The Book of Exit

The text “The Book of Exit” delineates a perspective of animal studies understood as a consequence of the trauma theory and the Holocaust studies. At the foundations of the article are the views of Dominick LaCapry from 2004-2014, included by the author in the context of the current Polish and American cultural debates. In this interpretation the posthumanities and monster studies—vividly developing nowadays—are not only transformation but also overpower the melancholy of studies into trauma, completed at the price of parting from an individualistically crafted version of a liberal subject

Pogrom Cries – Essays on Polish-Jewish History, 1939–1946

This book focuses on the fate of Polish Jews and Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust and its aftermath, in the ill-recognized era of Eastern-European pogroms after the WW2. It is based on the author’s own ethnographic research in those areas of Poland where the Holocaust machinery operated. The results comprise the anthropological interviews with the members of the generation of Holocaust witnesses and the results of her own extensive archive research in the Polish Institute for National Remembrance (IPN). «[This book] is at times shocking; however, it grips the reader’s attention from the first to the last page. It is a remarkable work, set to become a classic among the publications in this field.» Jerzy Jedlicki, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science

Pogrom Cries – Essays on Polish-Jewish History, 1939–1946

This book focuses on the fate of Polish Jews and Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust and its aftermath, in the ill-recognized era of Eastern-European pogroms after the WW2. It is based on the author’s own ethnographic research in those areas of Poland where the Holocaust machinery operated. The results comprise the anthropological interviews with the members of the generation of Holocaust witnesses and the results of her own extensive archive research in the Polish Institute for National Remembrance (IPN). «[This book] is at times shocking; however, it grips the reader’s attention from the first to the last page. It is a remarkable work, set to become a classic among the publications in this field.» Jerzy Jedlicki, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science

Go native. Debaty o książce Timothy Snydera

Go native. Debates on a book by Timothy Snyder This article debates the content of the latest issue of “Contemporary European History” from 2012 (vol. 21, no. 2) dedicated to Timothy Snyder’s book Bloodlands. The debate includes contributions by: Mark Mazower (Columbia University), Dan Diner (Hebrew University/Simon-Dubnow-Institute Leipzig), Thomas Kühne (Clark University) and Jörg Baberowski (Humboldt University). Timothy Snyder reacts to their comments in an extensive essay

Figura krwiopijcy w dyskursie religijnym, narodowym i lewicowym Polski roku 1945/1946. Studium z antropologii historycznej

The Figure of the Bloodsucker in Polish Religious, National and Left-Wing Discourse, 1945/1946: A Historical Anthropology Study Despite the fact that after 1945 all anti-Jewish pogroms in Poland (except one) involved a blood libel – a rumor about Jewish murderers of Polish children – this fact has not attracted the attention of historians until recently. Conspiracy theories, however, were a lot more popular and noted that the pogroms had been provoked by “Soviet advisers” or “Zionists”. The author of this essay argues that participants of anti-Semitic violence, the assailants as well as policemen, prosecutors, and judges involved in controlling the events – though they represented a variety of different political approaches – were all united by a common socio-mental formation, and remained united by a figure of the Jew as bloodsucker (this mystic figure is described here according to Mary Douglas). Many of them, security and secret services functionaries included, succumbed to a suggested blood libel. Moreover, some traces of blood libel are still present in Poland, not only as folk beliefs (cf. the research conducted under the present author’s direction in Sandomierz). The essay’s aim is to present a structural background of slowly growing “Polish national socialism” on the one hand and old anti-Jewish resentments on the other, as both were a ground for a specific anti-Jewish alliance in the first period after World War II. Thus, the author claims that a synthesis of religious anti-Semitism (“Jew-kidnapper-bloodsucker”), modern anti-Semitism (“Jew-capitalist-bloodsucker”) and the “Judeo-communists” occurred in Poland, which crippled a healthy body of the nation and the communist party. The essay is based on, inter alia, letters intercepted by the censorship in 1946, the reports made by some anti-communist underground fighters, a number of memories and documents of communist secret services officers, as well as documents accumulated in the course of investigations held by the authorities after the pogroms of 1945 and 1946

Ex silentio. O wierszu „Todtnauberg” Paula Celana

Ex silentio. On Paul Celan’s Poem “Todtnauberg”This paper contests the interpretative framework proposed by Hans Georg Gadamer and Cezary Wodziński in their interpretations of certain poems by Paul Celan. The point of contention lies in the understanding of the relationship between biography and poem. The author analyses the “concept of discretion,” which excludes Celan’s Jewish identity from the analysis of his poetry, and proposes her own reading of both his poem Todtnauberg and anti-volkist interpretation Hüttenfenster. The background consists of the polemic about the famous meeting of Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger in August 1, 1967 in Todtnauberg

Polin: „Ultimate Lost Object”

Polin: "Ultimate Lost Object”The article is a critique of the POLIN Museum’s contemporary exhibition, which – according to the author – suppresses the most difficult aspect of Polish-Jewish past, the ones associated with the violence of the pogroms that were the decisive factor in the greatest waves of Jewish emigration from Poland.Polin: „Ultimate Lost Object”Tekst stanowi krytykę projektu wystawy współczesnej Muzeum POLIN, tłumiącej – zdaniem autorki – najtrudniejsze, związane z przemocą pogromową, aspekty polsko-żydowskiej przeszłości, które zdecydowały o największych falach emigracji Żydów z Polski. 

Go native. Debaty o książce Timothy Snydera

Go native. Debates on a book by Timothy Snyder  This article debates the content of the latest issue of “Contemporary European History” from 2012 (vol. 21, no. 2) dedicated to Timothy Snyder’s book Bloodlands. The debate includes contributions by: Mark Mazower (Columbia University), Dan Diner (Hebrew University/Simon-Dubnow-Institute Leipzig), Thomas Kühne (Clark University) and Jörg Baberowski (Humboldt University). Timothy Snyder reacts to their comments in an extensive essay

Kilka uwag o trwałości legendy o krwi. Na marginesie „Kłamstwa krwi” Jolanty Żyndul

A few remarks on the persistence of the legend of bloodThe article is an extended review of Jolanta Żyndul’s Kłamstwo krwi (‘The Lies of Blood’). Żyndul unearths numerous cases of accusing Jews of ritual murders, which happened in the 19th and the 20th century, and were then forgotten by the Poles. Żyndul puts the libel of the legend of blood inside a wider context of social, religious and political relations in the recent history. She revises the historical narration, which produced the oblivion by undermining the significance of those events. Kilka uwag o trwałości legendy o krwi. Na marginesie „Kłamstwa krwi” Jolanty ŻyndulTekst jest rozszerzoną recenzją monografii historycznej dotyczącej legend o krwi ery nowoczesnej pióra Jolanty Żyndul. Historyczka odkrywa niezwykle liczne dziewiętnasto- i dwudziestowieczne przypadki obwinień Żydów o mord rytualny, zupełnie wyparte z pamięci historycznej Polaków. Sytuuje oszczerstwo krwi w sieci powiązań społecznych, religijnych i politycznych historii najnowszej, poddając rewizji narrację historyczną, która, podważając znaczenie tych niezrozumiałych „epizodów”, wyprodukowała zapomnienie

Incognito ergo sum. O wytwarzaniu obojętności

Incognito ergo sum: on indifference The present article is an analysis of various types of indifference of non-Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw to the plight of Jewish Poles. The words of Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, a historian and “Żegota” activist, provide the vantage point for the analysis: Dunin-Wąsowicz claimed that around 75 per cent of the inhabitants of Warsaw “were indifferent to what was taking place behind the Ghetto wall”. Thomas Kuhne hypothesised that it was Germans’ indifference to the Jewish – not hatred – that legitimised the Nazi racial policies of the 1930s. This statement might also apply to the “75 per cent of the inhabitants of Warsaw”. The article is mainly based on articles published by ZWZ-AK, in particular Biuletyn Informacyjny. Incognito ergo sum. O wytwarzaniu obojętnościAutorka analizuje różne odcienie obojętności nieżydowskich mieszkańców Warszawy w latach czterdziestych wobec losu żydowskich Polaków. Punktem wyjścia jest zdanie Krzysztofa Dunin-Wąsowicza, historyka i działacza „Żegoty”, który stwierdził, że dla około 75 procent mieszkańców Warszawy „obojętne było to, co działo się poza murem getta”. Powołując się na tezę Thomasa Kuhnego, że to właśnie obojętność Niemców wobec Żydów – a nie nienawiść w stosunku do nich – „spowodowała masowe poparcie nazistowskiej polityki rasowej w latach trzydziestych”, autorka zastanawia się, czy „podobnej opinii nie można by sformułować pod adresem” 75 procent mieszkańców Warszawy. Materiał do analizy stanowią w znacznej mierze publikacje prasy ZWZ-AK, w tym przede wszystkim „Biuletyn Informacyjny”