Anti-Jewish Violence in Postwar Poland as Presented in Memorial Books
Adam Kopciowski

We proudly present the English translation of Adam Kopciowski's article, originally featured in the 14th issue of our yearbook (2018).

This article critically analyzes descriptions included in memorial books of anti Jewish violence in postwar Poland. Its objective is to familiarize the reader with the narrative form, structure, and main threads about this subject. The author discusses topics including placement of texts about postwar violence against Jews in memorial books, their composition, genre diversification, and issues connected with the multitude of points of view and the status of authors (including testimonies given by those who were direct victims of violence, repatriates from the USSR, Jewish ‘travelers’ visiting postwar Poland, and Christian witnesses). Along with analyzing descriptions of acts of violence, the author focuses on selected issues: survivors’ physical and mental condition on returning to their hometowns, reactions to their returns of the Christian population, and reasons for the postwar violence (traditions of prewar antisemitism, Polish complicity in Holocaust crimes, and the demoralizing impact of German occupation). The most important research problem, though, is addressing the question of the overall vision in the memorial books of Polish-Jewish relations immediately after the war, as well as indicating that vision’s most characteristic denominators.

Read more ...