JEWISH THEMES IN JÓZEF PANKIEWICZ’S ART IN THE SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXT

The paper examines Jewish motifs in Józef Pankiewicz’s works. The artist created them in the 1880s in Warsaw, occupied then by the Russian Empire and inhabited mostly by Poles and Jews. Most of these pictures were published as woodcuts and autotypes in newspapers disseminating positivist ideology and social program. Until now, the researchers have focused on analyzing only the style of these pictures, treating them as a short phase on the way to later symbolist, truly modern Pankiewicz’s art. A close scrutiny of his works from the Warsaw period reveals a specific visual representation of Jewish figures. They are depicted as isolated from other people, covered by shadows, placed in the oppositional relation to the traditional symbols of Warsaw, such as the King Sigismund’s Column and the Mermaid Statue, as well as to Christian architecture. The author of the paper draws the conclusion that the tensions in Polish-Jewish relationships which increased in the 1880s, being rooted in the political and economic history of Warsaw and shaped by contemporary persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire, are visualized in Pankiewicz’s works.   

“THE PUREBRED ACES,” OR SAMUEL JAKUB IMBER’S LOOK AT POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS

Samuel Jakub (Shmuel Yankev) Imber (1889–1942), a Yiddish and Polish poet and critic, can be regarded as the spiritual father of modern Yiddish poetry in Galicia. He wrote also for Polish- ewish press, trying to improve the image of Jews in the eyes of their Polish fellow citizens. This matter was a major concern already in his long poem Esterke (1911), one of the high points of Imber’s oeuvre in which he called for a harmonious coexistence of Jews and Poles. In the 1930s, when antisemitism was on the rise in Poland, Imber published two collections of articles in Polish: Asy czystej rasy [The Purebred Aces; 1934] and Kąkol na roli [The Weed in the Fields; 1938], in which he sought to counteract the ways in which Jews had been portrayed by the Polish nationalist press. The article discusses the significance of the poem Esterke and of selected texts from both collections of articles.  

The Zionist ideology proclaimed the equality of men and women, according to which everyone, regardless of gender, should prepare oneself to go to Eretz Israel and work hard to create a future state. However, reality did not always correspond to ideology. In the Polish-language Zionist press, one can find texts from which it transpires that theoretical ideological assumptions were not always implemented in practice. Despite the officially proclaimed gender equality, women were typically assigned to feminine activities, while being removed from more responsible ones. Neither did they themselves always wish to change the traditional division of roles. In the 1930s, this problem began to be noticed and inspired reflections on the possibility of changes. 

MOSHE MERIN: SAVIOR, COLLABORATOR OR AN ASTRAY MAN?

In January 1940, Moshe Merin became the Head of the Jewish Council of Elders of Eastern Upper Silesia. At this point, the community of Jews amounted to almost 100,000 members. Merin actively promoted his major concept of “survival by work.” He believed that only working for the Third Reich combined with obedience and subordination toward the aggressor can guarantee Jewish survival. This policy arose objections, especially among Jewish youth involved in the resistance movement. Until mid-1942 Merin was an influential figure. His wide contacts with the Nazis and relatively good living conditions of Jews in Eastern Upper Silesia dismissed alleged reasons for mutiny. Therefore, during the first two years of the war, the Jewish Council of Elders of Eastern Upper Silesia enjoyed a lot of success. The situation changed in 1943 when the Nazis created ghettos and started forced deportations to KL Auschwitz. The Jewish Council stopped functioning when Moshe Merin and his main associates were deported to the death camp.   

“SO THEY BEAT YOU REALLY HARD HERE? NO, NOT US, ONLY THE JEWS”: JEWISH VICTIMHOOD INSIDE THE MAJDANEK CAMP IN POLISH PRISONERS’ TESTIMONIES

The article draws on a source material from The State Museum Majdanek Archives, a collection of video testimonies recorded in 1987–1989, to develop a fuller picture of social relations among prisoners of different ethnic backgrounds at the Majdanek Concentration Camp. From the fall of 1941 through July 1944, Majdanek functioned as a killing center and a concentration camp for about 150,000 prisoners from different European countries. Drawing on video testimonies as a type of oral history, the article traces the perception of Jews in the camp by Polish prisoners, their social interactions, and the interethnic social boundaries shaped by camp life.  

YIDDISH BROADCASTING ON THE POLISH RADIO AFTER WORLD WAR II

The initiator of the establishment of Yiddish broadcasts in postwar Poland was Jonas Turkow. The first program in Yiddish was broadcasted by the Polish Radio (Polskie Radio) from the city of Lublin on January 6, 1945. For the first time in Poland’s history Yiddish could be heard on the airwaves. It was also the first attempt to revive Yiddish and, most importantly, it came from a state institution before any Jewish organizations and institutions came to existence after World War II. After Jonas Turkow had left Poland, this activity was taken over by the Department of Culture and Propaganda in the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKŻP) in Warsaw. Between 1950 and 1958 the broadcasts were aired by the Jewish Section of the Polish Radio External Service and they could be heard only abroad. In January 1958, the Jewish Section of the Polish Radio was closed down by the decision of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. 

“STRIVE FOR A GOOD NAME AND PEACE OF CONSCIENCE”: THE TESTAMENT OF TEKLA KRONENBERG

The main goal of publishing this source is to make available a document of the type that remains unexplored and unrecognized, especially within the field of Jewish studies. The nineteenth-century testament of Tekla Kronenberg deepens our knowledge about the Kronenberg family in general and its female members in particular. In notary deeds we find primarily male testaments. It is therefore relevant to publicize a female testament which may prove helpful in historical research on women. It is possible to examine this document from various perspectives, such as the value of charity, the attitude toward converts, the extent of social bonds (what things were left and to whom? were inheritors mainly male, or female?). In addition, an analysis of the means of expressing emotions regarding particular persons mentioned in the testament enables us to make a quality assessment of family bonds. As a result, it sheds new light on a Jewish family’s life.  

Recenzja : Dobrochna Gorlińska, Żydzi w administracji skarbowej polskich władców czasu rozbicia dzielnicowego, Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego „Societas Vistulana”, Kraków 2015, ss. 372.

Recenzja: Paweł Fijałkowski, Warszawska społeczność żydowska w okresie stanisławowskim 1764–1795. Rozwój w dobie wielkich zmian, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, Warszawa 2016, ss. 529.

Recenzja: Vassili Schedrin, Jewish Souls, Bureaucratic Minds: Jewish Bureaucracy and Policymaking in Late Imperial Russia, 1850–1917, Wayne State University Press, Detroit 2016, ss. 288.

Recenzja: Barbara Kalinowska-Wójcik, Między Wschodem i Zachodem. Ezechiel Zivier (1868–1925). Historyk i archiwista, Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach, Katowice 2015, ss. 328.