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Ideology and Its Ethics: Maria Da̧browska's Jewish (and Polish) Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Rachel Feldhay Brenner
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Abstract

This article is part of a project that examines Polish writers' diaristic responses to the Warsaw ghetto and to the Holocaust in general. Rachel Feldhay Brenner examines Maria Da̧browska's response in the context of her prewar attitude to Polish Jews, which was shaped by her nationalistic ideology of Poland's messianic position among the nations. Although Da̧browska publicly denounced Endecja and its antisemitism, in private she cultivated a powerful sense of ressentiment toward the Jews, seeing Jews as outsiders who stood in the way of Poland realizing its special mission. This attitude persisted during the Holocaust and explains Da̧browska's emotional disengagement in the face of Jewish extermination. In the postwar years, her resentment became more pronounced, as even Jewish suffering in the Holocaust became an object of competition and envy. Da̧browska's response to the Holocaust offers a poignant example of the impact of ideological beliefs on emotional and ethical aspects of human interaction.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 399 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2011

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References

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7. Nalkowska burned part of her diaries when she heard the Gestapo in die neighboring apartment.

8. The discussion of Dąbrowska's fictional work does not lie within the scope of this article. Let me just note that her literary writing combined patriotic love for Poland with universal moral values. Her prewar career started with the novel Ludzie stamtad (1926); the acclaimed Noce i dnie (1932-34) followed. Dąbrowska novels are grounded in Polish rural and small-town life, and her literary style combined Romanticism and realism. For a discussion of her work, see, for instance, Folejewski, Zbigniew, Maria Dąbrowska (New York, 1967), 20–23 Google Scholar.

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13. I was unable to obtain a copy of the publication in the United States. My quotations are taken from the full text sent to me by Dr. Slawomir Buryla with Drewnowski's permission. I thank them both for their kind cooperation.

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23. I realize that the concept of nationalism exceeds the component of ethnicity as defined by cultural features such as language and religion. The distinction between ethnicity and race also presents problems, as Eriksen, Thomas Hylland claims: “ethnicity can assume many forms, and since ethnic ideologies tend to stress common descent among their members, the distinction between race and ethnicity is a problematic one.” Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, 2d ed. (London, 1993), 5 Google Scholar. This is certainly true of Polish Jews in the context of Polish nationalism, in which prejudicial perception blended the cultural and religious uniqueness of the Jews with the supposed distinctiveness of the hereditary characteristics of their “race.” My use of the terms nationalism and ethnicity with relation to Gentile-Polish and Polish-Jewish contacts includes the components of religion and racism.

24. Drewnowski, Rzea. russowska, 42-48. The Filaret motto was “a free human being in free Poland.“

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27. Ibid., 50.

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36. In my forthcoming article, “Warsaw Polish Writers and Their Wartime Diaries: The Case of Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz,” I discuss the prevailing desire of Polish men and women of letters to “Europeanize” Poland. European culture was undeniably their unsurpassed model. The independence of the Polish state raised hopes among the Polish intelligentsia that Poland would become an equal contributor to European culture. See, for instance, Drobniak, Piotr, Jedność i roinorodność: Europa w tworaości Jaroslawa Iwaszkiewiaa (Wroclaw, 2000)Google Scholar.

37. The Polish Minority Treaty, signed in 1919 at the Versailles Peace conference, promised to protect the rights of all minorities in the Polish state. The Constitution of the Polish Republic of 17 March 1921 reconfirmed the spirit of the treaty, guaranteeing freedom of conscience and religion to all Polish citizens as well as equal rights regardless of religious denomination.

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43. I am referring to Andrzej Walicki's distinction between “political” pluralistic nationalism, the product of western Enlightenment thinking that promoted humanitarian ideals and progressive democratic sovereignty, and “cultural” linguistic nationalism that promoted “a closed and monolithic society with [an] authoritarian government.” Walicki, , The Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Nationhood: Polish Political Thought from Noble Republicanismto Tadeusz Kosciuszko, trans. Harris, Emma (Notre Dame, 1989), 2, 5 Google Scholar.

44. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 16-17.

45. For a discussion of Polish antisemitism in the interwar period, see, for instance, Gutman, Yisrael, “Polish Antisemitism between the Wars: An Overview,” in Gutman, Yisrael, Mendelsohn, Ezra, Reinharz, Jehuda, and Shmeruk, Chone, eds., The Jews of Poland betweenTwo World Wars (Hanover, 1989), 97–109 Google Scholar; Emanuel Melzer, “Antisemitism in the Last Years of the Second Republic,” in Gutman, Mendelsohn, Reinharz, and Shmeruk, eds., The Jewsof Poland between Two World Wars, 126-41; and Rudnicki, Równi, ale niezupetnie.

46. Scheler, Max, Ressentiment, trans. Coser, Lewis B. and Holdheim, William W. (Milwaukee, 2007), 25, 29, 30 Google Scholar. Emphasis in the original.

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48. The “bench ghetto” involved relegating Jewish students to specially assigned back seats in lecture halls.

49. For an extensive historical survey of the campaign against Jewish students, see “Od numerous clausus do numerous nullus,” in Rudnicki, Równi, ale niezupeinie, 135-56.

50. See Polacy o Żydach.

51. “Her words,” claims Rudnicki, “[which] reflected the opinions and the position of the best part of the Polish intelligentsia, gave moral support to the beaten [Jewish students]. Rudnicki, Rowni, ale niezupeinie, 150. See also Libera, Zdzislaw, Maria Dąbrowska (Warsaw, 1975), 76–77 Google Scholar.

52. Entry for 4 November 1936, BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 9, 26.IX.1934-31.XII.1936.

53. See, for instance, Drewnowski, Rzecz russowska, 70.

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55. Dąbrowska, “Doroczny wstyd,” 3.

56. BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 5, 1.I.1937-7.IX.1939.

57. A right-wing literary-art weekly (1931-1939) that became radical, Prosto z Mostu was considered the main nationalistic publication featuring antisemitic articles. Stanislaw Piasecki began editing it in 1935.

58. BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 5, 1.I.1937-7.IX.1939. Emphasis in the original.

59. BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 5,1.I.1937-7.IX.1939.

60. Ibid.

61. BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 5, 1.I.1937-7.IX.1939. Stach [Stanislaw] Stempowski, Dąbrowska's partner and mentor, was an open-minded intellectual and an enlightened individual. It seems that he urged Dąbrowska to confront publicly the antisemiuc incidents at the universities. See Borkowska, Maria Dąbrowska, 17—19, 105-6.

62. BN/ML, CD no. 8, vol. 5,1.I.1937-7.IX.1939.

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65. See, for instance, Iwaszkiewicz's, Jaroslaw recollections of his prewar and postwar Jewish friends, Julian Tuwim, Jan Lechon, Antoni Slonimski, and Arnold Szyfman, in AlejaPrzyjacidi (Warsaw, 1984)Google Scholar.

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70. Entry for 2 June 1944, BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 10, rekopis, zeszyt 2.IX.1943.

71. BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 9, zeszyt 2.IV.1943-1.IX.1943.

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74. BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 9, zeszyt2.IV.1943-l.IX.1944, s. 551-82.

75. BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 10, rekopis, zeszyt 2.IX.1943-5.X.1945.

76. For Warsaw deprivations, see, for instance, Lucas, Richard C., The Forgotten Holocaust:The Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944, 2d ed. (New York, 2001), 30 Google Scholar. The moral disintegration of the Polish population was recorded in the war diaries of Iwaszkiewicz and Wylezyńska.

77. Ibid., 10-12.

78. See, for instance,Jerzy Andrzewski's Wielki Tydzień (1945), a short novel he wrote during the ghetto uprising in 1943 in which the Poles persecute the Jews in hiding but also engage in crimes against fellow Poles. While the novel provides a broad spectrum of responses to the Jews, such as Christian pity and courageous assistance to the ghetto fighters, the story indicts the widespread moral disintegration within Polish society.

79. Gross, Jan T., Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. An Essay in HistoricalInterpretation (New York, 2006), 5 Google Scholar.

80. BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 10, zeszyt 2.IX.1943-5.X.1945.

81. See, for instance, Grabowski, Jan, “Ja lego zyda znam!” Szantaiowanie Zydoiv iv Warszawie,1939-1943 (Warsaw, 2004)Google Scholar.

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84. See Jan Gross's appreciation of the Polish organization of the struggle against the German invader. Gross, Fear, 5-6.

85. The question of which of the parties suffered more is a consistent feature of Polish-Jewish debates. A survey of this issue can be found in Zimmerman, Joshua, “Introduction: Changing Perceptions in the Historiography of Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War,” in Zimmerman, , ed., Contested Memories, 1–19 Google Scholar.

86. BN/ML, CD no. 4, vol. 10, rekopis, zeszyt 31.1.1947-16.VI.1947.

87. Drewnowski, Wyprowadzka z czyśćća, 189.

88. 20 July 1960, Muzeum Literackie, Warsaw, Dziat Rekopisów inw. 4608.

89. Tel Aviv, 20 November 1960, Muzeum Literackie, Warsaw, Dzial Rekopisow inw. 4608.

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