Abstract
The Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities across Europe and in Poland.
Subsequently, in the Soviet bloc, most Jewish survivors were expelled from or
coerced into leaving their countries, while the memory of the millennium-long
presence of Jews in Poland was thoroughly suppressed. Through the lens of a
scholar’s personal biography, this article reflects on how snippets of the Jewish
past tend to linger on in the form of absent presences, despite the national and
systemic norm of erasing any remembrance of Poles of the Jewish religion. This
norm used to be the dominant type of antisemitism in communist Poland after
1968, and has largely continued unabated after the fall of communism.
Subsequently, in the Soviet bloc, most Jewish survivors were expelled from or
coerced into leaving their countries, while the memory of the millennium-long
presence of Jews in Poland was thoroughly suppressed. Through the lens of a
scholar’s personal biography, this article reflects on how snippets of the Jewish
past tend to linger on in the form of absent presences, despite the national and
systemic norm of erasing any remembrance of Poles of the Jewish religion. This
norm used to be the dominant type of antisemitism in communist Poland after
1968, and has largely continued unabated after the fall of communism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 289-308 |
| Journal | Colloquia Humanistica |
| Volume | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Dec 2020 |
Keywords
- Antisemitism
- Communist Poland
- Postcommunist Poland
- European history
- Jewish history
- Polish history
- Soviet bloc
- Yiddish
- Ethnic cleansing
- Holocaust
- Katastrofe