Abstract
The author attempts not only to provide a more in-depth commentary on the frameworks of the Polish memory politics, delimited in her earlier text, but also focuses primarily on outlining testimonies alternative to the ones of the nascent politics. She outlines a broad social and historical background of the aforementioned events, devoting considerable space to the Kielce pogrom and to reactions of leftist intellectuals to the shocking event. Separate space is dedicated to considerations regarding Catholic voices, usually published in Tygodnik Powszechny weekly, which, while resisting anti-Semitism and active attacks against Jews, reproduced the models of exclusion and, at the same time, strengthened the dominant memory politics.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The number of Jews returning from the USSR includes both those previously deported deep into Russia and those from the former areas of the Second Polish Republic. The losses of the Jewish population in Poland during the war amount to approximately 90–95%.
- 3.
One of many examples is the history of 20 prisoners of Auschwitz, who tried to settle in Rejowiec; after threats received in letters they retreated to Chełm and settled in the house of the CKŻP; Cała and Datner-Śpiewak (1997, p. 27). Łukasz Krzyżanowski writes about robberies, murders, and stigmatization of Jews; see Krzyżanowski (2020).
- 4.
- 5.
It is worth emphasizing that often the security office and police at the provincial level employed people with background in NSZ or ONR. Cf. Tokarska-Bakir (2018).
- 6.
Polish politician. He was prime minister of the Polish government in exile during World War II, and later deputy prime minister in post-war Poland until 1947. See Mikołajczyk (1948).
- 7.
In the wake of intensification of historical policy, but against the results of the investigation conducted by this institution, the second volume of the IPN publication on the Kielce pogrom returns to the concept of communist provocation; cf. Bukowski et al. (2008); opinions of historians from outside the IPN are quoted and analyzed in Tokarska-Bakir (2016).
- 8.
They represent a separate trend that partly transcends the politics of memory and partially reproduces it; I will return to this matter further on.
- 9.
Though certainly it cannot be said that all of them saw themselves as communists.
- 10.
Tomasz Urzykowski: “What was the attitude of Poles to the Jews dying in the ghetto? What attitudes were the most common?” Tomasz Szarota: “No historian can answer that”; Szarota (2009b, p. 18).
- 11.
Selectively, because many documents speak precisely about satisfaction with the Holocaust, cf. Libionka (2006, pp. 129–136).
- 12.
- 13.
The original version was created in 1943 and did not survive. On the status of this story in the writer’s oeuvre, cf. Synoradzka-Demadre (2017).
- 14.
“And further on, that for her, as a believing Catholic, the tragedy of the Jews, harassed for so many centuries, is the most painful trial for Christian consciences. Who, if not Christians, were to be moved by the cruel fate of the most unfortunate of the nations, a tribe that—having once rejected the truth, will continue to bear the burden of betrayal in the midst of unbelievable suffering, humiliation and abuse”; Andrzejewski (2007, p. 99).
- 15.
On Irena’s character as a “beautiful Jewess,” cf. Ratajska (2013).
- 16.
The figure of Anna, or a “true Catholic,” effectively prevents questions about the historical and actual relationship of Catholicism and anti-Semitism; as in Błoński’s text, we see a strategy here—“If this did happen, it was because Christians were not Christians enough” and the conviction that Catholicism would effectively be cured of anti-Semitism, which in the historical context seems unjustified; see Błoński (1990, pp. 44, 47).
- 17.
In Andrzejewski’s text the carousels do not swirl.
- 18.
Przewodnik katolicki and Rycerz Niepokalanej were most popular catholic press in that period, nationalist and often anti-Semitic. Verbum was connected with the catholic-personalism movement.
- 19.
Even historians did not avoid this trap; cf. Zaremba (2013).
- 20.
These fragments are confirmed by the historians who analyzed the conspiracy press of the Holocaust time; cf. Chap. 2.
- 21.
The text, written during the war, came out only in 1957.
- 22.
This image is not created or invented by Wyka; it emerges from reality, from the situation of rummaging through the ashes; cf. Stomma (1947).
- 23.
The history of this politics is succinctly presented by Joanna Tokarska-Bakir: Marta Duch-Dyngosz: “One of the most common explanations of the Kielce pogrom is the allegation of a Soviet provocation. What is your angle on it?” Joanna Tokarska-Bakir: “I think I have a bad character, because I read with satisfaction, e.g. in the records of the second investigation of the 1990s, that historians and politicians claiming that it was a provocation, asked in the presence of the prosecutor if they have any evidence for it, suddenly soften their position and say: ‘No, I have not conducted any research on my own’ [laughter]. The allegation of a provocation appeared the earliest, in July 1946, in underground leaflets, such as bandit Radkiewicz was behind the Kielce provocation. This allegation was then picked up, among others in the autumn parliamentary inquiry put forth by the Polish People’s Party.” Tokarska-Bakir (2016, p. 50).
- 24.
In light of Tokarska-Bakir (2018), analyzing the biographies and political beliefs of the pogrom actors (among others, officers of the Voivodship Police Headquarters in Kielce, who were largely former NSZ and ONR members, and even szmalcowniks), the image of the perpetrators gets complicated. The author holds on to the allegation of the “grassroots” character of the pogrom but shows that the representatives of the authorities involved in the events can hardly be regarded as ideological communists, and even members of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR).
- 25.
Gil ’s reportage made the reader realize that the Kielce pogrom was not a one-off event, a single outbreak of hatred, but a series of events lasting ten hours, during which it was possible to interrupt the actions of the crowds and react in some way. However, “neither the bishop nor any of the members of the Curia rushed to stop the pogrom.” Gil radically breaks with the strategy of image protection and flings accusations against those upholding the new order. He recognizes the role of the administration, the authorities, and the police and justly admits that the Church would have been faced with “an impossible task, especially that they would have had to oppose the administration, who should have defended law and order and yet sided with the crowd”; Gil (2010, p. 119).
- 26.
Zagórski was in 1979 awarded with the Righteous Among the Nations Medal.
- 27.
It is difficult to say what the “us” refers to. Does he mean Poles? Polish raison d’état? Let us not forget that Zagórski at that time held important public offices and was a diplomat, serving as the cultural attaché of the Polish Embassy in Paris. Either way, the “us” refers to Poles, as Poles cannot tolerate the Jewish voice about their harm suffered at the hands of Poles.
- 28.
It was also hinted that the Jewish communists and an international conspiracy wanted to deprive Poland of its good name.
- 29.
Stanisław Piasecki was a Polish right-wing activist, nationalist, politician, and journalist.
- 30.
Unfortunately, by no means “one and only,” as evidenced by pogroms, for example, in Jedwabne, Radziłów, or Wąsosz.
- 31.
The demands of work, renewal, and evangelization are extremely frequent in the “Catholic position” that I have reconstructed above; “Christianity has a lot to do here, especially the Catholic Church in Poland”; Zawieyski (2010, p. 235).
- 32.
Omitting a topic or presenting it in an obscure and ambiguous manner appears also in less radical versions of the Catholic politics of memory. Let us note a much later text of Błoński, who in this aspect seems to follow this line: “When you read what was written about the Jews before the war, when you discover how much hatred there was in Polish society—you can sometimes be surprised that the words were not followed by actions. Yet they were not (or very rarely)”; Błoński (1990, p. 47).
- 33.
The title of Kann’s text (a mixture of a short story and a reportage) became the title of the entire collection. It refers to the wave created after a great tide, when the immediate triggers of the appearance of sea waves cease to exist. Still, the swell returns and slows down boats. The metaphor of the swell suggests that the causes of anti-Semitism have already ceased and that “the Jewish problem” has been resolved, but anti-Semitism continues as an afterimage of the past.
- 34.
This participation is understood differently. The heroes of this study were not always members of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) or identified themselves with communism. However, they shared ideological support for the project of constructing an egalitarian society.
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Chmielewska, K. (2021). Alternative Narratives of the 1940s Versus the Politics of Memory. In: Hopfinger, M., Żukowski, T. (eds) The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942-2015. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66408-4_3
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