The Holocaust memory in Mszana Dolna – local involvement in the commemoration and educational programs

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how the contemporary community of Mszana Dolna, a town in southern Poland, deals with the memory of the Holocaust and the local Jewish community. The town, a place of a massacre of almost 1000 Jews in August 1942, rediscovered its Jewish heritage at the beginning of the 2000s through two main activities. One is the local commemoration of the shooting of Jews of Mszana. The other is the local schools’ involvement in the educational programs on the history and culture of Polish Jews. The article explores how the memory of Jews in Mszana evolved through the last two decades and the impact it had on the community of the town.

KEYWORDS:

• Jewish/non-Jewish relations
• memory
• Holocaust
• commemoration

Notes on contributor

Malgorzata (Malgosia) Wloszycka graduated from the Warsaw University, The Centre of Social Studies at the Polish Academy of Science and from The Centre of Jewish-Christian Relations, University of Cambridge. She completed her PhD at the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, Department of History at the University of Southampton. Her research concentrates on Polish-Jewish relations, memory of the Holocaust in Poland and the phenomenon of reconstruction of the Jewish world in Eastern Europe.

Notes

1. Steinlauf, Pamięć, 146–7; Waligórska, Klezmer's Afterlife.

2. See Waligórska, “Fiddler as a Fig Leaf,” 227–38; Bammer, “Xenophobia, Xenophilia, and No Place to Rest,” 45–62; Benz, “Jewish Existence in Germany,” 101–17.

3. Lehrer, Jewish Poland Revisited.

4. Gruber, Virtually Jewish.

5. Waligórska, Klezmer's Afterlife.

6. Murzyn-Kupisz, “Rediscovering the Jewish Past in the Polish Province,” 120.

7. Tokarska-Bakir, Rzeczy mgliste, 191–209.

8. Michlic, “The Dark Past,” 21–2.

9. Full text of the legislation in English can be found on the following page: https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-polands-controversial-holocaust-legislation/. Accessed July 15, 2018.

10. See Grabowski, Judenjagd; Engelking, Jest taki piękny słoneczny dzień … Losy Żydów szukających ratunku na wsi polskiej 1942-1945.

11. Center for Research on Prejudice. Report.

12. Ibid., 5.

13. Gliński, “Twenty Years of Civil Society in Poland?”

14. Kapralski, “Amnesia, Nostalgia, and Reconstruction,” 153.

15. Ibid., 3.

16. Interview with Hanna Kadłubek, 20 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

17. Interview with Stefania Knapczyk, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland; Interview. with Henryk Zdanowski, 18 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

18. Borger. File 301/1715.

19. Town hall’s archives in Mszana Dolna; report from a meeting of the Civil Committee for the Building of the Monument for the Victims of the Nazism; 11 October 1947. In: Illukiewicz, Chronicles, 244.

20. Interview with Agnieszka Józefiak, 23 August 2011, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

21. Interview with Stefania Knapczyk, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland; Interview with Henryk Zdanowski, August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

22. Interview with Maria Figura, 18 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

23. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 23 August 2011, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

24. Inne oblicza historii, “W Mszanie Dolnej odsłonięto tablicę w 70”; Rząsa,“70 rocznica zamordowania przez hitlerowców mieszkańców limanowszczyzny narodowości żydowkiej”; Gorce 24, “71. rocznica masakry żydów w Mszanie Dolnej.”

25. Sztetl, “70 Rocznica mordu w Mszanie Dolnej.”

26. Interview with Henryk Zdanowski, 11 August 2010, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

27. Interview with Henryk Zdanowski, 18 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

28. Interview with Stefania Knapczyk, 11 August 2010, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

29. Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. “Projects.” Accessed October 1, 2015. http://fodz.pl/?d=5&l=en; Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland, “Educational program for 2010/2011.” Accessed October 1, 2015. http://www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab60.php?s=en_edukacyjny_2010_2011.php.

30. POLIN. Museum of the History of Polish Jews. “Education.” Accessed October 1, 2015. http://www.polin.pl/en/education; POLIN. Museum of the History of Polish Jews. “Research and Publications.” Accessed October 1, 2015. http://www.polin.pl/en/research-and-publications.

31. Center of Holocaust Studies of the Jagiellonian Univesrity, "X Międzynarodowa Szkoła Letnia ‘Nauczanie o Holokauście.’" 2015. Accessed September 28, 2015. http://www.holocaust.uj.edu.pl/en/centrum/aktualnosci/-/journal_content/56_INSTANCE_25Bq/5405363/84325578.

32. Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Publications.” Accessed October 3, 2015. http://auschwitz.org/en/education/publications.

33. Interview with Maria Figura, 18 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Interview with Maria Duda, 7 October 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland, by e-mail.

39. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 23 August 2011, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

40. There is no exact English equivalent of the Polish word katecheta/katechetka. The word could also be translated as a religious study teacher.

41. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

42. Ibid.

43. Spotkania Polska-Izrael, “EN o projekcie Zachować Pamięć.”

44. Antosz-Rekucka, “Grupa Izraelskiej młodzieży w Mszanie Dolnej.”

45. Zespół Szkół nr 1 w Mszanie Dolnej, “Na drogach dialogu.”

46. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

47. Interview with Anna Kaciczak, 13 October 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland, by skype.

48. Interview with Maria Figura, 18 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

49. Conversation with Rachela Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

50. Interview with Anna Kaciczak, 13 October 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland, by skype.

51. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

52. Interview with Anna Kaciczak, 13 October 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland, by skype.

53. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

54. Pod Lubogoszczą 4, 20 (2012), 17-18.

55. Interview with Anna Kaciczak, 13 October 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland, by skype.

56. Interview with Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, 17 August 2013, Mszana Dolna, Poland.

57. Ibid.