Kielce

At last! I am back in Kraków, rapidly writing from a quaint café called Charlotte on the Plac Szczpański, recommend by Maciek. It is a drizzly day in the old town, perfect for contemplation, writing, and a kawa z mlekiem (coffee with milk). Although I am excited to begin the ‘vacation’ saga of my journey (I leave for Berlin tomorrow), currently I find myself feeling very alone, and longing for the camaraderie of the group. Although the program’s final day was yesterday, I have at least two weeks of memories and notes to sift through as I (finally) continue to blog.

On Monday (July 9) our group traveled outside the walled city of Kraków to Kielce, Szydlów, Działoszyce, and Chmielnik, where each of us presented on the history of Jewish life in these towns. One of the highlights of the morning was listening to Bogdan Białek, President of the Jan Karski Association (which was founded in 2005 in Kielce) and Vice President of the Polish Council of Jews and Christians. His discussion revolved around the post-war Kielce pogrom of July 1946 where 42 Jews were murdered from the building on Planty 7and the how the pogrom was (not) talked about and remembered. (More recently in 2006, when Jan Gross’s Fear: Antisemitism in Poland after Auschwitz, the Kielce pogrom was at the center of this debate, hitting Poland especially hard with the Polish edition arriving in 2008.)

One of the biggest lessons reiterated thus far on our trip is the overwhelming impact Communist rule had on how the historical reality of the Holocaust, its aftermath, and in this specific case, the Kielce pogrom was altered. Yet even leading up to (and after) 1989, antisemitism was still part of public discourse and both communist nationalists and anti-communists nationalists were antisemitic—seeing Jews as the greatest threat to Polish national identity. In 1990, when Bogdan began researching and writing about the Kielce pogrom, he faced several threatening letters, hate speech directed at him personally, and even was victim to an assassination attempt as a group of local teenagers attempted to throw a grenade into his office. He openly said that many Poles do not see him in a good light because he is not bringing “happy Jewish music” but instead he is the “carrier of bad news.”

Another fascinating discussion—and not limited to Kielce by any means—that came up during our talk was over monuments and memorialization. One monument to the Kielce pogrom, entitled ‘White/Wash’ designed by New York artist Jack Sal, was quite the controversial project. While a very conceptual and meaningful piece, the monument was purposely coated with lime, so every time it rained the people of Kielce would have to clean up the monument and repaint it, so they could never forget Kielce nor repeat the 50 year silence (that occurred after the pogrom) ever again. Yet in Bogdan’s mind, it is not fair to make the people of Kielce today responsible for crimes they technically did not commit. They are responsible for the memory, but should not be subjected to forced feelings of guilt from the outside. Ruth Gruber, author of Virtually Jewish and other influential and informative works on Jews in contemporary Poland (not to be confused with the prolific Ruth Gruber, whose account of 1,000 Jewish refugees placed in a military camp in Oswego), traveled with our group that day, and vehemently disagreed with Bogdan and an argument ensued. (We later found out that she is a friend of Jack Sal.) While it was interesting to hear both sides of the debate, I disliked the way I felt as Ruth (I feel, undeservedly) attacked Bogdan. The atmosphere was awkward as we left—a disappointing note on which to end the presentation because Bogdan truly did a fantastic job.  

White/Wash by Jack Sal.

Memorial at Planty 7: site of Kielce pogrom in July 1946.

There were a few additional items that I want to briefly mention as crucial for my future field. First, is our study of the Holocaust only going to be relegated to the historical events and facts? “Superficially scratching the service,” as Bogdan said? What about the core of the Holocaust? Theologically? Philosophically? Where is our comprehension instead of our knowledge? I feel like there is so much information about the Holocaust that I “know”; but how much do I really understand”? Can we, non-witnesses to what happened, really understand what happened between “Christians” and Jews? (And I wonder if I just placed Christian in quotations just there, to somehow not group myself and my beliefs with those who called themselves Christians and persecuted and killed their Jewish neighbors. Is that the appropriate thing to do? Probably not…)

Second, as a representative of the Catholic community to the Jewish one, Bogdan said that he “is most worried about his fellow Catholics and reconciling them”—that his challenge is the persisting ignorance and antisemitism that still exists in the Church and in the minds of his contemporaries and not on dialoging with Jewish groups. Before we can reconcile different groups, we first have to reconcile within our own ‘group’. There is so much infighting within the Polish Catholic community and within the Jewish community on what happened, how to remember, how to seek forgiveness, and how to forgive that it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to speak on behalf of Catholics or on behalf of Jews during dialogue efforts.

After our informative visit with Bogdan, we were able to see the Jan Karksi statue in Kielce which, except for a sculpted document and a few bronze leaves places on the statue base, was an exact replica of the Karski statue at Geogetown Univeristy. I could not help but smile, staring at the stoic, yet kind expression molded on Karski’s face, and think about everything that happened this past year with the Karski U.S. Centennial Campaign and the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom...

Statue of Jan Karski. Kielce, Poland