“The Righteous and the Survivors in literary testimony”: an account
The first of a series of debates devoted to the Righteous Among the Nations, organized as part of the project “Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History” by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, took place on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Righteous Karol Kuryluk (October 5th, 2010).
In the debate “The Righteous and the Survivors in literary testimony” participated his daughter, writer and artist Ewa Kuryluk, the writer Wilhelm Dichter and Dr. Jacek Leociak, Holocaust scholar. The discussion was moderated by Anna Bikont from the newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza”.
During the meeting, Ewa Kuryluk spoke about her father, who rescued Jews – among them her future mother – during the Second World War. She also described how in her books she tried to reconstruct the past that was never discussed in her family as long as her father lived.
Wilhelm Dichter mainly described his personal experience of being hidden by a Ukrainian and a Polish family in Borysław. Jacek Leociak shared with the audience his experiences connected with the act of writing a book about people who rescued Jews during the war.
All interlocutors emphasized the fact that both the rescuers and the rescued were often afraid not only of the Nazis, but also of other Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians, who could have denounced them. They were also afraid of children, who could have denounced the Jews to the Nazis even unconsciously or for fun – Wilhelm Dichter was really scared of such children.
During the meeting other problems were also discussed, such as the question of gratitude and ingratitude of the Jews for the help they received and the issue of the shame of the Righteous and their reluctance to make their heroic deeds public – a reluctance that, as it turns out, often lasts to this day.
The project “Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History” is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the program Civic Initiatives Fund, and is co-financed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland as part of the cyclical program "Promotion of knowledge about Poland".
The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Polish Culture and Heritage
