Reading (in) the Holocaust. Malgorzata Wójcik-Dudek
for years. The selection of works offered in the Świat do przeczytania [A World to Read] seems interesting. The textbook includes works which help incorporate the narrative of the Holocaust in a rich context of Jewish culture and history, such as Singer’s The Magician of Lublin, Amiel’s “Kartka z pamiętnika” (“Leaf from a Diary”), Krall’s To Outwit God, Głowiński’s “Przeżycie Zagłady” [“Experiencing the Holocaust”], Wiesław Kot’s “Pomnik z popiołu” [“The Monument of Ash”], Aleksander Gierymski’s Święto trąbek [Yom Teruah], Bronisław Linke’s El mole achmim, Libera’s LEGO Concentration Camp Set, Spiegelman’s Maus and “the reading of films,” encouraging the students to see Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler List and Roman Polański’s The Pianist.
58 Anna Ziębińska-Witek, Holocaust. Problemy przedstawiania (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2005), pp. 9‒10.
59 I refer at this point to a social campaign initiated by performance artist Rafał Betlejewski. Betlejewski took pictures of passers-by whom he chanced upon in former Jewish neighbourhoods and wrote Tęsknię za Tobą, Żydzie (I miss you, Jew) on walls as a gesture reversing anti-Semitic graffiti.
60 One of art education textbooks is also an interesting case. Spotkania z kulturą [Encounters with Culture], a textbook which is frequently selected by teachers, features two contemporary references to the Holocaust. They are Joanna Rajkowska’s Pozdrowienia z Alej Jerozolimskich (Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue) and Zbigniew Libera’s LEGO Concentration Camp Set. The authors of the textbook stripped Rajkowska’s work of the Holocaust allusions: the photo of the palm tree is described as “This installation in the form of an artificial palm tree is located in the centre of Warsaw” and is followed by the assignment: “Have a close look at the picture and read its description. Then discuss how, in your view, such art affects the appearance of the city.” Everything implies that the Charles de Gaulle Roundabout (where the installation is placed) will not enter the students’ consciousness as a space that opens up to the no-longer-existing Jewish world of Warsaw, and the plastic palm tree will be remembered just as a (possibly) kitschy embellishment in a European capital. The description of Libera’s work similarly trivialises its meanings, stating simply that it suggests a possibility of constructing a concentration camp of toy blocks, while the Pozytywy (Positives) series are photos which refer – with a twist – to the most recognisable photos representing contemporary history.
61 The expression is borrowed from Krystyna Koziołek’s book Czytanie z innym: etyka, lektura, dydaktyka [Reading with the other: Ethics, Reading, Teaching] (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2006).
62 It is difficult to predict what the reformed Polish lessons on Jewish themes will look like. As yet, the reform has only been implemented in elementary schools, and it will start applying to post-elementary schooling on 1st September, 2019. The core curriculum has been devised, but new textbooks have not yet been written. While the list of compulsory reading has been expanded, the number of books regarding Jewish themes has been reduced, as not only modern narratives, by authors such as Amiel and Fink, but also canonical texts (e.g. Błoński’s essay mentioned above) have been removed.
63 See Przemysław Czapliński, “Zagłada jako wyzwanie dla refleksji o literaturze,” Teksty Drugie, No. 5 (2004), pp. 9–22, on p. 22.
64 David G. Roskies, “What is Holocaust literature,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Vol. 21 (2005), pp. 157–212, on p. 159. Roskies refers to the classification system used by the Library of Congress in Washington.
65 In Poland, literature for a young readership is often referred to as the fourth literature (Polish: literatura czwarta). The term was coined by literature researcher Czesław Hernas, who classified literature into high, folk and entertainment. The fourth type which he distinguished was comprised of children’s literature. To avoid the deprecating overtones of the fourth literature, Jerzy Cieślikowski proposed that children’s literature should be referred to as “separate literature” (Polish: literatura osobna) in order to showcase its specific aims and storytelling practices. In this book, I use the two terms interchangeably.
66 It can be assumed that “new” themes in literature for a young readership and the interdisciplinary approach to old and contemporary texts for children were precipitated by the increasing popularity of children’s studies. While the term itself was only coined in 1991 by Gertrud Lenzer, the founder of Children’s Studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Polish research into childhood, whose tenets dovetail with children studies, was launched as early as in the 1960s by Jerzy Cieślikowski and his books Literatura osobna [Separate Literature] and Wielka zabawa [Great play].
67 Representations of the Holocaust in art, pop-culture and media deserve a separate study of their own. Particularly the latter two communication channels enormously affect the development of young people’s awareness of the Holocaust. See Marek Kaźmierczak, Auschwitz w Internecie: Przedstawienia Holokaustu w kulturze popularnej (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2012).
68 The question arises as to whether texts about the Holocaust belong in the category of historical fictions for children and young adults. It seems that the answer is “not yet”, probably because the victims and witnesses of the Event are still alive. It would be more accurate to refer to historical novels about the war as non-fiction. This may be why Gertruda Skotnicka’s monumental study of historical prose for children and young adults does not mention texts about the Second World War. See Gertruda Skotnicka, Barwy przeszłości: O powieściach historycznych dla dzieci i młodzieży 1939−1989 (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, 2008).
69 As early as in the introduction, Dagan stresses the importance of knowledge about the past and defines the conditions for its successful transmission. Specifically, knowledge should be adapted to the age and sensitivity of children in order not to overburden them. In other words, any tale should be addressed to children who want to know. The responsibility of adults is to assess the needs of children as well as to control and systematise knowledge available through media. The educational dimension of dialogue with the child is showcased in CDs with lesson plans attached to Dagan’s two books. The ending of the tale is particularly interesting as the book, whose primary target audience were Israeli children, foregrounds armed combat with the enemy and symbolically caps the narrative about the Holocaust with a vision of a new home in Israel.
70 K. Levine: Hana’s Suitcase. A true Story. Toronto: Second Story Press, 2002.
71 Importantly, Kent’s book was published by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The publication is part of a project launched by the King Matt’s Family Education Area (the name alluding to Janusz Korczak’s popular 1922 book Król Maciuś Pierwszy – King Matt the First), which was founded by the POLIN Museum Education Centre and is committed to educating children aged 4–9 years.
72 For a detailed bibliography of such texts, see Agnieszka Sikora, “W