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Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Polish Culture

Posts about aspects of Polish culture.

What if…

04 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Family, Memory, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Warsaw, World War II

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Just about every time I come to Warsaw I take a pilgrimage to this spot.

The view down to where my mother used to live, when Kościelna Street continued straight at the bottom of the stairs.

My mind turns inward to the way I remember it in my imagination, based on my mother’s stories and archival photos. Back then, these stairs led to a neighborhood of narrow streets where old cottages sat beside brick businesses, and where my grandfather built my grandmother a three story villa behind a cast iron fence.

When I visited today, I pictured roads instead of pathways. With buildings on either side. The villa would have been straight down and on the left, just after the path that runs perpendicular.

For some reason I started to wonder what my mother’s life would have been like if there hadn’t been any war. Would she have married her first love, a priest? Or would he have decided to honor his vows to the church? No doubt, she would not have waited to have children. I imagine her with four, including the daughter that was born instead of me, only 10 years earlier. No need to wait through the war, dozens of surgeries, migration, and illness to start a family. Would she have resigned from her dream of becoming a doctor, or found a way to balance her home and work responsibilities? Maybe she would have lived with her active young family in the villa, where her mother could help.

And the daughter that was born instead of me would no doubt be a grandmother, with a grandchild the same age as my son.

Without the Nazi invasion, Poland’s Jews would not have been murdered, and the Soviets would not have imposed 45 years of state socialism. Instead of being destroyed, Warsaw would have continued to grow, its Jewish population an important component of the city’s economic and cultural vitality. Poles would have had to figure out how to live within a country full of diversity, where the Polish nation could not be defined as ethnically pure or exclusively Catholic.

Would my family still have hidden their Jewish heritage in such a Poland? I wonder. What do you think?

AK Verification, Part III

02 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Archives, Bereda, Family, Memory, Polish Culture, Polish Underground Army, Warsaw, World War II

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AK, Armia Krajowa, Maria Bereda(y) Galbraith, patriotism

NOTE: This overview of my recent discoveries at the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust, Studium Polskiej Podziemniej (SPP) got so long I am publishing it in three separate posts. Here is part III. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Polish Underground Army worked in secret to resist, sabotage, and fight against the Nazis. Another name for the Polish forces is “AK,” short for “Armia Krajowa,” or “Home Army.” I talk about the soldiers as “the partisans;” in Polish sources they are also called “konspiracja,” “the conspiracy.”

Sorry it’s taken a while for me to get to part III. The semester has begun which means I’ve been very busy.

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Pencil sketch of Maria Bereday from the 1950s, signed Ditri. Friends tell me she looks like a spy.

All of the questions the archivist Krystyna asked me about the names Mama went by paid off because she found another file; the envelope was mislabeled “Maria Fijułkowska.” Inside was a six-page report, relacja, Mama had written titled, “Outline of Courier Work.”

Initially, neither Krystyna nor I found this file because not only was “Bereda” missing, but Fijałkowska was also misspelled. Krystyna wrote “Fijałkowska” on a new envelope; I don’t know why she didn’t also add the Bereda, even after I pointed out that Mama’s full name was hand-written in large letters along the left margin of the document’s first page. Around World War II, the family usually used the name Bereda-Fijałkowska. Mama told me they added the Fijałkowski/a, which was grandpa Bereda’s mother’s maiden name and a name associated with the Polish gentry, because of Babcia’s social aspirations.

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Mama’s name (Bereda-Fijałkowska) and pseudonym “Renata” in the margins of her typewritten report.

Mama’s report matches up with some of the stories she told me, and confirms some of what she did during the occupation. It also gives more details about the way her courier unit “Zadra,” was organized, and how couriers carried out their duties. The report is dry and factual. It contains no specifics about her emotional engagement or personal thoughts. A historian might find it interesting for what it reveals about the operations of the Underground conspiracy. I keep trying to look beyond the words to find the person behind them.

She writes, that “Zadra” started out very small, and because the work wasn’t systematized, the couriers were on call at all times. “By the end of 1942,” she writes, “the number of couriers stabilized at 15, and that group became close and experienced, and worked together for a long time without changing members.” This all changed in the fall of 1943 when the occupier, okupant, limited train travel to Germans only. Overnight, the courier corps dropped from 60 to just six who spoke German well and had German papers. “The work for these couriers during this time was nonstop,” she continues, “The number of trips for each courier came to 10-12 per month, depending on the route.” My mother doesn’t state it in the report, but she must have been one of the couriers who carried out missions during this time. Some of her most vivid stories were about traveling in the train cars with an assumed identity as a “volksdeutch,” a half-German whose father was fighting for the Reich on the Eastern front.

After about two months, the courier corps were reorganized and expanded, with more reserve couriers brought into regular service. In the half year before the Warsaw Uprising, the number of couriers in her unit approached 40, and overall reached 100.

The duties of the couriers included delivering coded and uncoded orders hidden in ordinary objects such as candles or paint, special messages that had to be handed to specific commanders, and large sums of money (1/4-12 million zloties in 500 zloty bills). Some missions involved carrying the messages brought by paratroopers they called “ptaszki,” “little birds.” This is the code name for the cichociemni, the officers who parachuted in from the West carrying money and messages from the Polish Government in Exile.

The report includes an example of a special mission Mama undertook at the end of 1943. Instead of being briefed by her usual commander “Wanda”, “Beata,” the head of communication with the west, did it. “Wanda” gave her a special coded message she had to hand directly to the chief of staff or the commander of the Radom District. This was to occur in private with no witnesses. Mama also had to memorize and deliver the oral message, “The commanders of the divisions and subdivisions of “Burza” require complete secrecy in the event of the invasion of the Russians.” Burza, Tempest, was the code name for the Warsaw Uprising.

Because the chief of staff wasn’t available on the day Mama arrived, she had to spend the night at a safe house. The next day, she delivered the messages to Chief of Staff “Rawicz” [his real name was Jan Stencel or Stenzel], but had to spend another two days before “Rawicz” returned from the forest, where the partisans were hiding out, with the required response for the Central Command in Warsaw.

Reading this sparked another memory for me. I think it was a big deal for Mama to stay away from home for so long, especially because her father didn’t know she was in the Underground. Her mother did know, though, and they hatched an alibi about a visit to Mama’s fiance’s family. Or maybe this is the story she told the authorities on the train to explain why she was returning several days late. Hopefully, my brothers remember this story, too, and can confirm one of these versions.

The documents from the Studium Polski Podziemnej in London have been a lynch pin that holds together information from a variety of sources. While I was there, I also found a citation for Communication, Sabotage, and Diversion: Women in the Home Army, Łączność, Sabotaż, Dywersja: Kobiety w Armii Krajowej, published in 1985. The book was written in Polish but published in London. I found a copy of it at an online used bookstore whose brick and mortar shop is in Warsaw. I called, and sure enough they had it in the shop, so I picked it up while I was in Warsaw. It contains the recollections of the head of the Women’s division of Central Command (VK) Janina Karasiówna, the oficer who confirmed Mama’s verification file. Another chapter contains the report of Natalia Żukowska who was the assistant commander of Mama’s courier unit; Mama identifies her by her pseudonym “Klara.” From Żukowska’s report, I learned that “Zadra” was the name used by the couriers who had been working with the unit for the longest, but in 1943 the name was changed to “Dworzec Zachodni.” Reviewing Mama’s documents, I see now that she identified her unit as Zadra-Dworzec Zachodni in one place. She underlined it, too. Until I read this book, I had thought Dworzec Zachodni, which means Western Station, referred to Zadra’s location, not an alternative cryptonym. And then there’s this: the names of the 15 couriers, including “Renata.” That’s Mama’s pseudonym; her last name is misidentified as “Brodzka” instead of “Bereda,” but Natalia writes, “Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to decrypt all of the last names” (p. 118).

Mama was proud of her service for her country, but she was also painfully aware of the cost of war. She called herself a pacifist and the war solidified her abhorrence of armed conflict. I remember her asking, “Are there times when fighting is necessary?” I could tell from her voice that she wanted to believe all conflicts can be resolved peaceably. But her experience had taught her otherwise.

AK Verification: Part II

13 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Archives, Bereda, Family, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish Underground Army, Warsaw, World War II

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"Zadra", AK, Armia Krajowa, Courier, General Bór Komorowski, Grupa "Koło", Major Janina Karaś, Maria Bereda(y) Galbraith, Polish Home Army, Polish Underground Study Trust, Studium Polski Podziemnej, Warsaw Uprising

NOTE: This overview of my recent discoveries at the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust, Studium Polskiej Podziemniej (SPP) got so long I am publishing it in three separate posts. Here is part II. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Polish Underground Army worked in secret to resist, sabotage, and fight against the Nazis. Another name for the Polish forces is “AK,” short for “Armia Krajowa,” or “Home Army.” I talk about the soldiers as “the partisans;” in Polish sources they are also called “konspiracja,” “the conspiracy.”

 

The file at the archive of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust, Studium Polski Podziemnej (SPP), contained the same verification questionnaire I had from my mother’s papers and so much more. On the envelope itself is the following identifying information:

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Information on the envelope containing Mama’s papers at the SPP

I ‘ve learned how to decipher all of this. Here’s what it means:

Cadet Bereda-Fijałkowska Maria

2.785/46 [record #]     “Renata” [her pseudonym]

   26. VI 1922 Wilno [birth date and place of birth]

 

            Central Command division V/Women “Zadra” courier

Uprising: after the fall of the Wola district of Warsaw

                                    “Koło” Group-liaison officer [the names of her units]

The documents inside the envelope confirm Mama’s service and rank in the AK [Home Army], as well as her receipt of the Cross of Bravery. She submitted her questionnaire on March 9, 1946, her commanding officer confirmed her claims on April 15th of the same year, and the official report was completed the next day on April 16. The final report says the head of the Polish Army himself, General Bór-Komorowski, confirmed her receipt of the Cross of Bravery. Here is what looks like his signature on the document:

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General Bór Komorowski’s signature verifying Mama’s service in the Polish Home Army. It looks like he wrote “Stwierdzam (I confirm)  16/IV 46” above his signature. Note the “gn” for “generał.”

Mama started military training in middle school, gimnasium, at the Klementyna Hoffman School in the mid-1930s. She continued training in high school, liceum, and entered the Underground in June 1941, right after finishing high school. She took courses on how to be a courier, the organization of the Underground and of the German military, as well as marksmanship, topography, and first aid. She was in “Zadra” Group, part of the women’s courier corps in the 5th Division of the Central Command. She delivered encoded communications, money, and oral messages on the routes between Warsaw and Krakow, Radom and Skarżysko-Kamienna. In these latter two places, she acted as a go-between for the partisans in the surrounding forests and Central Command in Warsaw. From 1942-4, she also worked as an instructor training other women to serve in the Underground.

When the Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944, she was with her unit “Zadra” in Wola, a district to the northwest of downtown. A handwritten note on her typed questionnaire says “wounded on route from Wola to the Old City.” The handwriting is different from Mama’s distinctive, almost calligraphic style, so somebody else must have added it after Mama submitted her answers.

The archivist Krystyna Zatylna said that the heaviest fighting in the first days of the Uprising was in Wola. Mama was lucky to have survived. By August 8, 40,000 civilians died in Wola.

The Home Army regrouped in the Old City. Mama got separated from her unit and joined “Koło” group. She is referred to here as a “liaison,” “lączniczka,” rather than “courier,” “kurierka.” Both terms refer to people entrusted with delivering critical information. Initially, however, she worked as a medic on Długa Street. When the Germans pushed the partisans out of the Old City, they escaped to the City Center, Śródmieście, via the sewers.

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Document dated September 9, 1944 that allowed “Renata” to travel through the City Center during the Warsaw Uprising.

The file contains two papers dated from the Uprising. No doubt Mama brought them with her to London to help corroborate her report. These tattered notes—physical proof of her service—must have been very precious to her. The first, on a third of a piece of paper that has deep creases from having been folded many times, is dated September 9, 1944. It states:

I assert that cadet Renata is a liaison of “Koło” Group. The conditions of her service require movement within the region between Savior Square and Napoleon Square.

The note is signed by the Chief of Staff of “Koło” Group, Major Krynicki. The document contains a round stamp with a crowned eagle in the middle surrounded by the words “Motorized Transport Brigade, “Brygada Dyspozycyjna Zmotoryzowana.” Mama must have shown this note at barricades on the streets so the AK soldiers would let her pass. Savior Square and Napoleon Square are in the City Center, which means she retreated through the sewers before September 9. I can, however, imagine her dodging Nazi bullets as she ran across the barricaded Jerusalem Street carrying messages from Napoleon Square to Savior Square. These names would sound good in a poem. Too bad I’m not a poet.

The second paper dates from October 3, 1944, the last day of the Uprising. Signed by Colonel Bolesław Kołodziejski, the commander of “Koło” Group, it is titled, “Provisional certificate (to be exchanged after the war for official recognition).” The text reads:

I confirm that “Renata Lewandowska” was decorated for her activity during the Uprising from August 1 to October 3 1944 with the Cross of Bravery for the first time.

Based on: the personal confirmation of the head of the Warsaw Corps of the A.K. Brigadier General Montera and his assistant Colonel Wachowski, as told to the commander of “Koło” Group during the last days of the Uprising.

“Montera” was the code name for General Antoni Chruściel, who led the Home Army (AK) in Warsaw during the Uprising. Kołodziejski was also a code name. Elsewhere in the documents, Mama writes that his real name was Zygmunt Trzaska-Reliszko.

Mama writes that she was promoted twice; in September 1944 she became a cadet, plutonowy podchorązy and in October she was promoted again to ensign, podporucznik. It looks as though the Verification Commission could only confirm the first promotion. A handwritten note on Mama’s questionnaire says they weren’t able to contact her commanding officer from “Koło” Group to verify the second promotion.

Also in the file are two statements written by the commander of the women’s branch of the 5th division of Central Command (V.K. KG) Major Janina Karaś, dated April 15, 1946. In them Karaś, also known as Karasiówna, confirmed that Mama earned the rank of cadet in “Koło” Group, and was also granted the Cross of Bravery for her service. Clearly, the Verification Commission contacted Karaś to corroborate Mama’s claims on her questionnaire. One of Karaś’s statements reads:

As the chief of the V.K. [5th Women’s] Central Command I certify that in the course of her service as a courier, “Renata” Maria Bereda Fijałkowska distinguished herself on the route Warsaw-Krakow and Warsaw-Skarzysko-Radom with bravery and decision to take risks. Traveling with German false papers she carried money, mail, and oral orders /for example related to the order for [Operation] Tempest. She earned the Cross of Bravery for her service.

Operation Tempest, “Burza,” was the code name for the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising. In other words, some of the messages Mama carried between Central Command and the partisans in the forest involved critical details about the Polish Underground’s battle to free the capital city from German occupation. I’m reminded of something the archivist at the Warsaw Uprising Museum kept repeating when I showed him Mama’s verification questionnaire two years ago: “She must have been very high in the conspiracy.” He couldn’t find the exact connection, but I believe I have it right here.

Krystyna Zatylna helped me put the pieces together. The forests around Radom are where the so-called “cichociemni,” “the quiet unseen” soldiers parachuted in from the West, bringing messages and money from the Polish Government in Exile for the leaders of the Underground in Poland. I believe Mama was given these items from the cichociemni and carried them back to Central Command in Warsaw. It fits with stories she sometimes told, and it fits with the seven-page report she filed with her verification papers. And that will be the subject of the third part of this blog post.

AK Verification, Part I

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Archives, Bereda, Family, Polish Culture, Polish Underground Army, World War II

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AK, Armia Krajowa, Cross of Bravery, Krzyż Waleczny, Maria Bereda(y) Galbraith, Polish Home Army, Polish Underground Study Trust, Studium Polski Podziemnej

NOTE: This overview of my recent discoveries at the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust, Studium Polskiej Podziemniej (SPP) got so long I will publish it in three separate posts over the next few days. Here is part I. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Polish Underground Army worked in secret to resist, sabotage, and fight against the Nazis. Another name for the Polish forces is “AK,” short for “Armia Krajowa,” or “Home Army.” I talk about the soldiers as “the partisans;” in Polish sources they are also called “konspiracja,” “the conspiracy.”

MamaPrewar

Mama in Poland

 

The extraordinary story of my mother’s service in the Polish Underground can be hard to reconcile with the person I knew. Mama would hide when strangers visited the house because she was afraid they would stare at her scars. How could she have carried secret messages to the partisans in the forest or talked calmly with Nazi officers on the German-only trains right under signs that read, “Danger! The Enemy is Listening!”? And yet, as her daughter I also knew her strength and persistence, especially when matters of principal were involved.

I couldn’t find much specific information about my mother at the Warsaw Uprising Museum or the Polish National Archive of New Records in Warsaw. Next, I turned to the Studium Polski Podziemnej (SSP), Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London. But when the archivist responded they have no record of Maria Bereda in their indexes, a part of me wondered if Mama could have fabricated her whole story.

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Logo of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust (SPP)

But that made no sense. My mother didn’t lie. She struggled with guilt even when she tried to tell the smallest untruth. Instead, she would avoid certain subjects, and would keep silent when people came to their own incorrect conclusions about them. That’s why for instance I thought she was the same age as my dad when I was a child. My oldest brother inferred it from the sequence of their birthdays—Dad’s was on March 1 and Mom’s was a few months later on June 26—and Mama didn’t bother to correct us.

Mama didn’t like talking about her past, but the story about how she was verified after the war was one she was more willing to tell. She had to go to London to do it because wartime records were scattered and incomplete. During the war, the Underground Army didn’t have the infrastructure to maintain centralized records. Often, lists of personnel and promotions were memorized or scribbled on any available scrap of paper. Also, to prevent the Nazis from infiltrating the underground forces, details of separate units were kept from each other. Most partisans only knew about those serving directly above and below them, and even members of the same unit referred to each other by code name. All of these were strategies for insuring that if someone was caught or compromised, they would have minimal information to share and so could inflict a minimum of damage to the organization. Also, few records remained after Warsaw was bombed to the ground following the Warsaw Uprising. The Central Verification Commission was in London, where the Polish Government in Exile had been throughout the war.

Mama travelled from Poland to London in March 1946. She wanted to be sure that an official record would exist to mark her participation in the war, and she wanted to get the Cross of Bravery she had been granted but never received. At the Commission, she reported on her training, her unit, her superior officers, and her activities. When she told me this story many years later, she was very proud of her ability to recall all these details from memory, things that could only be known by someone who actually served in the Underground.  The commission checked everything for accuracy before the verification was confirmed.

I already had a copy of the “Special Questionnaire” Mama had filled out as part of this process; I had found it in her papers. At minimum, I should have been able to find the original at the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust (SPP), which houses the archive of the Verification Commission. Fortunately during a recent trip to London, some focused digging at the SPP turned up a treasure trove of documents. Already in our e-mail correspondence, the SPP archivist Krystyna Zatylna had seemed confident that something would turn up if we looked harder. She eventually found Mama’s records where they had been mislabeled and misfiled.

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Headquarters of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust at 11 Leopold Road, Ealing, London. Photo from studium.org.uk website.

According to their website, “The Polish Underground Movement (1939-1945) Study Trust (PUMST), was founded in London in 1947. It is a research and academic institution, which contains historical material on the Polish Underground State (the Underground Administration and the Polish Home Army – Armia Krajowa) during the Second World War.” Included among their materials, the verification papers sit on high shelves right in the reading room in accordion folders shelved alphabetically. Personal files are arranged alphabetically inside the folders, each in a separate manila envelope.

The first folder Krystyna pulled out for me contained last names starting with “Br” instead of “Be.” My heart fell when I didn’t find Mama’s records. But then Krystyna climbed up a wooden ladder and found the folder with the “Be” names. There it was: an envelope labeled Maria Bereda-Fijałkowska. For a time, Mama used this hyphenated name, tacking on the maiden name of her grandmother.

Krystyna explained that much of the work at the archive has been done by volunteers so there are a lot of mistakes. She also asked me a lot of questions. Was Mama’s name always hyphenated? Did she use any other names? Did she ever go by Fijałkowska? Was she ever married? She also asked the names of my mother’s units. I rattled off what I knew: she belonged to “Zadra” in the Women’s 5th Division of the Central Command stationed in the Wola District of Warsaw; shortly after the Warsaw Uprising began, she joined “Koło” Group, and served in the Old City–Stare Miasto and City Center–Śródmieście Districts . I also gave her the names of Mama’s superior officers. It was as if I was being verified myself.

To be continued…

Poles Remember

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Catholicism, Cemeteries, Commemoration, Dukla, Memory, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations

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All Saints Day

Today is the Catholic holiday, All Saints Day, the time to honor the dead. Customarily, Poles visit cemeteries to clean and decorate the graves of their family members. During the day, chrysanthemums in all shades adorn tombstones. At night, candle lanterns on graves make the cemeteries glow. Twinkling hillsides can be seen from far away.

I’m pleased to see that some Poles also remember Poland’s now-absent Jewish population on November 1. I’ve seen this in Warsaw and in Lutowiska. And here is a photo Jacek Koszczan posted on Facebook today showing the candle lanterns on the commemorative monument at the town of Dukla’s Jewish cemetery.

Candle lanterns on the monument commemorating Dukla's Jewish population, November 1, 2016, All Saint's Day.

Candle lanterns on the monument commemorating Dukla’s Jewish population, November 1, 2016, All Saint’s Day.

He and other citizens of Dukla made the trip out to the cemetery to light a candle for the dead. In this, I see an expression of honor that transcends religious difference.

Jacek has done a great deal to reassemble the memory of Jewish life in Dukla. In fact, he was honored last month by the Polin Museum for his work. The Polin website explains, “Jacek Koszczan is the founder and director of the Organization for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the Dukla Region–Dukla Shtetl. His work involves both obtaining and archiving knowledge about the Jews of Dukla and its surroundings, as well as educational activities. Jacek Koszczan is the initiator and builder of a monument commemorating the 70th anniversary of the murder of Dukla’s Jews, the volunteer caretaker of the Jewish cemeteries, mass grave, as well as the ruins of the Dukla synagogue. Thanks to his efforts and knowledge, he succeeded in facilitating the honoring of two Dukla-region families with the medal for the Righteous among Nations.”

Jacek Koszczan receiving his award from the Polin Museum for his work on Jewish heritage in Dukla, October 21, 2016. Photo by Janusz Czamarski

Jacek Koszczan receiving his award from the Polin Museum for his work on Jewish heritage in Dukla, October 21, 2016. Photo by Janusz Czamarski

All in all, Jacek has been instrumental in the return of the memory of Jews to his community. I have been impressed by his energy, enthusiasm, and generosity. For him, this is a labor of love–for his community, for the memory of those who suffered, and for humanity in the face of evil.

Threading the Needle

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Baligród, Commemoration, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kazimierz, Krakow, Lesko, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Tarnów, Warsaw, Wronki, Włocławek, Zasław, Żychlin

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Erica Lehrer, Jacek Nowak, Jewish Poland Revisited, Katka Reszke, Return of the Jew

I am back from six weeks in Poland. I envisioned regular posts from the field in this blog. But instead, doing fieldwork left little time for writing and reflecting about it. Nevertheless, a structure for my next book project has been emerging. The challenge will be threading the needle between celebrating the renewal of interest in Jewish life in Poland, captured so well in Erica Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited and Katka Reszke’s Return of the Jew, and addressing the ongoing silences, distaste, even hatred expressed toward Jews, as revealed in Jacek Nowak’s interviews with ordinary Poles. Because both are happening at the same time, often in the same places, and sometimes even within the same people.

And I’ve seen evidence of both in my own research. People all over Poland are doing incredible work to preserve cemeteries, renovate synagogues, document first-person accounts, and celebrate Jewish music and culture, often in the absence of any involvement from living Jews. They work with passion to fill what they feel to be a void in their local communities. And they do so despite the resistance they sometimes face from fellow residents and local government representatives. Every place tells a different story, even though many of the same elements can be found in each of them. Over the next several posts, I’ll highlight the places and projects I visited. Watch for the place names to become links to more details.

Włocławek

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Students and teachers from the Automotive High School in Włocławek receive the first place award for their Facebook “fan page” “Włocławska zapomniania ulica” (“Wloclawek’s forgotten street”) at the Polin Museum in Warsaw, June 22, 2016. The contest was “Places of Holocaust Memory Near Us” and the challenge was to highlight a place in the local community. The team from Włocławek chose Piwna Street, called “the street of death” during World War II.

Żychlin

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Detail of the synagogue in Żychlin, converted into a warehouse by the Nazis and used as such for many years after. The roof caved in several years ago. Traces of frescos are barely visible through the empty windows.

Kutno

KutnoCemetery

New signs at the Kutno Jewish cemetery provide historical information and urge residents to keep in mind this green hillside is a cemetery. Installed by Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Kutnowski (Association of the Friends of the Kutno Region).

Wronki

An arial view of the Lapidarium in Wronki that shows the shape of the raised beds, meant to evoke an open book.

Warsaw

konferencja_zdk_polin-eng_1600_rgbIn Warsaw, the conference Jewish Cultural Heritage: Projects, Methods, Inspirations at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews gave me a good idea of the scope of heritage work throughout Europe, as well as ongoing debates about Jewish heritage projects.

Krakow

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Glass House Orchestra performing at Shalom on Szeroka, the outdoor concert culminating the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.

Tarnów

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Professor Hońdo of the Jagiellonian University helps participants in the Tarnów Tombstone camp for volunteers (Tarnowskie macewy – obóz dla wolontariuszy) decipher the text on a tombstone.

Baligród

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The weeds grow tall in the Jewish cemetery in Baligród, despite indications of maintenance done not too long ago. It takes constant attention to keep these sites from slipping back into obscurity.

Zasław

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Historical information about the Nazi Work Camp in Zasław marking the beginning of the trail from the Zagórz train station to the monument on the mass grave at Zasław. A project of the Stowarzyszenie Dziedzictwo Mniejszości Karpackich (Association of the Heritage of Minorities of the Carpathians).

Lesko

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The synagogue in my beloved Lesko–much of the front facade was rebuilt and reinvented around 1960.

 

Council for European Studies Conference

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Brześć Kujawski, Commemoration, Family, Fieldwork, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Kolski, Memory, Piwko, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Research Methodology, Włocławek

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Absence of Memory, Council for European Studies Conference, Postmemory, Reassembling Jewish Life in Poland, Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica

Yesterday, I presented a paper titled, “Reassembling Jewish Life in Poland.” It starts like this:

It is easy to get the impression that we have entered an era of retrenchment of exclusionary national, ethnic, and religious categories, making minorities of any kind suspect. Specific objects of fear, such as terrorists, raise suspicions about broader categories, such as Muslims; the economic threat attributed to immigrants extends to all Mexicans, Syrians, North Africans, or Eastern Europeans. And Jews have once again become the object of attacks in Western Europe, leading Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg (2015) to title his recent cover article, “Is it Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” In the current climate of exclusionary politics, the quiet emergence in Poland of efforts to embrace the long history of Jewish residence is all the more striking. Recent studies have “revisited” Jewish Poland (Lehrer 2013) and documented the “return of the Jew” (Reszke 2013), challenging the common assumption that antisemitism rests at the heart of what it means to be Polish. I have been studying contemporary memory projects, including commemorative sites, museums, and cultural festivals that endeavor to reassemble the remaining fragments that provide a window into what Jewish life (and its destruction) was like in Poland. These fragments can reveal something about the past, even if it is just in an incomplete and shattered form. Perhaps of greater significance, they can point toward the future—the possibilities for reengaging with ethnic and religious categories in ways that acknowledge difference without encouraging exclusion. 

Placing a lantern at the opening of the Lapidarium in Wronki
Placing a lantern at the opening of the Lapidarium in Wronki
The Atlantic, April 2015
The Atlantic, April 2015

The figure of the Jew remains a multivalent symbol in Poland, even after the destruction of Jewish culture during the Holocaust and further erasure of its traces during state socialism. My research on Jewish heritage asks what can be done with the fragments of Jewish culture that remain, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. And what value does such memory work have? It might appear that too little is left, or that any attempt to piece together fragments will just expose more horror, trauma, and death. Nevertheless, the steady growth of interest in Jewish culture in Poland can be seen in major projects like Warsaw’s Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and in much quieter ways in smaller communities throughout the country. Even President Duda, whose Law and Justice Party tends to support nationalism and exclusionary practices, recently spoke against antisemitism at the opening of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews. To set the stage for my reflections about reassembled fragments of Jewish culture, I first situate Jews within the disrupted history of Poland, and discuss the consequences of postwar trauma under state socialism. This is also a first attempt at integrating an ethnographic approach to the topic, through exploration of commemorative sites and practices, and a more personal one, in the form of interwoven stories about my own Jewish-Polish heritage. Building on concepts of postmemory (Hirsch) and absence of memory (Irwin-Zarecka), I consider what reassembly projects promise for the reconciliation of Polish-Jewish relations on both social and personal levels.

I focused on Włocławek for my case material: Places embodying the “absence of memory” such as the swimming pool in the Jewish cemetery in Brześć Kujawski, the crumbling buildings formerly owned by Jews in the center of Włocławek, and the monument to the Jewish ghetto in the schoolyard that used to be the Jewish cemetery. I discussed what such places communicate about the history of Jewish life (and death) in Poland, as well as the personal, emotional resonances of such places.

DSC03544

Pre-World War II facade on Tumska Street, Włocławek

Then, I contrasted the impression left by the the Facebook page, “Włocławska Zapomniana Ulica (Forgotten Street of Włocławek),” in which students and teachers at the Automotive High School in Włocławek document “Places of the Holocaust close to us.” The site features historic photographs, brief histories, and excerpts from interviews with local historians and residents who remember the Nazi occupation of the city. This is heavy stuff, and yet the project reflects a different orientation toward the past than do the crumbling buildings on abandoned streets and the swimming pool in a burial ground. It is a public display of intangible heritage, a space for documenting the murder and destruction that occurred during the Holocaust in very personal, localized terms. The Facebook page announces, “These events happened here, on our streets.” It is all the more notable because the primary organizers and audience in this project are young people, probably in most cases the post-postmemory generation that was supposed to be too distant from events to feel any personal connection to them.

And the story doesn’t stop here. I am looking forward to visiting the high school students and their teachers in June. And now my cousins are also interested in the project and maybe even getting involved with it somehow. The ethnographic and personal strands of my work continue to become more strongly intertwined.

 

The Phantom Limb

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Catholicism, Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Lesko, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, stereotypes

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Fieldwork 1991-3

It was a beautiful sunny day in Alabama. As I walked across the quad enjoying the promise of spring, I bumped into a colleague, Joanna Biermann, who is going to Warsaw next month to participate in a conference associated with the annual Beethoven Festival. She has been an invited guest several times already, and has made some good friends in Warsaw as a result. We took a half hour to catch up, sipping tea on a bench under the large oaks behind the library. In response to my current research, she quoted a friend of hers who describes Polish Jews as the nation’s phantom limb; the pain remains even after the Jews are gone.

The beauty of ethnographic fieldwork is you record everything, even what seems at the times peripheral to your area of focus. That means I have over twenty years of fieldnotes I continue to mine for information about other aspects of Polish culture. Recently, I returned to the notes from my earliest fieldwork in 1991-1993 looking for references to Jews and Jewish culture. I coded them using ethnographic software, and now I’m trying to pull out patterns in the way Poles talked about and acted toward Jewish subjects. The first thing that strikes me is how often Jews were mentioned in interviews and informal conversations, despite the fact that most of the people I spoke with had limited or no contact with actual Jews. Most of the participants in my study were still in high school in the early 1990s. That means that by the time they were born in the 1970s, most of the Polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust had left, pushed out by organized political campaigns and by everyday prejudice.

LeskoSynagog

Lesko Synagogue in 1992

The comments I recorded are mostly superficial, and usually fall back on stock phrases, sentiments, and stereotypes. Since I mostly did group interviews in the early 1990s, I was able to witness young peoples’ debates about the role of Jews in Polish life. Their views were so varied that no unified perspective emerged. One person would claim that Jews are still prevalent in government, or in journalism, and others would disagree. One criticized Poles for intolerance, while others interjected that tolerance was a fundamental value that has made Poland a hospitable environment for minorities (including Jews) for most of the nation’s history. Some addressed a lingering distaste, or even hatred of Jews; others countered that these are dying artifacts of an older generation that young people do not share.

Most commonly, Jews were linked to property and wealth. I was told that Jews used to say, “You own the streets but we own the buildings.” Even today, this phrase is repeated. Usually, it’s a way of highlighting the discrepancy between the political domination of Poles and the economic power of Jews. Some imply that because Jews expressed disdain for the impoverished Poles, it justifies Poles’ resentment and dislike of Jews. But also, because I’ve heard this phrase so many times in so many ways, I know it’s often repeated without much thought at all, as one of the few things anyone ever told them about Jews.

Some participants in my study expressed continued concern about Jews reclaiming property or Jewish capital flooding into Poland and buying up the country, yet again leaving Poles with nothing. Others defended everyone’s right to invest in Poland, emphasizing the importance of being open to other groups, or countered that Poles are envious of anyone who gets ahead. One person suggested that Jews should be admired for their ability to create and organize; Poles should learn from them, not assume that they are schemers.

On the ten-day walking pilgrimage to Częstochowa (I really did this—all 300 km—to the monastery housing Poland’s most important icon, the Black Madonna), a priest entertained the pilgrims on the journey with stories that used humor as a vehicle for discussing the differences between Catholics and Jews. Although he tried to show that the two faiths have shared origins and fundamental similarities, he sometimes crossed the line toward mockery. For instance, when explaining why Catholics don’t abide by Sabbath restrictions, he told a story about an Orthodox Jew who hadn’t locked his business before sunset on the Sabbath, so he used his cat to turn the key.

On another occasion, I spoke with a priest who felt the Polish people and the Catholic Church are under attack by accusations of intolerance and antisemitism. He talked about slander in the press, and referred to an article that linked antisemitism in Germany to the irrational antisemitism that persists in Poland despite the virtual absence of Jews. He complained that this view is biased and has no place in an article about Germany. He further complained that when Poles tell the truth, for instance that most communists in Poland during and after WWII were Jews, Jews accuse them of antisemitism. These are the same Jews, he went on, who told Poles, “You own the streets but we own the buildings.” The priest also argued that press reports are overwhelmingly negative and misrepresent the Church, giving it a bad name. But then he went on to label as Jews two prominent journalists—Adam Michnik, the editor of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and Jerzy Urban, editor of the satirical news weekly Nie. On another occasion, he got into a heated defense of Poles, saying he doesn’t understand why they have a reputation in the West for antisemitism.

Both of the priests reinforced the distance between Poles and Jews, though in different ways and with different degrees of vitriol. They offered little possibility for Jews to be regarded as Poles.

The person who expressed the most nuanced view of Poles’ relations with other ethnic and religious groups was the director of one of the high schools in Lesko, a small town in the southeastern mountain region of Bieszczady. Even before I started the taped interview with him, he told me that the biggest ethnic problem in Poland was going to be with Lithuanians and Jews who want their former properties back. For example, the dormitory of the high school is claimed by prewar owners who were Jews. At the time, it wasn’t yet clear if the building would be returned, and if the money spent on its renovation would be reimbursed. During the interview, he had this to say:

“There are minorities [in Poland], everyone knows that. It’s an interesting situation. The typical American may not understand because in the US there are many nationalities that cultivate their own traditions, but nevertheless remain primarily American. But because of the unjust politics toward minorities during the Interwar period, hatred was awakened between Poles and Jews and Poles and Ukrainians. This was easy to do because Poles were in their own country but poor, while Jews owned the buildings and businesses. Jews are condemned for being rich, while Ukrainians are pushing for higher positions. But there are no attacks. Everyone lived together, went to school together, met and got to know each other’s culture. They were all free to study their religion. Also, in Lesko, there was a Greek Catholic church, a Catholic church, and a Jewish place of worship, and nothing happened. Everyone could believe what they wanted, and no one was persecuted for what they think. Jews were destroyed by Germans[…] After the war, state politics was also in error. It acted as if minorities didn’t exist at all.”

Although he reiterated stereotypes, he also sought to balance positive and negative views of Jews and their history in Poland.

Others hinted at an ethos of tolerance. They talked about historically mixed communities that functioned peacefully, and about the need for acceptance of all people. One student in Krakow said, “If we are really are democratic now, there has to be a place for Jews [in Poland]. We can’t say ‘Polska dla Polakow’ [‘Poland for Poles’].” Others, like the student who showed me the Jewish cemetery in Lesko shortly after I moved there in 1992, expressed sadness that Jews are no longer present. He said it’s too bad the cemetery is neglected, but Poles have no money and there are no more Jews to insure its upkeep. He said he likes to come to the cemetery; it’s a peaceful place.

Much of the talk I recorded in the early 1990s seems predicated on the assumption that there were more Jews present than actually were at the time, and they were hiding in plain sight. Some felt threatened by the potential wealth and power of these covert Jews. But others asserted that there are no more Jews in Poland. If any remained, they assimilated— it was Jews who felt threatened by Poles after the war and during communism, so they stopped admitting their ethnicity, changed their last names, and forgot their culture and traditions. These are two sides of the same coin because in fact, public Jewish life and religion disappeared from nearly every Polish village, town, and city. But the past 25 years have shown that a notable proportion of contemporary Poles have some Jewish heritage and an increasing number of them (though still a tiny fraction of the contemporary Polish population, and a tiny fraction of the prewar Polish-Jewish population) is becoming more curious about their origins. Already in 1992-3, the sense was growing among the teenagers I spoke with that it isn’t necessary to hide one’s ethnic/religious roots anymore. After the fall of communism in 1989, something significant had shifted and institutional barriers against ethnic and religious minorities had weakened.

Still, so much about Jewish lives and deaths were left out of the comments I collected, as if the pain of their amputation from Polish communities was too much to bear.

Memory in Fragments: the talk at UA

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Brześć Kujawski, Buk, Cemeteries, Family, Heritage work, Israel, Jewish Culture, Lutowiska, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Poznan, Pre-World War II, Research Methodology, Skierniewice, Synagogues, World War II, Wronki, Włocławek

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Fulbright Program, Postmemory, University of Alabama

The lecture I gave at UA September 3, 2015 about my research during my Fulbright Fellowship is now available on vimeo. I’ve never seen myself lecture before. It’s a little unsettling. Still, here it is, flaws and all (for instance I know that Poland entered the European Union in 2004, even though I misspoke here).

I talk a little about the Fulbright Program–the kinds of grants available and some tips for applying.

It’s also a good introduction to my ideas about reassembling Jewish life: the strands that I’m following, what has been lost, what can be recovered, and how memory projects at sites throughout Poland intertwine with my own search for my family history. I hear echoes of some of the scholars I’ve read–Iwona Irwin Zarecka and Marianne Hirsch, as well as my sometime collaborator Malgosia Wosińska. There is no way to bring back what has been lost, but fragments of the past can be reassembled to form a new kind of life that allows for connection with what used to be and what yet might be.

My book in paperback: Being and Becoming European in Poland

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Anthropology, Polish Culture

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I was very pleased to learn that my book, Being and Becoming European in Poland: European Integration and Self-Identity, is available in paperback as of March 15:

http://www.anthempress.com/being-and-becoming-european-in-poland-pb

BookCover

About This Book

“Galbraith’s innovative book is a must for anyone interested in postsocialist transformations. Through the author’s deep understanding of Poles’ cognitive categories, we see the EU as it is experienced in everyday life. Her insights will spark new debates in European studies.” —Jaro Stacul, University of Alberta

“A wise and interesting book based on a fresh field of evidence which highlights issues important to individuals as well as societies.” —Zofia Sokolewicz, Professor Emerita, Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw

Overthrowing communism in 1989 and joining the European Union in 2004, the Polish people hold loyalties to region, country and now continent – even as the definition of what it means to be ‘European’ remains unclear. This book uses the life-story narratives of rural and urban southern Poles to reveal how ‘being European’ is considered a fundamental component of ‘being Polish’ while participants are simultaneously ‘becoming European’.

Close attention to the individual lives of Poles allows the author to identify cultural patterns and grasp the impact of the EU on its member states, paying particular attention to how the EU has affected the life experiences of Poles who came of age in the earliest years of the neoliberal and democratic transformations. In exploring what it means to be Polish by tracking these parallel processes of change, the author traces Poland’s path from state socialism to European integration and Polish identities as they are reinscribed, revised and reinvented in the face of historic, political and economic processes.

Ultimately, this study demonstrates how the EU is regarded as both an idea and an instrument, and how ordinary citizens make choices that influence the shape of European identity and the legitimacy of its institutions.

The book is not directly related to my work on Jewish heritage, but it certainly reflects the foundation of my perspective on identity, nationalism, and processes of change in Poland.

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