Adam Żurawin, a Hero of a Thousand Faces
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, 2008: Holocaust Studies and Materials, pages: 123-146
Publication date: 2008-12-01
Abstract
This article analyses unpublished memoirs of Adam Żurawin, a Gestapo informer, believed to have been involved in the so-called “Hotel Polski Affair”. Żurawin wrote them shortly before his death. They offer a rare opportunity to look at a German collaborator through his own eyes. The analysis is carried out from a few complementary points of view: historical (comparison with other sources), literary criticism (the poetics of personal document and self-creation), and psychological (motivations, feelings). Indeed, in his memoirs, Żurawin portrays himself as a knight-hero figure, who had never tarnished his hands with collaboration, but played a game with the Germans (and with the Poles), aimed only at saving his own family. The author tries to find what factors are involved in this self-creation
Keywords
Holocaust, sociological studies of the Holocaust, Jewish- German relations, The Case of Hotel Polski
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Copyright (c) 2008 Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały
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