Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Polish Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
68,1 (2023) 75–89
Keywords:
Miłosz, Czesław Political and social views
;
Poets, Polish
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Warsaw (Poland) History Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
Abstract:
This article discusses five little-known texts by Czesław Miłosz that remained unpublished until 2020. Written between 1946 and 1968, they have been recovered from archival collections only recently and published in Miłosz's Z archiwum. Wybór publicystyki z lat 1945–2004 [From the archive: Selected journalistic writings, 1945–2004]. My discussion focuses on Miłosz's statements concerning the Holocaust, with particular emphasis on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (April-May 1943). I argue that the testimonies left by Miłosz in the form of poems, essays, and journalism create a community of memory, while also revealing empathy and solidarity with the victims of genocidal violence. Miłosz emerges here not only as an eyewitness to the atrocities and a firm opponent of antisemitism, but also as a moral witness. Despite some controversies of a personal and political nature, a telling example of Miłosz's attitude towards the Jewish insurgents who died in Warsaw are his words in a 1979 letter to Jerzy Giedroyc: “I will not be able to cope with my life because an honest man should have gone to the Warsaw ghetto and died there.”
DOI:
10.5406/23300841.68.1.05
URL:
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