“Looking at the Warsaw Ghetto”
Looking at the Warsaw Ghetto, another publication under the Museum’s patronage, is a combination of an author’s guide, historic essay and anthology of source texts with lavish artwork. The book contains about 150 unique archival photos, most of them published for the first time. The contemporary, atmospheric photos of Maciej Jeziorek suit the book perfectly, depicting the district of Muranów as a “Place left after the ghetto”, where the rare traces of the lost world emerge from new estates and streets vibrant with life. The author writes in the introduction: Although the Warsaw ghetto was wiped off the surface of the earth, its strong and deep roots are still present under the asphalt of the new streets, under the sidewalks paved with sett stones, under the green estate lawns. The historic maps of the streets described in the author’s commentary of Jacek Leociak are a valuable supplement of the book.
The publication focuses on six streets in the district of Muranów: Krochmalna, Leszno, Karmelicka, Nowolipie, Miła, Stawki-Umschlagplatz – chosen and arranged in a way to present the life in the ghetto, its transformations, its gradual narrowing and final extermination. The author takes his readers on a tour of these unique places, using various sources: testimonies written during the Second World War, memoirs published after many years, German, Jewish and Polish documentation, press clippings, prewar photos as well as pictures made during the war and contemporary ones. The testimonies from the ghetto underground Ringelblum Archive are extremely valuable.
Among other features deserving special attention is the book’s design by Katarzyna Kubicka – an original project with an ascetic form similar to an album, so that the rich iconographic material would be fully emphasized. Each chapter, corresponding to one of the six Muranów streets, has been presented in a separate booklet. The whole is connected by a holder, which is the actual cover of the book.
Dr Jacek Leociak (Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, IBL PAN) – co-creator of the concept of the “Holocaust” gallery of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. His research interests focus on the 20th century literature, mostly literary and non-literary testimonies and accounts of border-line experiences, on Holocaust and genocide in Polish Culture – in the context of the European history and cultural anthropology. Since 2004 director of the research group of the Holocaust Literature Research Center, since 2003 member of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since 1999 member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
