Aránzazu Calderón Puerta (Ph.D.)
Literary historian, Slavic philologist. Graduate of the Faculty of Slavic Studies of the Complutense University of Madrid. Ph.D. at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Associate professor at the Iberian and Latinoamerican Studies Institute of the Warsaw University.
Interested in women’s experience of war. Participant of the project Discriminacion, Genocidio y Exterminio Cultural carried out by Instituto Universitario de Estudios de la Mujer of the University of Grenada and Departamento de Filologia Integradas of the University of Alicante. Author of texts related to gender studies and comparative studies. Author of a pioneer text on the problem of witnesses’ violence (including sexual violence) based on the short story by Zofia Nałkowska Przy torze kolejowym.
Published works:
Ciało (nie)widzialne: spektakl wykluczenia w “Przy torze kolejowym” Zofii Nałkowskiej. „Teksty Drugie”, nr 6 rok 2010; Al otro lado del muro: cuerpo y exclusión en “Junto a la vía del tren”, de Zofia Nałkowska. W „Del instante a la eternidad. Exégesis sobre «la espera» en la escritura de mujeres”. José Luis Arraez i Amelia Peral Crespo (Coords.). Uniwersytet w Alicante, 2012; Narracja narodowo-kombatancka versus wątek żydowski w kinie polskim lat sześćdziesiątych. Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, Tomasz Żukowski. W: Rok 62. PRL na zakręcie. Red. K. Chmielewska, G. Wołowiec, T. Żukowski. Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, Warszawa 2014; Motyw gwałtu w opowiadaniu „Aryjskie papiery” Idy Fink i w dramacie „Nasza klasa” Tadeusza Słobodzianka. „Teksty Drugie”, nr 2 rok 2015; Doświadczenie wykluczenia widziane od środka. „Skrawek czasu” Idy Fink i jego polska recepcja. „Pamiętnik Literacki” (przyjęte do druku).
Katarzyna Chmielewska, Ph.D.
Helena Datner-Śpiewak, Ph.D.
Associate professor at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, head of the post-war gallery at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw now being established. In 1994-2005 head of the Center for Jewish Culture and Education. In 1999-2001 head of the Jewish Community of Warsaw.
Sociologist. Apart from the sociological interests, she researched the history of Polish Jews in the nineteenth century and after the Shoah, including the contemporary times. Participant of the survey research on anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland, which showed that there is no correlation between such attitudes and the respondents’ education and age. Findings presented in her book on the Jewish intelligentsia in the 19th-century Warsaw exemplify the theses of a survey research carried out almost a century later: the first generation of the Jewish intelligentsia is excluded from the intelligentsia community immediately and automatically. This completely contradicts the Polish intelligentsia’s own image as an extremely inclusive and “democratic” group. An additional finding was the thesis that the phraseology and category of the anti-Semitic discourse in the nineteenth century and at present are identical.
Published works:
Dziecko żydowskie(1944-1968), [w:] M. Adamczyk-Garbowska, F. Tych (reds.), Następstwa zagłady Żydów Polska 1944-2010, Lublin 2011: Wydawnictwo UMCS, ŻIH, Współczesna społeczność żydowska w Polsce a Zagłada, [w:] M. Adamczyk-Garbowska, F. Tych (reds.), Następstwa zagłady Żydów Polska 1944-2010, Lublin 2011: Wydawnictwo UMCS, ŻIH.
Children in the Polish-Jewish Community from 1944 to 1968 [in:] Jewish Presence in Absence The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944–2010, F.Tych. M. Adamczyk-Garbowska (eds.), Translated from Polish by Grzegorz Dąbkowski and Jessica Taylor-Kucia, Jerusalem 2014: Yad Vashem The International Institute for Holocaust Research, The Diana Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Shoah.
The Contemporary Jewish Community in Poland and the Holocaust, [in:] Jewish Presence in Absence The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944–2010, F.Tych. M. Adamczyk-Garbowska (eds.), Translated from Polish by Grzegorz Dąbkowski and Jessica Taylor-Kucia, Jerusalem 2014: Yad Vashem The International Institute for Holocaust Research, The Diana Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Shoah.
Ta i tamta strona. Inteligencja żydowska Warszawy drugiej połowy XIX wieku (2007); Problems of Authenticity: Jews in Poland after 1989. In: Political Culture in Baltic Sea Region and in Eastern Europe, ed. Walter Rotholz, (2003); Absence and Return: Jews in Contemporary Poland, with Małgorzata Melchior. In: From Homogenity to Multiculturalism. Minorities Old and New in Poland, ed. F.E. Hamilton and K. Iglicka, (2000); Uwagi do drugiego raportu ECRI. In: Biuletyn Ośrodka Informacji Rady Europy, no. 1 (2001); The Jewish Community in Poland: Its perspectives, difficulties and obstacles. In: Jews and Christians in Dialogue II: Identity-Tolerance-understanding, ed. Michał Bron, (2001); Historia Żydów w Polsce 1944-1968. Wybór materiałów źródłowych (1998) (with A. Cała); Struktura i wyznaczniki postaw antysemickich In: Czy Polacy są antysemitami?. Ed. I. Krzemińskiego. (1996); Inteligencja żydowska: czynnik postępu czy rozkładu? Z dyskusji nad inteligencją żydowską w Królestwie Polskim. “Biuletyn ŻIH” 1994 no. 4; Tożsamość inteligencji żydowskiej w XIX wieku. Szkic do portretu. “Przegląd Socjologiczny” 1993, T.XLII.
Elżbieta Janicka, Ph.D.
Literary historian. Associate professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Graduate of Université Paris VII Denis Diderot. Author of the followings books: Festung Warschau (2011) and Sztuka czy naród? Monografia pisarska Andrzeja Trzebińskiego [Art or the Nation? On Andrzej Trzebiński’s Literary Output] (2006) which received the prestigious Award of the Polish Book Publishers Association (PTWK).
Currently working on research projects at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Przełom czy kontynuacja? Obraz stosunków polsko-żydowskich w wybranych tekstach kultury po 2000 roku [Breakthrough or continuation? An image of Polish-Jewish relations after 2000 in chosen cultural texts] and Ku demitologizacji kategorii opisu Zagłady w Polsce [Towards the demythologising of the categories of Holocaust description in Poland]. Interested in the history and imaginarium of Polish anti-Semitism, especially its manifestations in high culture.
Some of recently published articles: Zamiast negacjonizmu. Topografia symboliczna terenu dawnego getta warszawskiego a narracje o Zagładzie [Instead of Negationism. Symbolic topography of the area of the former Warsaw Ghetto and narratives about the Holocaust] „Zagłada Żydów” [“Holocaust. Studies and Materials”] 2014, nr 10; Le crime rituel du paragraphe aryen, „Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah” 2012, nr 197.
Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak
Sociologist, research fellow at the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, and a collaborator of Jewish monthly Midrasz. She received an award for her MA thesis, Polish – Jewish War Dilemmas. Challenges of the Holocaust. She is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation on post-war strategies of adaptation among Polish Jews (1945-1950). She participated in the work of the research group studying antisemitism in Poland, headed by prof. Ireneusz Krzemiński. She used to be member of research team studying attitude toward the Holocaust in Polish literature (1939-1968) headed by prof. Jacek Leociak (studied the image of the Holocaust in Polish and Jewish press during the period).
She used to be a member of research team studying the aftermath of the Holocaust in post-war Poland 1944-2005 headed by prof. Feliks Tych and prof. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska (wrote about the immediate post-war condition of survivors and the attitude of Poles and Jews towards the Righteous 1944/45-2007). She is the author of edition of Gelbarts’ family letters from Warsaw Ghetto (collection of almost 70 cards and letters sent from the ghetto), published in December 2009 and author of edition of collection of Finkelstein’s family war letters (1939-1941) (collection of almost 140 letters and post cards – those sent from occupied Warsaw/ Warsaw ghetto by Finkelstein’s wife and his daughters to New York, and copies of the replies written by Chaim Finkelstein.); published in 2012 in Warsaw.
Published works:
I’m Going to the Oven because I Wouldn’t Give Myself to Him”: The Role of Gender in the Polish Jewish Civic Court [w:] Jewish Honor Courts: Revenge, Retribution, and Reconciliation in Europe and Israel after the Holocaust, Gabriel Finder, Laura Jockusch (eds.) Wayne State University Press 2015; The Adaptation of Survivors to the Post-War Reality from 1944 to 1949 and Gratitude and Oblivion: The Attitude of Poles and Jews toward the Righteous from 1944/45 to 2007 [in:] Jewish Presence in Absence The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944–2010, F.Tych. M. Adamczyk-Garbowska (eds.), Translated from Polish by Grzegorz Dąbkowski and Jessica Taylor-Kucia, Jerusalem 2014: Yad Vashem The International Institute for Holocaust Research, The Diana Zborowski Center for the Study of the Aftermath of the Shoah.
Bożenia Keff, Ph.D.
Literary historian and philosopher. Poet and writer. Associate professor at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute and lecturer at the University of Warsaw, of the post-graduate gender studies at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences in Warsaw as well as at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Her interests focus on identity – as related to ethnic group, gender and worldview orientation.
Published works:
Postać z cieniem. Portrety Żydówek w polskiej literaturze końca XIX wieku i dwudziestolecia międzywojennego. (2002) (nominated for Nike Award, the most important literary award in Poland in the field of literature and essay); Utwór o Matce i ojczyźnie (2008) (nominated for Nike Award); In collective works: Jewish Women within Everyone of us: The meaning of Jewish Women Characters in Current Polish Literature, trans. by author, in: Polish and Hebrew Literature and National Identity, ed. by Alina Molisak and Shoshana Ronen, Warsaw 2010; Psy czyli Polska jest twardzielem oraz Rewers, chłop diabeł wice Żyd. In: Kino polskie. Historia krytyczna. Ed. Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Piotr Marecki (2010); Nieśmiertelny. In: Ucielesnienia II, Płeć między ciałem a tekstem. Ed. Joanna Bator, Anna Wieczorkiewicz (2008). Antysemityzm. Niezamknieta historia. Warszawa Czarna owca 2013.
Wojciech Wilczyk
Photographer and curator. Lecturer at the Academy of Photography in Cracow (documentary unit) and the University of Arts in Poznań (guest unit). Won a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2001, 2005 and 2011. Author of essays and critical texts on plastic arts and photography. Interested in the iconosphere of the Shoah. Photographs and analyzes traces of the Jewish past and of the attitudes of the dominant group against the Jewish minority in the public space.
Published works:
- ‘Fotoamator w drodze’ (‘Amateur photographer on the road’), text published in a book ‘Interpretować fotografię’ (‘Interpreting photography’), Warsaw 2009, conference proceedings from a conference organized in 2008 by Warsaw Division of Association of Art Historians and Ars Auro Prior Foundation
- participation in a session ‘Sztuka w kulturze’ (‘Art in culture’) organized by Education and Art Faculty of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Kalisz subsidiary. An essay published in a book ‘Sztuka w kulturze’ (Art in Culture), edited by Jaromir Jeszke, Poznań 2011
- participation in a session ‘Sztuka - kapitał kulturowy polskich miast’ (‘Art – the Cultural Capital of Polish Cities’), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poznań 2010. An essay published in a book ‘Sztuka - kapitał kulturowy polskich miast’ (‘Art – the Cultural Capital of Polish Cities’), edited by Ewa Rewers and Agata Skórzyńska, Poznań 2010.
- ‘Starzy dokumentaliści, albo podrabiane archiwum’ (‘Old documentary artists or a forged archive’), paper presented at a conference organized in 2010 by Warsaw Division of Association of Art Historians and Art History Institute at the University of Warsaw
- participation in an international session ‘The Archive as Project’, organized by Archeology of Photography Foundation, Warsaw 2011. A discussion with Iwona Kurz ‘Documentary Photography and the Archive’. The discussion’s record published in a book ‘The Archive as Project – the Poetics and Politics of the (Photo)Archive’ edited by Krzysztof Pijarski, Archeology of Photography Foundation, Warsaw 2011.
- ‘Fotografia dokumentalna to nie tylko mechaniczna forma pamięci’ (‘Documentary photography is not just the mechanical form of memory’) – presentation at a session Photo Proxima-Fotografia Zbliżająca organized by The Seweryn Udziela Museum of Ethnography in Krakow, Krakow 2011.
Art:
- ‘Antologia’ (‘An Anthology’) – series of photographic portraits of twenty-one Polish writers counted as members of ‘the generation 1960s’ in the Polish literature; the project was carried out in the years 1998 and 1999 and resulted in publishing a book “Antologia” (published by Oficyna Literacka, Krakow, 1999) containing apart from 80 photographs also selected samples of literary works by all the featured authors.
- ‘Kalwaria’ – documentary series completed between 1995 and 2004, featuring the participants of religious celebrations in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska sanctuary: August processions of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and mysteries of the Passion of Christ celebrated during the Maundy Thursday in spring. In 2010 an album containing one hundred and seven photographs from the series was published by ‘Kropka’ publishing house.
- ‘Czarno-Biały Śląsk’ (‘Black and White Silesia’) – documentary project completed between 1999 and 2003, aimed at recording changes taking place in industrial areas of Upper Silesia after steel works and coal mines had been closed down. In 2004, the contemporary art gallery ‘Zderzak’ in Krakow and Upper-Silesian Cultural Centre in Katowice issued an album containing 89 photographs of the Silesian series and forewords by Andrzej Stasiuk, Marek Grygiel and Wojciech Wilczyk.
- ‘Życie po życiu’ (‘Life after Life’) – series of color photographs carried out between 2004 and 2006 (this year the author has come back to continue the project), which had as its subject cars that went out of use and served mainly as roadside publicity advertising scrap yards, service stations, bars or restaurants. In 2007, along with an exhibition in the Centre for Contemporary Art ‘Ujazdowski Castle’, an album was published containing forty-four photographs from the series as well as foreword by Adam Mazur and a story of ‘Mr. Sock’ (Pan Skarpeta) by Krzysztof Jaworski as an afterword.
-‘Niewinne oko nie istnieje’(‘There is no such thing as an innocent eye’) a photographic series, began in the second half of 2006, in which the present-day architecture of buildings that used to be temples or sites of religious worship of Judaism is shown in order to penetrate into the area of visual memory about old Jewish neighbors. The project was completed in December 2008 and it yielded some 5,800 exposed frames in which 307 pictures were selected that presented synagogues, houses of study (Beth Midrash) and houses of prayers which continue to exist in Poland but no longer serve religious purposes. In January 2009, an album ‘Thre is no such thing as an innocent eye’ was published by the gallery ‘Atlas Sztuki’ from Łódź an ‘Ha!Art’ Publishers from Krakow containing 307 photographs together with detailed descriptions of the photographed buildings , commentaries by Jacek Michalak, Adam Mazur, Eleonora Jedlińska, and Eleonora Bergan, a lengthy interview by Elżbieta Janicka with the author as well as journalistic record of the conversations the author had with casual observers of his actions.
- ‘Inne Miasto’ (‘Other City’) – project, began in 2011 in the cooperation with Elżbieta Janicka, has as its subject the center of today’s Warsaw. The authors are interested in the area of informal Jewish district from before 1939, where during the second world war the ghetto was created by the Nazis. The main goal of the project is to carry out a photographic series featuring the territory of Warsaw, which ceased to exist in the spring of 1943 as a result of ‘great operation’ of SS troops lead by Jugen Stropp and later executed deliberately demolition of the buildings. The restoration made after the war erased the remaining elements of the existing urban structure. Today, the area located in the very center of Polish capital attracts developers who contribute to further changes of this part of the city.
- ‘Święta Wojna’ (‘Holy War’) – documentary project completed between 2009 and 2014 aimed at recording aggressive and racist graffiti created by football-fans which can be found in Krakow, Upper Silesia region and Łódź. An album ‘Holy War’ published by the gallery ‘Atlas Sztuki’ from Łódź and ‘Karakter’ Publishers from Kraków contain 391 panoramic photographs and commentaries written by Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Anna Zawadzka and Adam Mazur.
Anna Zawadzka Ph.D.
Sociologist. Assistant Professor at the Department for Research on Nationalities at the Institute of Slavic Studies of Polish Academy of Sciences. Works in research unit Ethnographic Archive, where since 2006 she has participated in the field research on the memory of Jews and the Shoah in the rural areas in Poland. Editorial Assistant of academic journal "Studia Litteraria et Historica" (https://ispan.waw.pl/journals/index.php/slh). Author of the documentary “Kike Bolshevism" (Żydokomuna”, 2010), devoted to the functioning of this anti-Semitic stereotype. Lectuter of Gender Studies Departement at University of Warsaw.
Published works:
Żydokomuna [Kike Bolshevism]. Outline of Sociological Analysis of Historical Sources, in: "Societas/Communitas" no.2(8)2009; “The Republic” of One Nation, in: To Analyse Hatred. Anti-semitic Discourse as Textual Challenge, ed. Paweł Kuciński, Grzegorz Krzywiec, Instytut Badań Literackich, Warszawa: 2011; The Polish-Polish War on Territory of Israel, in: "Studia Litteraria et Historica" no.1/2012; Caviar at the Soviet Embassy, in: "Recykling Idei" no.13/2012; Mimicry. A Fragmented Tale, in: PL: The Imaginary Identity, ed. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Czarna Owca, Warszawa: 2013; Tearing Off the Masks: Narratives on Jewish Communists, in: “Studia Litteraria et Historica” no.2/2013; Fighting Poland, in: Wojciech Wilczyk, The Holy War, Atlas Sztuki & Karakter, 2014.