Rethinking Poles and Jews

Submitted by Jeremy Nesoff

Rethinking Poles and Jews -  with Annamaria Orla-Bukowska , a social anthropologist in the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Her general field of research is majority-minority relations but her specialization is Polish Christian-Polish Jewish relations. One of her most recent publications is Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future (co-edited with Robert Cherry, Rowman&Littlefield, 2007). Annamaria's lecture focused on her personal and academic understanding of historical and contemporary Polish-Jewish relations.  As in the chapter from her book (see above) that we read before our trip, she is very concerned with improving the understanding of antisemitism today in order to improve Polish-Jewish relations.  She wrote: "...in Poland, starting in the early 1980's and at an increasing tempo since 1989, society has been tackling the difficult and dishonorable issues of the relations - before, during and after the war - between Polish Christians and Polish Jews."  Her work tries to take these "...incronguent perceptions in hand" by examining "..the impressions of Jewish Americans about non-Jewish Poles and the interactions - both negative and positive - between Americans of ethnic Polish and ethnic Jewish descent." She framed her talk with a poem by Kazimierz Wierzyński title "LEKCJA KONWERSACJI" which she translated in part as follows Conversation Lesson(1936)

Don't speak about Poles and Jews it's a minefield

Don't speak about Poles and Ukrainians it's a minefield

Don't speak about Poles and Czechs it's a minefield

Don't talk about Poles and Lithuanians it's a minefield

Don't step on a minefield you'll blow up it's a minefield

She emphasized that even though Poland had a multicultural past before 1939, it was not an easy co-existence and not just a problem with Poles and Jews, but also the other national-ethnic minorities.  Annamaria narrated her personal story by sharing artifacts, including illegal publications from the communist era, that showed how some Poles were willing to step in the minefield and address on of their society's biggest taboos when it was least convenient and potentially dangerous.