THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY

JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM

Cordially invites you to a lecture by

Bożena Szaynok

(Wrocław University)

The Polish- Jewish relations in Poland after WWII (1945-1989)

The lecture discusses the relation between Poles and  Jews in post war Poland (1944-1989). The chronology covers the period, which is characterized by different kind of limitations in the state and society activity resulting from communist undemocratic system, introduced in Poland after WWII. All of them influenced on contacts between people. The subject of my research will be presented in several parts, organized according to the chronology.  The first one begins in July 1944, when military activity was over in the eastern part of Poland. In the lecture the post war reality will be discussed as well as consequences of the WWII on the stances and ways of thinking presented by Poles and Jews in post war time. This part of my reflection finishes two years later, in June 1946, because the separate chapter is pogrom of Jews in Kielce on July 4, 1946. The issue of post war Anti-Semitism will be analyzed in this part of the lecture. The next period covers the years of the height of Stalinism in Poland, from 1947 and ends with the death of Stalin in March 1953. This part of the reflection presents the situation of the Jews in Poland living in the shadow of anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti- Zionist policy conducted by Stalin. The following time span comprises the years of the “thaw” till about the end of 1960s. In the case of Poland, we have to devote the separate place to the events of summer 1967 and so – called March events in 1968, because what happened in Poland at that time had a great influence on the relations between Poles and Jews. The last part of my lecture on Poles and Jews is connected with the decades:  1970s and 1980s. 

Tuesday, February 7 at 6 p.m.

Gellner Room, Monument Building

Bożena Szaynok – lecturer in the Department of History at Wrocław University. Books: Jewish pogrom in Kielce 4 VII 1946 (Warsaw 1991); Jews in Lower Silesia 1945-1950 (Wrocław 2000), With History and Moscow in the background. Poland –Israel 1944-1968 (Warszawa 2007) as well as numerous articles on Polish-Jewish relations, Polish-Israeli relations and history of Jews in Poland after 1945 publishing in Polish, English and Hebrew (e.g. in Yad Vashem Studies, Gal-Ed, Polin). The member of International Council of Museum of the History of Polish Jews.