English
Polish
Helping Those Doomed to Annihilation as a Source of Destruction – On the Basis of Brandla Siekierkowa’s Personal Documents
Justyna Kowalska-Leder
j.kowalska-leder@uw.edu.pl Biocultural 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 (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. 8 (2012), pages: 176-187
Publication date: 2012-12-02
Abstract
Brandla Siekierkowa’s occupation-time diary and her 1949 memoir describe experiences which do not fit the main currents of Polish historical narration. After the liquidation of the Mińsk Mazowiecki ghetto in August 1942 the author, her husband and two sons found shelter in the Żwirówka village on the Bylickis’ farm. Brandla’s testimonies reveal a non-heroic dimension of the long-lasting and disinterested help, which occasioned mutual aversion. They fit neither the “positive” model of narration about the Righteous and the helpees nor the “fringe of the Holocaust” model where the Poles hurt the Jews. Brandla’s notes give us insight into the sphere situated between these two types of narration about the Polish-Jewish past
Keywords
diary, memoir, Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, help provided to Jews, Mińsk Mazowiecki
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Copyright (c) 2012 Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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