Cena życia. Rzecz o Sarze Nomberg-Przytyk

Abstract

This book is an attempt to present the biography of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, which is a story about a generation of pre-war communists disappointed with an ideological utopia. At the same time, her biography goes beyond this generation. The heroine, being a communist activist, often took stands which were not in accordance with the official program of the communist party. As a witness to history, but also as its active participant and commentator, in her autobiographical texts, Nomberg-Przytyk reflects upon her own life and analyzes it in a critical way. She became involved with two totalitarian systems of the 20th century, communism and Nazism. She devoted herself to the former and became an ardent supporter thereof, but she was the victim of the latter, a victim who survived in spite of the system’s assumptions. The character of Nomberg-Przytyk demands presentation because of being “an interesting case of a Polish-language author who is present in the international, especially American, canon of Holocaust literature, but is almost completely unknown in Poland”. Sara Nomberg-Przytyk’s biography was discussed by Holli Levitsky, Ewa Rogalewska and Laura Mincer. Information about Sara Nomberg-Przytyk was included in Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature and in Reference Guide to Holocaust Literature. Out of all the authors who wrote about the Białystok ghetto, Sara Nomberg-Przytyk is the only one present in the Holocaust Literature. An Encyclopedia of Writers and their Work. One of the objectives of this book is to make an attempt to present the complete biography of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk. Archival materials which had not been analyzed so far were used for this purpose. The collation of knowledge obtained from archives enable a presentation of Nomberg-Przytyk and her achievements from different points of view. This book unveils the discrepancy between the discourse of history and the discourse of memory in her texts. A significant reason for which Sara Nomberg-Przytyk is worth being presented is the place which her memories take among the few published testimonies about the Holocaust written by Jews from Białystok. Nomberg-Przytyk’s narration about the Shoah is also a valuable presentation of the perspective on a concentration camp, as seen through the eyes of a woman. The objective of this book is to make an attempt to interpret archival materials on the life and work of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk obtained from various sources. One of the main tasks is to answer the question of the transformations of her identity and causes of her metamorphoses. Four key factors which influenced the transformations of her identity are revealed in the autobiographical records by Nomberg-Przytyk. These factors were Jewish descent, involvement in communist activities, experiences of the Holocaust, and the fate of an emigrant. Sequentiality of the abovementioned factors, predominance of some of them during various periods of her life, their displacement, but also constant overlapping can be noticed. Her opposition to the values which she was taught at her family home, revolutionary involvement in the pre-war and post-war communist movement, and an attitude of active resistance in the face of her nation’s extermination were characteristic features which reveal Nomberg-Przytyk’s rebellious character. It was finally shown in the decision of breaking the silence and writing down her belated testimonies. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska assigns the works of Nomberg-Przytyk to Polish-Jewish literature available in English translations. Laura Mincer includes Więzienie było moim domem by Nomberg-Przytyk into the prison literature genre, hitherto not distinguished in the Polish literatury studies. Most often, however, works by Sara Nomberg-Przytyk are presented as examples of Holocaust literature recorded from a feminist perspective. The structure of this study is arranged chronologically. The first chapter presents the family environment of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk. It shows Sara’s polemics and remonstration with Hassidic religiosity against the roles of men and women. The chapter presents the influence of her grandfather, a rabbi, on the consciousness of the writer as a child and an adolescent. It focuses on the specificity of her childhood burdened with poliomyelitis and the suffering connected with the surgical procedures she underwent. This chapter presents the key role of Sara’s mother in the development of the young girl’s personality. The issue of national and cultural identity of Nomberg-Przytyk is discussed in the final part of the chapter. The second chapter is focused on Sara Nomberg-Przytyk’s way to the communist utopia and on the premises which prompted her to become involved in a left-wing movement. It is an attempt to assign Nomberg to a generation and to indicate her features which went beyond this generation. This chapter presents the consequences of her participation in an illegal communist movement; it describes the problems and the reality of two instances of her incarceration during the interwar period. The third chapter is of key importance. It touches upon two autobiographical records, Kolumny Samsona and Auschwitz. True Tales from a Grotesque Land. These texts present the process of extermination of Polish Jews as seen through the eyes of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, as well as her personal experiences from the times of the Shoah. This chapter is divided into three thematic parts. The first one describes her escape to the Soviet zone and her stay there between 1939 and 1941. It presents her involvement in educational work and attempts to build her personal life. The second part refers to the times of her isolation in the Białystok ghetto between 1941 and 1943. It shows the reality of living in a closed district, the friendships and acquaintances she made, as well as her assessment of the Judenrat and the resistance movement’s activity. The third theme refers to the experiences of Nomberg-Przytyk in Stuthoff, Auschwitz- Birkenau, and Ravensbrück concentration camps. She presents the image of Auschwitz-Birkenau from the point of view of a female prisoner who was brought to the extermination camp in 1944 and gained somew hat, privileged position. This chapter is also focused on describing the perpetrators, especially infamous Doctor Josef Mengele. It also raises the difficult issue of judging the motives of kapos in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The fourth chapter discusses the post-war life of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, her political involvement after returning to Lublin in 1945. It emphasizes her family life, her relationship with Andrzej Przytyk, and their children, personal desires and hopes for the rebirth of her life after being saved from the Holocaust. The chapter displays the sources of ideological, professional, and personal failures during various periods of her life in the Polish People’s Republic. This part of the study unveils the process of Nomberg-Przytyk’s growing awareness of the communist system’s faults and deformations. Chapter five presents the life of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk after her departure from Poland in 1968. It shows the difficult beginnings of starting a new life in the exile. The chapter raises the issue of national identity, a symbolic return to the Yiddish language and to Jewish roots. It also shows the degree to which the Auschwitz syndrome remains present in the consciousness of the author who was suspended between different countries and cultures. In this chapter, her migration experiences were complemented recollections of her friends and family. This study required combining many with research methods, drawn from such of study as biographism in literature, Holocaust historiography, sociological analysis, psychology of the Holocaust, as well as analysis of documents and autobiography. Biographism was adopted as the source of historical knowledge. This topic require a broad research perspective in order to take historical and social contexts into account. The texts by Nomberg-Przytyk which I have decided to analyze belong to the field of autobiography. I have adopted the definition of autobiography formulated by Roman Zimand and the method of biographical analysis developed by Lejeune, and Małgorzata Czermińska. Reference materials from several archives were analyzed in this book. Search queries made the State Archives in Lublin allowed the finding of handwritten biographies by Nomberg, but also opinions of communist party activists and authorities on Sara Nomberg-Przytyk and Andrzej Przytyk. These documents reveal numerous discrepancies and inconsistencies as to, for example, the date and place of her birth and the spelling of her name. The query at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw provided the new information about the name of Nomberg’s first husband which she would not disclose in other post-war documents. Testimonies of prisoners about the saving of Sara Nomberg were found at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Archives. Search queries of files on Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, her husband, and children conducted at the Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw and Bialystok allowed to find out when and where she had crossed the Polish border in 1968, what actions the authorities took during the departure of her and her family, as well as the date of her receiving the status of a stateless person. Nomberg’s matriculation certificate and several other documents from the interwar period were found at the Archives University of Warsaw. The author of this study has obtained the file of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, the journalist (she is listed under this name). The file provided information on Nomberg-Przytyk’s work for a newspaper. The only copy of the Polish-language typescript of Nomberg-Przytyk’s memoirs, deposited upon being rejected by publishers in Lublin 1968, was obtained from the Yad Vashem Archives the publishers. Interviews with Sara Nomberg-Przytyk conducted by Maud Chamberland between November 24, 1988, and February 26, 1990, provide additional information on the writers. A Master’s thesis presented at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada was written of the basis on those interviews. Conversations with Sara Nomberg-Przytyk recorded near the end of her life created a rich and quite a unique autobiographical material on the evolution her views and experiences. The author of this study failed to reach a number of sources which still remain undiscovered, i.e. documents deposited at the Archive in Grodno, where documents that confirm Sara Nomberg’s activity in the Soviet zone are probably stored. It may be presumed that the archival materials will provide more information on her first husband and her family situation at that time.