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“Ever New Demands, Ever New Grimaces” – the Power and Subordination Relation between Poles and Jews Hiding on the ‘Aryan’ Side
Justyna Kowalska-Leder
j.kowalska-leder@uw.edu.pl Author Biographycultural studies expert at the Institute of Polish Culture of Warsaw University, where she heads the Holocaust Memory Research Team. Author of: Doświadczenie Zagłady z perspektywy dziecka w polskiej literaturze dokumentu osobistego (2009) and “Nie wiem, jak ich mam cenić…” Strefa ambiwalencji w świadectwach Polaków i Żydów (2019); also of the academic edition of Renia Knoll’s diaries (Dziennik Reni Knoll, 2012); co-author and co-editor of the volume Ślady Holokaustu w imaginarium kultury polskiej (2017)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4727-4431
Institute of Polish Culture, Warsaw University
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, No. 12 (2016), Pages: 209-241
Submission Date: 2020-10-19Publication Date: 2016-11-30
https://doi.org/10.32927/ZZSiM.413
Abstract
This texts talks about three single, uneducated Polish women living alone (a dressmaker, servant, and kitchen worker), who during the war sheltered Jews in their apartments in Warsaw and Drohobych. All three of them helped the Jews for money, but – as far as we know – none of them resorted to financial blackmail or any other major abuse of a financial character. Nevertheless, the war circumstances became an opportunity for them to fulfill their emotional needs, otherwise impossible to satisfy. They derived pleasure from having power and control over another person and their actions towards the Jews they sheltered also bore traces of a class revenge. The authors analyze the relations between the helpers and helps mostly on the basis of Jerzy Feliks Urman’s diary and memoirs of Karol Rotgeber and Calek Perechodnik. Aside from the sociological theory of exchange systems, another useful tool facilitating comprehension of the Polish women’s behavior and their interactions with the Jews in hiding, which are described in those texts, is Erich Fromm’s concept of human cruelty as a highly complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to openly violent actions.
Keywords
diary , memoir , ‘Aryan’ side , hiding Jews , dominance and subordination relation , Warsaw , Drohobycz
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Copyright (c) 2016 Author&"Holocaust Studies and Materials"
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