The Shoah, the Sacrifice, and the Animal in Elisabeth de Fontenay’s Thought

The article aims at presenting the views of a French philosopher Elisabeth de Fontanay on the issue of proximity between the Shoah and the inhuman, industrial treatment of animals.
The author not only explains the history of such a contextualisation of the problem, but also tackles the question of the meaning of a sacrifice, which is a term often used to define both the extermination of the Jews and the mass animal slaughter.

Key words: Elisabeth de Fontenay, Shoah, sacrifice, animals, mass slaughter

Insecto‑Semitism

This article is an attempt at describing Nazi anti‑Semitic narrations from the animal studies perspective. The author traces the ways of using cultural images of insects in persecutory discourses, which by means of the “animalism” category not only degrade the Jewish identity, but also deprive it of human subjectivity. The article shows the creation of the specific interpretation of Semitic corporeality – presented as budding and expanding, and simultaneously repulsive and estranging – by means of insect metaphors. What seems to be particularly interesting is tracing the movement of anti‑Semitic connotations, which link the Jewish identity with more and more lowly and non‑human living forms – insects, parasites, and bacteria. Their impact on the collective consciousness leads from the metaphor to that which is made extremely literal, whose culminations are ghettoes and death camps. Literary endeavours to oppose the degrading images connecting the Jewish community with the negatively valorised animality provide yet another important thread of the article. The author examines various strategies of discursive resistance, found in Marian Pankowski’s pieces and in Julian Tuwim’s poem. Their common ground is not so much rejecting Nazi similes, presenting the Jews as equal with insects, as appropriating these images and filling them with new content, which turns out to be a more sophisticated form of subversion.

Key words: animal studies, non‑anthropocentric humanities, animals, insects, Jews, anti-Semitism, persecutory strategies, symbolic violence

“The Inventory of Human Misery”. Lice in Nazi Camp Narrations

The article is a polemic with the ahistorical interpretation of animal studies and reveals a meaning of insects that is other than symbolic. Using numerous examples taken from Nazi
camp literature, it proves that in extreme conditions, a human – in order to maintain physical existence – cannot fight for ecosystemic animal equality. The text presents the living conditions of prisoners and the camp experience of fighting lice, along with completely unexpected situations brought about in concentration camps by the presence of insects.

Key words: animal studies, lice, military occupation, Jews, Nazi camps, concentration camps, Shoah

Iron Horseflies and Human Insects. War “Entomology” of Maria Pawlikowska‑Jasnorzewska

The author of this article is interested in insect motifs appearing above all in Maria Pawlikowska‑Jasnorzewska’s Szkicownik poetycki. The modern war described by the poet shatters the epidermal order of the world; it seems to allow the incomprehensible – that which is not an object yet, such as insects‑planes, but which is not a subject anymore, such as the human changed by the war. The latter – reduced to the role of a trash animal, a stigmatised being – imperceptibly finds himself or herself in the world that he or she is prone to perceive as the world of the insect.

Key words: Pawlikowska‑Jasnorzewska, Szkicownik poetycki, insects, modern war, trash animal

(Extra‑)Ordinary Czajka. An Ecocritical Perspective in Izabela Czajka Stachowicz’s Narrations of the Shoah

In the article, the author attempts to prove how valuable a change of methodology can be when it comes to war and Shoah literature of Izabela Czajka Stachowicz. Instead of a reading focused on the writer as a celebrity who shows off and is permeated with sexism, the author proposes the ecocritical and posthumanist reading in its broad understanding, grounded primarily upon the works of Rosi Braidotti. Basing on this perspective, the author discusses the diary entitled Ocalił mnie kowal, situating it against the background of Czajka’s autobiographical prose as well as numerous other war diaries and memoirs of the Jews. Czajka’s writings above all embrace plants and animals with figurative care, but at the same these texts they do not lack realistic narration, devoted to the examples of agreements that the writer hiding on the “Aryan side” has made with homeless or enslaved hens, dogs, and cats.

Key words: Shoah, animals, Polish People’s Republic (PRL), stereotypes, female writing

Anxieties. Tadeusz Różewicz and the So‑called Livestock

Collating Tadeusz Różewicz’s poetry with Jacques Derrida’s critique of logocentrism and John D. Caputo’s so‑called poetics of obligation, this article ponders upon the ethical relation to non‑human animals – particularly livestock – in the aforementioned literary project. Although Różewicz’s volumes published early after the end of the war seem to drift towards negative anthropology, they tend to benefit from more modern interpretative codes, for instance Giorgio Agamben’s anthropological machine or Caputo’s poetics of obligation. With regard to the means of the latter one, it is argued that Różewicz’s poetry endeavours to rethink animal as the absolute Other, contributing to the ethical relation which has been previously restricted entirely to Human‑Other. Such poems as Walentynki, Świniobicie, Ucieczka świnek dwóch (z obozu zagłady – rzeźni), Buty i wiersze or Unde malum? confirm Różewicz’s sensitivity to animal suffering. Moreover, they often anticipate the ethical and philosophical debates upon the human/animal dyad, and their practical political and economic implications.

Key words: logocentrism, poetics of obligation, anthropological machine, non‑human animals, Tadeusz Różewicz, Jacques Derrida, John D. Caputo

Human–Canine Bond in Ida Fink’s Works

This paper is devoted to the role human–canine bonding serves in Ida Fink’s works. The introduction describes the conversation between the author of this article and the sister of the writer who, suddenly, recalled a dog killed by Nazi Germans during wartime. This account is followed by the category of mourning animals and the emphasis on the particular sensitivity to the harm of all beings, despite species, that the survivors show. The first part of this paper is an analysis of Ida Fink’s short story, Czing, which focuses on the aforementioned dog. Moreover, it tackles the stereotype of “a spinster and her animal,” and the simultaneous births of racism and cynology. In the second part, Czarna bestia, a short story on the communication between a dog and a human being is discussed. Finally, the paper indicates possible dangers that Ida Fink has successfully evaded; particularly, it covers the tasteless, distorted accounts on how the Jews attempting to avoid the Shoah have been saved by the wolfs (Holstein and Defonseca).

Key words: Shoah, Holocaust, animal studies, dogs, Polish prose, testimony

The Monologue of a Dog Entangled in History. On Non‑human War Narrations

The article provides an endeavour to look at animal narration in the context of Shoah literature. Focusing primarily on Asher Kravitz’s novel The Jewish Dog, the author examines whether letting a non‑human creature speak is only a desire to create a new representation or rather a part of the visible tendency to both include beings other than human in our history and everyday life, and affirm their role in these areas.

Key words: animal narration, Asher Kravitz, posthumanism, animal character

“Turn towards Animals” in Gustaw Morcinek’s Prose. A Reconnaissance

The article concerns post‑camp literature of Gustaw Morcinek, which presents complex relations between people and animals. Issues presented in the prose of the writer from Karwina can be decoded by means of ecocritical currents. The animal studies perspective makes it possible to go beyond melancholic, anthropocentric theology. Animal eschatology in Morcinek’s writings shows numerous similarities to his reflections on the death of the human behind “barbed wires.” The human has been defined by the writer – who has turned towards animals – not as a creature antithetical to the animal, but as one equal to it. Morcinek makes successful attempts to affirm the animal world by building a positive system of values with the ethical component towards nature.

Key words: Gustaw Morcinek, animals, post‑camp literature, animal studies

On Inhuman Human and Inanimal Animal Behaviour. Reading Frydzia Kiwatz’s Ludzie i hieny

The paper, based on an analysis of Frydzia Kiwatz’s poem included in Tango łez śpiewajcie muzy. Poetyckie dokumenty Holokaustu indicates the necessity of returning to the historical contexts which the works from the times of the Shoah are indebted to. Consequently, the boundary between human and inhuman, described in the poem, might be read differently depending on the approach one decides to adopt. This boundary, however, is possible to be rethought anew, since the poem deeply re‑reads the stereotypical division into what is significant for humans, and what – for animals.

Key words: Shoah, poetry, animal studies, victims, bestiality

Animal Idylls. On Miklós Radnóti’s Razglednicák

The article presents an interpretation of Miklós Radnóti’s famous poetic cycle, Razglednicák [Postcards] (1944), from the animal perspective. The situation of the poet – a Hungarian Jew and a Catholic, sent to forced labour and then to a death march – is presented in four short pieces, expressly referring to the idyllic aesthetics. The dominant elements of the poem’s landscape are profiles of animals. By means of the poem, a flock of sheep and an ox become live emblems of the human condition in two states: the idyllic, timeless continuance and the inevitable death, which brings biological exhaustion to an end. The sheep and the ox also represent different types of presence – the sheep seem to function in an intact scenery, almost perfectly resembling the poet’s previous pieces devoted to animals, in which the animal embodies the untouched world, coexists with the landscape, and is continuance without a name. In Radnóti, the animal is a subjectified creature that exists on an equal basis with the human.

Key words: Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian literature, forced labour, idyll, animals, Razglednicák [Postcards], Bori Notesz [Camp Notebook]

A Fish Falls Asleep. Autobiographical and Animal Disquietudes in Andrzej Wróblewski’s Painting

This article is an attempt to interpret the painting of Andrzej Wróblewski – the author of Rozstrzelania – as part of the interdisciplinary research. This is an interpretation of his painting – especially of his animal paintings – in the context of the poems of Tadeusz Różewicz, Jerzy Ficowski, and Tadeusz Śliwiak. In their poems, these authors have explored the problem of memory, the mutilation of humans and animals, but also the protection of nature and its primordial character. This combination of arts and literature can create a new methodology; it can contribute to new research on postwar painting in the context of animal studies and memory studies.

Key words: Polish poetry, postwar painting, realism, symbolism, animal studies, Andrzej Wróblewski

“Belittling the Monstrosity?”. Lullaby in the Shadow of the Shoah

The paper attempts to demonstrate the changing awareness of literary genres among the authors of Jewish descent writing in Polish and Yiddish, on the example of poetic lullabies. It is argued that although the immense popularity of this genre – among both professionals and amateurs – stems from the particular historical context, it is also connected to the emotions the lullaby evokes (as it connotes the idyllic childhood, as well as the somatic proximity with the mother) and the lack of rigid rules. Moreover, the eponymous genre intertwines with the genre indicators derived from epicedium – that is, lament – in order to make the liminal experience possible to be articulated. In the lullabies written during the times of military occupation and the extermination of the Jews, the addressee happens to be a guarantee of the continuity of the lineage; the lullaby thus unfolds its own elegiac and consoling potentialities. The authors presented in this paper reconcile the idyllic tone with the testamentary one, whereas the lullaby itself with its semantic capacity turns out to be a universal genre.

Key words: lullaby, Shoah, genre studies, addressee, testimony

Woe Betide You, Murderer‑Nation!Vengeance  in Jicchok Kacenelson’s Wej Dir

This paper investigates the conceptualisation of Jewish vengeance, as demonstrated in Jicchok Kacenelson’s Wej Dir, the poem written on the 31st of May 1942, in the Warsaw Ghetto.
In the course of the reading presented, the concept of affective vengeance is introduced, that is, a figure situated between two radical forms of retaliation on the Nazi Germans present in the literary works of Jewish authors: the vengeance‑fantasy and the accomplished vengeance. The paper focuses on analysing three particular issues: the forms of vengeance (posthumous revenge of spirits and the dead, and the revenge of nature), its direct motivation, and the avenging subject with its inherent duality. This subject, as it is argued, on the one hand becomes the representative of the nation and the “avenger of blood,” while on the other – identifies itself with the nation, and turns into the collective subject.

Key words: vengeance, affect, witness, Shoah, Jicchok Kacenelson

Still Inept Sounds. On the Materiality of Rutka Laskier’s Diary

The author of the article endeavours to present the history of the diary of Rut “Rutka” Laskier, a Jew from Będzin, who died in Auschwitz II–Birkenau. Laskier, called the Polish Anne Frank, wrote her diary for several months in an inconsistent and irregular manner. The notebook survived the war, but the information about its discovery reached the local media in as late as 2006. Jasińska analyses the Notebook, carefully examining the issues discussed by the girl, the topics chosen by her, and the pieces of information – either described or meticulously omitted – directly concerning Christian and/or Jewish culture and tradition. The author of the article pays a lot of attention to the “materiality” of the diary, as Paweł Rodak names it. She describes the material, the medium, the writing tools, and the girl’s handwriting. Such a way of looking at the diary makes it possible to broaden the cognitive perspective and to provide interesting interpretations. Jasińska also examines the very publication of the diary and the changes accompanying it on the proofreading‑editing level. She wonders whether and how it influences the act of reading the text, the social reception of the diary entries, and the assessment and value of Rutka’s Notebook as a historical source.

Key words: Będzin, diary, Holocaust, evidence, publication

A Suitcase Full of Manifold Paper. On Editing Leo Lipski’s Paryż ze złota…

This article is an account of the “adventure” of editing Leo Lipski’s texts, be it memoirs, and epistolary and poetic forms, which are stored in his “archive” in Tel Aviv, preserved and controlled by Łucja Gliksman, a long‑time friend of his. The material collected was eventually published by Świat Literacki as Paryż ze złota. Teksty rozproszone in 2002. The aforementioned “archive” has been stored in a worn‑out, small suitcase full of undated and nearly illegible texts typed many years before by means of the manifold paper – a faded yellowish one, or, to be precise, its snippets. Therefore, the whole task of wading through them and selecting those deserving greater attention was extremely difficult. Yet another obstacle was Łucja Gliksman herself who simultaneously allowed the editor to finish her work properly and was deciding upon erasing particular content in the book in an autocratic manner, based often on her private and intimate motivation. The article is concluded with a reflection upon the uneasy task of negotiating with the right‑holders of the dead writers’ works.

Key words: Leo Lipski, Łucja Gliksman, editing, Paryż ze złota…

A Reflection on the Status of the Post‑camp Site on the Example of the Cable Factory in Cracow in Joanna Ringel’s Account

Referring to the theory of sites of memory and non‑sites of memory, the author of this text asks a question concerning the status of Kabelwerk – a forced labour sub‑camp located by the Cable Factory [in Polish: Fabryka Kabli] in Cracow. The researcher bases his reflections on one part of the account of Joanna Ringel – a former prisoner of this camp – which was written as a protocol of an interview. He pays attention to the character of this testimony, analysing it in the context of the term of orality. In the analytical part, the author cites the excerpts from this account and informs about the look of Kabelwerk, its living conditions, and everyday events in the camp.

Key words: site of memory, non‑site of memory, oral history, historical interview, autobiographical narration, Płaszów, Kabelwerk

A Figurative, Figural, or Rhetorical Animal? Piotr Krupiński: „Dlaczego gęsi krzyczały?”. Zwierzęta i Zagłada w literaturze polskiej XX i XXI wieku. Warszawa, Instytut Badań Literackich PAN. Wydawnictwo, 2016, ss. 356.

The article A Figurative, Figural, or Rhetorical Animal?… is a review of Piotr Krupinski’s book “Dlaczego gęsi krzyczały?”. Zwierzęta i Zagłada w literaturze polskiej XX i XXI wieku published in 2016 by the Institute of Literary Research Publishing House in Warsaw.

Zoosynthesis, or a Strong Weak Subject. Anna Barcz: Realizm ekologiczny. Od ekokrytyki do zookrytyki w literaturze polskiej. Katowice, Wydawnictwo Naukowe „Śląsk”, 2016, ss. 365.

This article is a review of – or, to be more precise, an attempt to critically discuss – Anna Barcz’s monograph Realizm ekologiczny. Od ekokrytyki do zookrytyki w literaturze polskiej. This vast work is entirely focused on tracing ecocritical and pre‑ecocritical contexts in Polish literature, and thereby it offers the readers a new look at the canon of Polish modern literature. Yet, the value of Anna Barcz’s monograph lies in something more. This book successfully implants new directions of the literary studies (mainly from the Anglo‑American humanities), showing the usefulness of ecocriticism and zoocriticism as the tools that help understand more fully not only texts of culture but also the surrounding world: the world within which the human “I” does not have to be the only source of experience.

The Holocaust of the Garden – The Garden of the Holocaust? Antony Lishak: Stars: A Story of Friendship, Courage, and Small, Precious Victories. [no place], Acorn Digital Press, 2014, pp. 279.

In her review, the author makes an attempt of an analysis of Antony Lishak’s novel – Stars… – from a post‑anthropocentric perspective. The book of a British writer, addressed to a young reader, is shown in the background of other literary and movie works inspired by the remarkable history of the Warsaw Zoo and its inhabitants during the Second World War, such as: Ludzie i zwierzęta by Antonina Żabińska, The Zookeeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman and a movie with the same title directed by Niki Caro, or Arka Czasu… by Marcin Szczygielski. Among these works is the autobiography of Antonina Żabińska, the wife of the director of the zoo, who on the pages of Ludzie i zwierzęta outlined the truly subjective portraits of animals, ahead of the theoretical concepts of ecophilosophers and ecocritics. By means of constructing parallel images of suffering (people in a ghetto and animals in the zoo) as well as the empathetic attitude of Stars’ child heroes, Antony Lishak seems to follow the path of Antonina Żabińska in his novel; however, the inconsistencies indicated by the author in the structure of narration cause the demands of posthumanism, surprisingly close to the child’s perspective, being unfulfilled. In a narrative project of consolation, the comfort is achieved only on the anthropocentric plane.

Emotions and Conventions. On Narrations of the Holocaust Victims and Their Children Beata Przymuszała: Smugi Zagłady. Emocjonalne i konwencjonalne aspekty tekstów ofiar i ich dzieci. Poznań, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2016, ss. 369.

The review is devoted to a book Smugi Zagłady. Emocjonalne i konwencjonalne aspekty tekstów ofiar i ich dzieci, written by Beata Przymuszała. Trails of the Holocaust, mentioned in the title, evoke a blurred, unclear image that is permanently present even though it can at times go unnoticed for various reasons. Particular chapters present a variety of aspects and degrees of this presence. The author takes up the problem of the wounded Jewish identity, explains why Holocaust literature did not reject the conventional means of expression, and analyses various approaches to trauma. The interpretations draw attention to the issue of intense affective components of texts and the means which let the experiences be expressed.

Stiches and Tacks. Mirosław Tryczyk: Miasta śmierci. Sąsiedzkie pogromy Żydów. Warszawa, Wydawnictwo RM, 2015, ss. 499.

The purpose of this paper, a context‑oriented presentation of Mirosław Tryczyk Miasta śmierci. Sąsiedzkie pogromy Żydów, is twofold. Firstly, it endeavours to collect and classify various responses the reviewed book has provoked: reviews, polemics, and criticism. Secondly, it proposes its own reading granting Tryczyk with the authorial right to present his own, even if diverging, type of narration. Moreover, it includes the traces of the post‑Holocaust slips of the tongue, significant and eye‑opening themselves (“And I have fled from the porch to life” [the homonym “życie” might mean both “rye” and “life,” although in different grammatical cases]). Finally, it refers to the cover and its significance, and the “excess” of death, repetitions, which deprive of hope and overwhelm the reader.

The Camps of Terror. Wolfgang Sofsky: Ustrój terroru: obóz koncentracyjny. Przeł. Małgorzata Łukasiewicz. Warszawa, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2016, ss. 383.

The review discusses the historically and sociologically significant work of a German scholar Wolfgang Sofsky. This is the first Polish translation of the book, which had a great influence on other thinkers tackling the questions of totalitarianisms, concentration camps, and Nazi genocide. While discussing the scope of issues undertaken by Sofsky, the author of the review focuses on the threads most often emphasised by the German scholar, such as: the organisation of the social structure within the concentration camp, the relations between the authorities and the prisoners, or the functioning of the individual within the system Sofsky describes as absolute. The sociologist turns to the social structure of the camp, that is, the prison hierarchy constructed in such a way that reverses any social order. Sofsky sees in the camp a sui generis experiment conducted by the Nazis on the human and social tissues, as a result of which a deep change within the human and his/her condition occurred. The author pays attention to the organisation of time and space of the camp, which is discussed in detail by the German sociologist. What happened in the camp – according to Sofsky – was the characteristic reversal of social roles and interpersonal relations. The examples of the new order are, among others, the power granted to prisoner functionaries by the Nazis or work that was not a manufacturing process but only one of the tools of terror and physical destruction.

Nazi Camp Speaking… Sur‑vivors Have Voice. Agnieszka Dauksza: Klub Auschwitz i inne kluby. Rwane opowieści przeżywców. Gdańsk, słowo/obraz terytoria, 2016, ss. 380.

Nazi Camp Speaking… is a review of Agnieszka Dauksza’s Klub Auschwitz i inne kluby. Rwane opowieści przeżywców. The book was published in Gdańsk in 2016. It stems from the interviews with ten former prisoners of Nazi German concentration camps. These conversations embrace a rather long time span, including the pre‑war times, then the period between 1939 and 1945, and finally present times. The reader is thus provided with the panoramic view on the character’s fates, who are being persistently dubbed as “sur‑vivors,” since they endured the reality of Nazi camps. Currently, these people form a dwindling and hermetic group, whose members struggle with their everyday lives and seek their place in the contemporary society, which – if one keeps in mind their experience of the wartime – is tremendously difficult.

“A Try for Completeness”. Sławomir Buryła: Wokół Zagłady. Szkice o literaturze Holokaustu. Kraków, Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych UNIVERSITAS, 2016, ss. 365.

The purpose of this review is to discuss the issues presented in Sławomir Buryła’s book, which are selected and clustered with regard to the diachronic and biographical perspectives, and originate in the readings of novels which have been artistically discredited, forgotten, and underrated. The review praises the meticulous register of sources used and the micrological approach adopted in the second part of the work, which also aims at reconstructing the biographies of the authors not included in the canon of Holocaust literature. The compendium of literary representations of the Shoah, which Buryła establishes in his book, indicates the incapacity of creating unconventional plots which – supported by the idiom of the author – would have allowed writers to articulate accurate judgements about the reality of the Holocaust, diverging from the accepted ethical norms. Moreover, the review emphasises the influence of poet(h)ics on the critical readings of both non‑fiction and fiction. Buryła, disputing the decisions of the authors related to the “forbidden representation,” points to the hegemony of popular culture which devalues the experience of the Shoah and makes the reflection upon marginality, liminality, and the ambivalent ethical choices impossible. Instead, he acknowledges the literary motifs derived from the works beyond mainstream and those which reside on the very limits of the canon: the narcissist and tasteless narrations treating the Holocaust as a pretext and a secondary issue. Finally, the review also notes the synthetic manner in which Buryła aims at classifying the threads and motifs of the Shoah, and establishing its undistorted, monumental, and complete image.