‘Where Things Were Different’: The Expedition of Michal Borwicz and Joseph Wulf to the Nordic Countries in 1947

• In Event: Space and Place in Yiddish Culture

Abstract

In the beginning of 1947 two well-known researchers of the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, Michal Borwicz and Joseph Wulf set foot in Sweden. Their task was to collect testimonies of Holocaust survivors in the Nordic countries. Sweden had become a Nordic center of SHEYRES-HAPLEYTE, the surviving remnant, after over 10,000 concentration camp survivors were brought there. Prior to Borwicz’s and Wulf’s arrival their former colleague Nella Rost had established in Stockholm a historical commission under the Swedish Section of the World Jewish Congress.

In addition to testimonies, the task of Borwicz and Wulf was to collect war time documentation from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. The situation of Jews in each of these Nordic Countries had been very different, Norway and Denmark being occupied by Nazi Germany, Finland being its co-belligerent, whilst Sweden remained neutral. Despite well over thousand deportations to concentration camps, most Jews in the Nordic Countries evaded the Holocaust.

After their expedition, Borwicz and Wulf decided not to return to Poland, but instead continued to Paris where they established a research center for the history of Polish Jews. Whilst the where-abouts of the material collected by them in the north remains a mystery, part of it was edited by Borwicz and included under the title ‘DORT VU S’IZ GEVEN ANDERSH: DOKUMENTN UN MATERIALN’ (Where Things Were Different: Documents and Materials) in Yankev Shatzky’s anthology FUN NOENTN OVER (On the Resent Past) published in New York in 1955. In his introduction Borwicz provides a unique Polish-Jewish understanding of the Holocaust in the North.

This presentation will discuss the scope of Borwicz’s and Wulf’s expedition and analyze the rare and until now unresearched Yiddish documentation from the Nordic Countries.

Author

• Simo Muir, University College London