Revisioning Jewish Spaces in Contemporary Poland: Jewish Memorial Books and Local History and Memory

• In Event: Jewish Traces and Memory Work: A Transnational Perspective

Abstract

This paper will examine how Polish memory activists today are using the post-Holocaust memorial books (yizker-bikher), created by dispersed Jewish refugees and survivors to commemorate their hometown communities, to think about Jewish presence and absence in those same towns. Based on a series of interviews and site visits, it will explore how the yizker-bikher, originally written in Hebrew and Yiddish for the community of refugees, are now being translated into other languages and for other uses. What are the challenges and opportunities of employing these nostalgic, intricate, multi-vocal tomes to teach about a shared past? Which parts of the memorial books are most accessible and how are local memory activists disseminating this information?

In order to begin answering these questions, the paper will focus on translation projects and exhibitions. In the past decade or so, translations of all or parts of yizker-bikher into Polish have become increasingly common. While some of these initiatives are local grassroots efforts that involve teachers or community leaders personally translating sections based on the English translations available online, others are professionally translated and edited complete volumes. Traveling around Poland last summer, one of the questions I asked local activists was about the purpose of these lengthy and demanding projects. Who were the translations for? How would they be used?

One way in which some memory activists employed translated material from the yizker-bikher was in crafting temporary or permanent museum exhibitions about the former Jewish communities in their towns. In visiting these sites, I was particularly interested in which images and information was considered to be most important to share with the public, as well as in how it was framed. In many locations, the hand-drawn map of the town from the Jewish memorial book was prominently featured, alongside photographs of recognizable sites. These visual images of recognizable sites were relatively easy to apprehend. Other exhibitions found ways to integrate quotations or descriptions from the books—sometimes about prewar life and other times about the Holocaust.

Bringing these diverse local translation and educational projects into conversation, with a focus on their relationships to Jewish memorial books, will help to illuminate new facets of the contemporary fascination with Jewish memory in Poland.

Author

• Eliyana Adler, Binghamton University