Reading (in) the Holocaust. Malgorzata Wójcik-Dudek

etyczną arogancję: Ku reinterpretacji podstawowych pojęć humanistyki w świetle wydarzeń Szoa, eds. Beata Anna Polak and Tomasz Polak (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydziału Nauk Społecznych UAM, 2011), pp. 81–112, on p. 94. Ronen also comprehensively discussed this theme in her book Polin – a Land of Forest and Rivers: Images of Poland and Poles in Contemporary Hebrew Literature in Israel (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2007), pp. 246–247. According to Avner Holtzman, David Grossman’s writing is ground-breaking in that he gives up on portraying the Holocaust in order to explore the impact of the Holocaust on the next generation. See Avner Holtzman, “Holocaust w literaturze hebrajskiej,” trans. Tomasz Łysak, Teksty Drugie, No. 5 (2004), pp. 142–152, on p. 145.

23 According to Przemysław Czapliński, generation 1.5 founded the literature of “belated confession.” See Przemysław Czapliński, “Zagłada – niedokończona narracja polskiej nowoczesności,” in Ślady obecności, eds. Sławomir Buryła and Alicja Molisak (Kraków: Universitas, 2010), pp. 337–381, on p. 359.

24 In his polemics with Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, Czapliński stressed that “only our own suffering, to express which we are looking for adequate means, enables us to lend our expression to the suffering of others.” Przemysław Czapliński, “Zagłada – niedokończona narracja,” p. 378. At this point, it is helpful to recall Jean-Luc Nancy, who rejected the prohibition of representing the Holocaust, at the same time abiding by the ethical injunction to bear witness to the truth. See Jean-Luc Nancy, “Forbidden Representation,” in Jean-Luc Nancy, The Ground of the Image, trans. Jeff Fort (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2005), pp. 27–50.

25 Przemysław Czapliński, “Zagłada i profanacja,” Teksty Drugie, No. 4 (2009), pp. 199–213, on p. 212.

26 See Michał Głowiński, “Oczy donosiciela,” Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, Vol. 2, No. 10 (2014), pp. 853–860, on p. 857; Sławomir Buryła, Dorota Krawczyńska and Jacek Leociak, eds., Literatura polska wobec Zagłady (1939−1968) (Warszawa: IBL, 2012).

27 Przemysław Czapliński, “Przesilenie nowoczesności. Proza polska 1989−2005 wobec Wielkich Narracji,” in Narracja po końcu (wielkich) narracji. Kolekcje, obiekty, symulakra, eds. Hanna Gosk and Andrzej Zieniewicz (Warszawa: Elipsa, 2007), pp. 34–55, on p. 46.

28 According to Lech Nijakowski, grand narratives have profoundly affected the “mentality” of Poles, whom the mythologisation and heroisation of the past helped continue resisting assimilation over several generations. Lech Michał Nijakowski, Polska polityka pamięci. Esej socjologiczny (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2008), p. 139.

29 The Polish titles of literary works cited in this book are accompanied by an English translation, which does not always mean that respective texts have actually been translated into English. To help the reader distinguish between translated and not translated works, different punctuation marks are used. Specifically, the titles of translated texts are parenthesised, while the titles of those which have not been translated are square-bracketed.

30 Bartłomiej Krupa, Opowiedzieć Zagładę. Polska proza i historiografia wobec Holocaustu (1987−2003) (Kraków: Universitas, 2013), p. 364.

31 See Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997). Based on historical events, Steinlauf divides Polish memory into a series of periods and discusses them in consecutive chapters of his book entitled: “Poles and Jews during the Holocaust,” “Memory’s Wounds,” “Memory Repressed,” “Memory Expelled,” “Memory Reconstructed” and “Memory Regained,” (the last timeframe, which spans between 1989−1995, is tellingly accompanied by a question mark).

32 See Aleida Assmann, “Przestrzenie pamięci. Formy i przemiany pamięci kulturowej,” trans. Piotr Przybyła, in Pamięć zbiorowa i kulturowa: Współczesna perspektywa niemiecka, ed. Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska (Kraków: Universitas, 2009), pp. 101−142. For the German original, see Aleida Assmann, Errinerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Geddächtnissen (München: C. H. Beck Verlag, 1999).

33 Halbwachs, On Collective Memory; Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

34 Aleida Assmann, “O medialnej historii pamięci kulturowej,” trans. Karolina Sidowska, in Aleida Assmann, Między historią a pamięcią, ed. Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2013), pp. 127−143. This volume is a collection of Assmann’s texts translated from German. For corresponding ideas, cf. Aleida Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

35 Pierre Nora, “Czas pamięci,” trans. Wiktor Dłuski, Res Publica Nowa, No. 7 (2001), pp. 37−43; Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les lieux de memoire,” trans. Marc Roudebush, Representations, No. 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring 1989), pp. 7–24.

36 Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 6.

37 Scholem considered Eichmann’s execution ill-advised and claimed that, with such a criminal, the death penalty had produced an illusion of law and wrongly suggested that the Holocaust could be comprehended and find closure through punishing the guiltiest individuals.

38 Robert Szuchta, “Refleksje o nauczaniu historii Holokaustu w polskiej szkole,” in Tematy żydowskie, eds. Elżbieta Traba and Robert Traba (Olsztyn: Wspólnota Kulturowa Borussia, 1999), pp. 259–272.

39 This model also underlies the educational practices of Israeli schools, where teaching about the Holocaust begins in the earliest grades. Older children are expected to subdue emotions and acquire an intellectual grasp of the events, while adolescents are encouraged to link their emotional and intellectual experiences to the historical narrative with the support of teachers. This does not mean, however, that Holocaust education is an already settled issue in Israel. On the contrary, the Israeli memory of the Event is by no means an expression of national unity, which results in multiple curricular arrangements.

40 Bogusław Śliwerski, Współczesne teorie i metody wychowawcze (Kraków: Impuls, 2010), p. 363.

41 Admittedly things can look rather different in practice, as it is difficult to avoid the pitfalls of the “diversity festival” which favours quick and superficial contacts with the Other. They easily breed complacency,