Ewa Stańczyk

THE ABSENT JEWISH CHILD: PHOTOGRAPHY AND HOLOCAUST REPRESENTATION IN POLAND

This article considers the representations of Holocaust in Poland by discussing the ways in which photographs of Jewish children are used in literature, film and public commemoration. It shows how a “postmemorial reading” of these images by, predominantly gentile, writers, directors and social actors might be viewed as an attempt to rhetorically fill the void left after the destruction of Polands Jewish community and to project an image of a tolerant civic society. The article examines famous images, like the photo of the Warsaw Ghetto boy, with which this discussion begins, and lesser known pictures, such as the family photographs of Henio Żytomirski from Lublin, which are examined towards the end of this article. While looking at these images, I reflect on the interaction between the visual representations of Jewish children, the memory of the Shoah in Poland and the fashioning of Polish national identity in the wake of the accession to European Union.

Women cross borders: economic migration in contemporary Italian and Polish graphic novels

This article provides a comparative analysis of two European graphic novels of the past decade that focus on the theme of female economic migration, namely Sara Colaone’s Ciao ciao bambina (2010) and Agata Wawryniuk’s Rozmówki polsko-angielskie (2012). By exploring these two distinctive immigrant stories, which depict the Italian migration to Switzerland in the 1950s and the contemporary Polish migration to Britain, respectively, this article illustrates the shifting experiences of mobility in Europe across decades. While the Italian narrative presents the stay abroad as a chance to achieve independence and personal fulfilment, the Polish comic views it as a mere financial opportunity. This article argues that, despite these differences and the distinct social, cultural and historical contexts, the two works belie the stereotypical representations of migration as a predominantly male phenomenon and show the ability of female workers to execute agency as both jobseekers and independent individuals who are undeterred by the challenges of their immigrant lives.

Remaking National Identity: Two Contested Monuments in Post-Communist Poland

Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the remaking of national identity in post-communist Poland through the analysis of urban spaces, and, in particular, two controversial monuments that were erected under communism and survive to this day in two Polish cities. By systematically tracing the trajectory of the contested monuments, from their inception through their changing symbolism to their disputed legacies, this article will pose important questions not only about the development of cultural memory and of Polish civic society, but also the role of various agents involved in these processes. The article will examine the interaction between the official and local ‘politics of memory’ and individual initiatives centred on these monuments in an attempt to unravel the intricacies of Poland’s de-communization and nation-building following the fall of communism.

Cartoon characters, equality nurseries and children’s ‘best interests’: On childhood and sexuality in Poland

The aim of this article is to explore the intersections of childhood and sexuality as they come to light in a variety of public arenas. Looking at three case studies from Poland, I explore how spaces culturally assigned to childhood become symbolically ‘invaded’ by contexts that are stereotypically associated with adulthood. In particular, I analyse the debate about the popular children’s television series Teletubbies that raged in Poland in 2007 and the more recent discussions surrounding the opposition to the naming of a playground in the provincial town of Tuszyn after Winnie-the-Pooh. Moreover, I look at the educational programme on gender equality that has been implemented in some Polish nurseries since 2011 and the anxiety it generated at both political and social levels. I place these debates in the political context of Poland, pointing to the continued supremacy of the conservative right as one of the defining factors in these contentious debates.

Exilic Childhood in Very Foreign Lands: Memoirs of Polish Refugees in World War II

The cultural representations of World War II have been dominated by narratives of suffering, victimization, displacement, and death, as much in Poland as elsewhere. But frequently forgotten are the stories of hope and survival of thousands of Poles who escaped the terror of war and found safe haven in distant, and often ‘exotic’, lands such as Persia, India, Africa, and Mexico. To date, little scholarly attention has been paid to the cultural portrayals of these experiences. Conspicuously absent in most of this research is an examination of the Polish refugee children and their personal experience of exile. Building on a selection of memoirs and shorter first-hand accounts, this article explores the authors’ experience of these ‘very foreign lands’, their encounters with local populations and, in many cases, the eventual permanent migration. The stories discussed in this article challenge the stereotypical view of childhood passivity and victimhood, and highlight the constructed nature of childhood. By showing the multitude of ways in which children were able to build peaceful, happy environments away from home, often with the help of local populations, this paper is also relevant to the current debate on the ongoing refugee crisis, emphasizing that once it was Europeans who sought refuge in ‘very foreign lands’.

De-Judaizing the Shoah in Polish comic books

ABSTRACT This article analyses a selection of graphic narratives from Poland spanning the period from the 1940s to the 2000s. First, it shows that while the atrocity was far from being considered “unmentionable” by comic book artists, for much of the Communist period, the Jewish victims were, leading to a peculiar de-Judaization of the Holocaust. Second, it argues that despite the liberalization of memory after 1989 and the ensuing “Jewish turn,” which brought about a mass revival of interest in Jewish culture and heritage, this tendency largely persists. Analysing a selection of newspaper cartoons, graphic novellas and educational comic books, not only does this paper show how the genre has been subservient to ideological causes but also how its roles and functions changed throughout decades, from light-hearted stories addressed to a mass readership to educational narratives produced with school children in mind. This paper also shows how the graphic narratives in Poland reflect wider public debates, such as those on the Polish national identity, Christian–Jewish relations and the formation of collective memory.

The rebelling orphan: adopting the found photograph

Abstract Every day thousands of family photographs get abandoned in second hand bookshops, at flea markets, and internet auctions, losing their past and having their stories erased. Conversely, the same images get found, reappropriated, and assigned with new meanings. It is this process of giving the found photograph a new lease of life that I explore in this article. As I argue here, photographs continue to act as potent narrative tools even if we no longer have access to their subjects or producers. Not only do I show how anonymous photographs can be read and interpreted but also how they function as material objects that are collected, loved, treasured, and inevitably integrated into the lives of their new adopted families. I show, in particular, how both the content and the materiality of photographs makes them carriers of family history and private memory, as well as intersecting with other categories such as class and identity.

Recycling the orphan photograph: the new life of Jewish objects

The aim of this article is to explore the new lives of prewar photographs of European Jewry. In particular, I employ the concept of ‘orphan photograph’ which describes any work whose owners, producers, and the subjects featured in them are no longer available. Working from the premise that a photograph is not only a two-dimensional representation but also a three-dimensional object, I show how family images are consumed, distributed, discarded, salvaged and brought back to life. As I argue in this article, with the annihilation of their owners the once-important personal meanings of the pictures become obscured and obliterated. Subsequently, in post-Holocaust culture orphan photographs become invested with collective values. In the process of being recycled, these private family photographs are transformed into public spaces through which new visions of the past are projected and group interests promoted. Drawing on two case studies from Poland, I look at the ways in which these orphaned images are used by writers and NGOs, and examine how the various agents affect the subsequent readings of these artefacts. The article shows that once allowed to ‘speak for themselves’ these images reveal an immense capacity to challenge our pre-set notions of the past and escape the ‘backshadowing’ narrative of the Shoah.

Transnational, transborder, antinational? The memory of the Jewish past in Poland

The aim of this article is to explore the interaction between local, national, and transnational frames of memory as it manifests itself in the contemporary commemoration of the Jewish past. Focusing on the case study of Poland, I argue that articulations of transnational memory still remain deeply rooted in local and national interests and mythologies, reflecting the fears, desires, or longings of memory makers. Ranging from digital media which stress the interactive and agency-based dimension of transnational memory, through to vernacular “stumbling blocks” inspired by German citizens and subsequently transplanted onto the Polish ground, to public memorials which are either embraced or contested by a variety of social actors, these initiatives urge us to rethink traditional approaches to memory. In particular, these different scales and locations of remembrance question the common perception of collective memory as rooted in rigid nation-state frameworks in favor of memories that travel, move, and transgress multiple boundaries and affect multiple communities.

Commemorating Young Victims of World War II in Poland The Forgotten Children’s Camp in Litzmannstadt/Łódź

This article analyses the public commemoration of young victims of World War II in Poland. In particular, it examines the various practices of remembrance associated with Polen-Jugendverwahrlager, the notorious children’s camp established by the Nazis on the territory of Litzmannstadt Ghetto in 1942. While investigating state-sanctioned and local initiatives, undertaken both under Communism and after its fall, this article poses salient questions about Poland’s politics of memory and the role of various actors, such as the state, survivors, and local nongovernmental organizations, in its making. Whilst acknowledging the historical and cultural significance of children, this article also contributes to the ongoing debate on the revision of history that occurred in Poland after the fall of Communism.