The editorial team of the annual journal Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały / Holocaust Studies and Materials is currently engaged in the intensive preparation of its 21st volume, which, as per tradition, will be published in December.

As in previous years, the issue will first appear in an Online First format in Open Access on the journal’s website, followed by the print edition — for those who appreciate the scent of printing ink and the rustle of paper.

We are pleased to announce that the forthcoming volume will include, among other contributions, the text of the lecture delivered by Prof. Piotr Forecki, during the inaugural Janion’s Lecture, entitled “To Europe, Yes—but Together with Our Zionists.”

“I must begin by acknowledging that this lecture may disappoint those anticipating an inquiry into Maria Janion’s views on Zionism or Zionists, or an attempt to extrapolate—through speculative means—her possible stance on the current war in the Gaza Strip and the politics of the Israeli state. Such an undertaking is not my intention. To the best of my knowledge, Janion did not publicly address these issues, and it is neither methodologically sound nor ethically appropriate to ascribe positions to the deceased on matters they did not engage with. No amount of interpretive desire or political necessity can confer legitimacy on such conjecture.

What I do wish to explore, however, is the conceptual terrain that Janion inhabited and shaped—a terrain marked by her engagement with phantasms, collective imaginaries, the reproduction of Polish cultural patterns, and the interpretive frameworks through which antisemitism is addressed in her writings. It is within this intellectual constellation that I locate the relevance of her work for our present moment.”

 

Highlights of the upcoming issue include:

➡️ “Neighbors” Revisited After 25 Years
➡️ Stephan Lehnstaedt on the German Reception of Jan Tomasz Gross’s Work
➡️ Stanislovas Stasiulis and Violeta Davoliūtė on Debates Around the “Difficult Past” in Lithuania

Studies
➡️ Piotr Laskowski on the Microhistory of the Holocaust
➡️ Jakub Chmielewski on the Jewish Administration in Lublin County

Materials
➡️ Ewa Wiatr on the Diary of a Boy from the Łódź Ghetto, 1942

Points of View
➡️ Piotr Forecki on Contemporary Anti-Zionist Narratives and Their Consequences

Commemorations
➡️ Dariusz Libionka on the Challenges of Commemorating Roman Dmowski in the Former Jewish District of Lublin

Research Workshops
➡️ Małgorzata Grzanka on the Fate of Poles in Care Homes in Włocławek in Early 1942

Reviews and Discussions
➡️ Grzegorz Krzywiec on Publications by the Institute for the Legacy of Polish National Thought (Instytut Dziedzictwa Myśli Narodowej)
➡️ Justyna Kowalska-Leder on the Popular History of the Holocaust

Reviews
In Memoriam