Żydzi Wschodniej Polski. Seria IX: Dziecko żydowskie

Abstract

The presented volume contains studies and sketches written for the IX International Scientific Conference in the series “Jews of Eastern Poland”, scheduled for May 2020, devoted to the topic of “The Jewish Child”. Meetings of scholars conducted at Łukasz Górnicki Podlasie Library in May or June have already become a tradition. The ninth edition of this scientific project was to take place in 2020. However, due to the pandemic, the form of the conference had to be modified. Initially scheduled for 18 and 19 May 2020, the session was held in absentia on 18 May. The team of academics had been asked earlier in April to submit papers on the topic of “The Jewish Child” for the ninth volume of project. As always, all the participants rose to the challenge. Research problems of the conference entitled “The Jewish Child. Images – testimonies – cultural background” were formulated as follows: –The Jewish child of Eastern Europe in literary and artistic representations. – Transformations of the place and image of the Jewish child in culture. – Jewish Children and the History of Central and Eastern Europe. – A child of the shtetl, a child of the ghetto. – Children of the Białystok ghetto (1941–1943). – Iconography of the Jewish child in Poland and neighbouring countries. – Religious, cultural, historical and linguistic contexts of the representation of the figure of the Jewish child. – Cultural texts created by children, texts about children written by adults. – The Jewish child as an emigrant, immigrant, refugee. – Female and male aspects of the social functioning of Jewish children. – The Jewish child of Białystok, Podlasie and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As in previous years, the conference had a patron, this time a collective one: the Children of the Białystok Ghetto (1941–1943). The Organisational Committee was chaired by Grażyna Dawidowicz, Ph.D. from King Casimir the Great Secondary School No. 8 in Białystok, and – as usual – Prof. Jarosław Ławski (University of Białystok). The Conference Programme was prepared and printed. Due to the impossibility of organising a conventional, stationary meeting,both chairpersons of the Organising Committee sent a letter to the participants (published in the Programme), dated 23 April 2020, which reads: “The situation academic communities and the world in general are facing is unprecedented. The coronavirus pandemic has made it impossible to hold a session of our conference, which will soon be celebrating its 10th anniversary, in the usual way. The experiences in organising videoconferences do not give grounds for optimism due to various technical difficulties and shortcomings. In addition, the very idea of our conference has been to meet in person once a year! Throughout the years, a team of scholars, sharing close affinity with one another, has been formed. Every year, the team is joined by new members from an increasingly younger generation and foreign guests. The latter were discouraged by the prospect of travelling at the time of the pandemic, which is understandable. However, we do not intend to give up in this difficult situation. We wish to uphold the tradition of our meetings. For this reason, we have decided to organise the sessions in absentia. In order to make it happen, we kindly request that you submit your papers, which will be used for the purposes of our 9th Academic Conference: The Jewish Child, Images – Testimonies – Cultural background. The conference will be held symbolically on 18 May 2020”. Our request for the submission of papers was met with a favourable feedback from the scholars. The submitted works have been grouped into five chapters: Chapter I (Introductions) presents texts related to the collective patron of the Conference – the Children of the Bialystok Ghetto (1941–1943). Chapter II (Under Oppression: The Holocaust) shows the life, death and liberation of Jewish children in the era of the Holocaust in different contexts. Chapter III (Echoes of the Nineteenth Century) addresses the issue of Jewish children in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Chapter IV (The Interwar Period) is devoted to the childhood of Polish Jews as described in memoirs and the press. Chapter V (Towards the present) focuses on 20th-century Polish and Russian literary representations of Jewish childhood. The volume was edited Grażyna Dawidowicz, Ph.D., a Białystok-based Holocaust educator and researcher, author of a monograph on Sara Nomberg--Przytyk, and Prof. Jarosław Ławski – head of the East-West Philological Studies Department at the University of Białystok, which organises cyclical conferences on “Jews of Eastern Poland”. The Tenth Conference will be held in September 2021 and will be devoted to the topic: “Jerusalem in the culture of Central and Eastern European Jews. City – Myth – Literature” (Białystok, 23 September 2021).