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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
An older friend of mine, a man of outstanding intelligence and great novelistic talent, asked me a rather curious question: ‘Did you notice that out there in the street everybody is acting abnormally? The salesman is pretending to sell, the bricklayer is building imaginary homes, newspapers don't have any news, the children's traffic warden is waving his lollipop like crazy, but there isn't really any traffic […].’ This friend of mine remembered the pre-war years, but I later realised that even people who had never seen anything other than the People's Republic of Poland had the same kind of feeling.
1 Ash, T. G., The Uses of Adversity (London: Granta, 1989), p. 153.Google ScholarMichnik, A., The Church and the Left (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993), 161, 208.Google ScholarMichnik, A., Letters From Prison (Berkeley: California University Press, 1985), 137, 178–9.Google Scholar For basic biographical information on Brandys: Krzyzanowski, J., Literatura Polska: przewodnik encyklopedyczny, I (Warsaw: PWN, 1984).Google Scholar
2 Brandys, K., Warsaw Diary: 1978–1981 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1982), 109.Google Scholar The diaries first appeared in an underground edition in Warsaw in 1980, but were later published in Paris: Miesqce 1978–79 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1981), Miesqce 1980–81 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1982), Miesqce 1982–84 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1984), Miesqce 1985–87 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1987). A further diary selection in English was made: Brandys, K., Paris, New York: 1982–1984 (New York: Random House, 1984). For a personal account of Jewish communist activity under the Piłudski regime seeGoogle ScholarMendel, H., Memoirs of a Jewish Revolutionary (London: Pluto, 1989).Google Scholar
3 Ibid., p. 11.
4 Krajewski, S., ‘Jews and Communism’, in Bemhardt, M. and Szlajfer, H., eds., From the Polish Underground: Selections from Krytyka 1978–93 (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 368.Google Scholar
5 Grynberg, H., The Victory (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1969; Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993), 69–70.Google Scholar Other novels attempting to deal with the issue of Polish-Jewish relations are: Miłosz, C., The Seizure of Power (London: Abacus, 1995)Google Scholar; Szczypiorski, A.,The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman (paris: Instytut Literacki, 1986; London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1990)Google Scholar; Szczypiorski, A., A Mass for the Town of Arras (Warsaw, Czytelnik, 1988; London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1993). A personal account of the 1968 anti-Semitism campaign can be found inGoogle ScholarBauman, J., A Dream of Belonging: My Years in Postwar Poland (London: Virago, 1988)Google Scholar, and of the 1959 anti-Semitism campaign in Hoffman, E., Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language (London: Minerva, 1991).Google Scholar
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7 Nowa Kultura (13 June 1954), 5–7.
8 Warsaw Diary: 1978–81, 93–4.
9 Balbus, S., ‘The Great Silence of the Black Hole: Literature in the Face of Communism’, in Michajlów, A. and Paclawski, W., eds., Literary Galicia: From Post-War to Post-Modem (Kraków: Oficyna Literacka, 1991), 41.Google Scholar
10 Brandys, K., Sons and Comrades (Matka Królów) (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1957; New York: Grove Press, 1961), 82.Google Scholar Brandys's works available in English include ‘Memories from the Present Time’, in C. Wieniawska (ed.), Polish Writing Today (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970); ‘How to be Loved’ (1960), in Gillon, A. and Krzyzanowski, L., Introduction to Modern Polish Literature (London: Rapp & Whiting, 1964)Google Scholar; Letters to Mrs Z (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987).
11 Stehle, H., The Independent Satellite (London: Pall Mall, 1965), 198.Google Scholar
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13 ‘Letter of the Thirteen Polish Intellectuals’ (7 July 1976), in Raina, P., Political Opposition in Poland (London: Poets & Painters Press, 1978), 249–51.Google Scholar
14 Brandys, K., A Question of Reality (London: Blond & Briggs, 1978), 61–2.Google Scholar The manuscript of this book had been rejected by the official Polish publishing houses in 1975 and was first published in Polish by the Paris Instytut Literacki in 1978.
15 Ibid., 70–4.
16 Ibid., 87.
17 Ibid., 76.
18 Ibid., 17–18.
19 Ibid., 158–9.
20 Ibid., 153.
21 This attitude underlies comment on Polish Jewish writers during the 1970s and 1980s in Sandauer, A., O sytuacji pisarza polskiego pochodzenia zydowskiego w XX wieku (Warsaw: PWN, 1982).Google Scholar
22 Brandys, K., Warsaw Diary: 1978–1981, 31.Google Scholar
23 Jarze¸bski, Jerzy, ‘The Document: Polarities of its Employment’, in Eile, S. and Philips, U., eds., New Perspectives in Twentieth Century Polish Literature (London: Macmillan, 1992), 87–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 Brandys, K., Warsaw Diary: 1978–1981, 26.Google Scholar
25 Ibid., 25–6.
26 Ibid., 42.
27 Ibid., 25–6.
28 Ibid., 42.
29 Ibid., 166.
30 Ibid., 43.
31 Brandys, K., Paris, New York: 1982–1984, 140.Google Scholar
32 Warsaw Diary: 1978–81, 60–1.
33 Paris, New York: 1982–84, 32–3.
34 Warsaw Diary: 1978–81, 123.
35 Ibid., 226.
36 Ibid., 253.
37 Błoński, J., ‘Is There a Jewish School of Polish Literature?’, in Polonsky, A., ed., Studies from Polin: From Shtetl to Socialism (London: Littman, 1993), 471–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Macia¸g, W., Kazimierz Brandys (Warsaw: Agencja Autorska, 1990), 8–9.Google Scholar