Language:
English
Year of publication:
2015
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
43,2 (2015) 109-141
Keywords:
Aleksandrowicz, Julian Diaries
;
Herzig, Jakub,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives
;
World War, 1939-1945 Underground movements
;
Holocaust survivors
;
Jewish physicians
Abstract:
Juxtaposes two Holocaust "diaries" deposited at the Yad Vashem archives. The first, written allegedly by a fictional Dr. Michał Goldfein, is in fact a novel in the form of a diary written in 1947 by Dr. Jakub Herzig. However, Dr. Herzig is also a Holocaust survivor, and his text is based on his wartime experiences and those of his relative, Dr. Goldman. It narrates the story of the fictional Dr. Goldfein, who lost all of his family during the German occupation of Poland, and his medical profession in postwar and antisemitic Poland, and thus can represent the experiences of a large part of the Jewish survivors in Poland. The second "diary" is a postwar memoir written by renowned physician and scientist Julian Aleksandrowicz (1908-1988), who, as a Polish patriot, preferred to suppress his Jewish identity and joined a detachment of the underground Polish Home Army. The "diaries" represent two different paths taken by returning Jewish survivors in Poland: resignation in the face of the loss of their pre-war world and subsequent emigration, and integration into postwar Polish reality, be it good or bad. Contends that, with some precautions, such texts can be used by researchers.
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