenance research. Serbia should pass legislation covering the return of private movable cultural property that is applicable to both Serbian and foreign citizens. Preferably there should be no deadline for claims for cultural property, whether individual or communal, since such cultural property is often not immediately identifiable. A non-bureaucratic process for filing claims should be established. Cultural property for which original owners and heirs are not identified (heirless property) should be listed on an internet site so that potential claimants can come forward. Such items should not necessarily move from their current location, but their provenance history should be publicly noted.

Sudbina jevrejskog kapitala tokom nemačke okupacije Srbije 1941-1944

Author(s): Vesna S. Aleksić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2014

In Serbian historiography still remained insufficiently investigated the issue of the role and significance of certain German banks in transferring Jewish capital from Serbian banks during WW II. This article to, through analysis of relevant historical sources and literature, point out very clear principles and exceptionally precise methods used by German occupation authorities, together with most important German financial institutions, while conducting so called ’racist experiment’ in Serbian banking. That experiment included targeting and takeover of Serbian bank with highest concentration of Jewish financial capital in Yugoslavia, Aryanization of personnel, detailed inventory of Jewish financial capital in banks from territory controlled by German occupation authorities in Serbia, redirection of that capital to German bank affiliation in Belgrade and, finally, its transfer to the vaults of ’Deutsche Bank’ in Germany.

Polsko-żydowscy czytelnicy Weiningera a żydowski „Selbsthass”

Author(s): Justyna Górny / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

The article deals with the Polish readers’ response to Otto Weininger’s monograph Geschlecht und Charakter (1903). This applies in particular to the resonance evoked by the chapter “Jewishness”, full of anti-Semitic overtones, in which Weininger presented his concept of the so-called “Jewish character”. An analysis of texts by Ostap Ortwin (who translated Weininger’s book), Leo Belmont and of several other commentators warrants the hypothesis that speaking out about Weininger enabled Polish Jewish readers to discuss the Jewish identity in isolation from the Polish anti-Semitic discourse and may have even been seen as a way of stripping the anti-Semites of control over the debate about the Jews (Belmont). Besides, Weininger’s text, while emphasizing the significance of the individualistic assimilation project while at the same time rejecting assimilation as a social movement, legitimized his personal efforts to escape racist labels (Ortwin).

Krúdy Gyula tudományáról dokumentumregénye, A tiszaeszlári Solymosi Eszter művészete kapcsán

Author(s): Péter Simoncsics / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2017

Harminc emberből ez alatt a pár hónap alatt — ö körülbelül kettő kérdezte azt meg, hogy mi volt tulajdonképpen a deportálás

Author(s): Júlia Vajda / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2017

Etiudy Andrzeja Brzozowskiego

Author(s): Marek Hendrykowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17-18/2011

Marek Hendrykowski presents in his study the earliest fiction and documentary films made by Andrzej Brzozowski (1932-2005), excellent Polish filmmaker, 1971-2005 professor of the famous Film School in Łódź (PWSFTviT). “Sunflowers” (1953), “Escape” (1954/55), “Legend” (1957), “Jazz Talks” (1957) – these short films, preserved in the collection of Film School Archive, are almost unknown for wider audience in Poland and abroad. In the second part of his study Hendrykowski gives also an accessible overview of the historical evolution of the filmmaker through the close examination of another two outstanding short films made by him: By the Railway Track (1963) and Medallions (1966). Last two were adaptations of short stories written in 1945 by Zofia Nałkowska, a masterpiece of anti nazi world literature. The article deals with the most important values and close-reading thematic and stylistic areas of Brzozowski’s early works: those developing in the 1950’s and early 1960’s but having deep impact in the poetics of academic short film in Poland, whose form and course they have fundamentally redirected.