Abstract
This chapter focuses on Kindertransport children who were rescued from the Free City of Danzig between May and August 1938, and who found safe haven in Britain. The chapter looks at jingoistic rage that dominated a debate which erupted in Gdańsk in 2009 following the erection of a memorial devoted to these young survivors. The debate around the memorial, which was a brainchild of the late city mayor, Paweł Adamowicz, showed how liberal-style municipal governance could also antagonize some sections of the local community.
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Notes
- 1.
See Rebekka Göpfert, “Kindertransport: History and Memory”, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 23/1 (2004): 21–27.
- 2.
See Henryk Stępniak, Ludność polska w Wolnym Mieście Gdańsku, 1920–1939 (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Diecezji Gdańskiej ‘Stella Maris’, 1991); Gershon C. Bacon, Vivian B. Mann, and Joseph Gutmann, Danzig Jewry: A Short History (New York: Jewish Museum, 1980).
- 3.
See an excellent monograph which looks at these practices in the context of Breslau/Wrocław: Gregor Thum, Die Fremde Stadt: Breslau, 1945 (Berlin: Siedler, 2003).
- 4.
For one of the most important essays on this trend in Polish literature, see Przemysław Czapliński, “Literatura małych ojczyzn – koniec i początek”, in Andrzej Lam and Tomasz Wroczyński (eds.), Pisać poza rok 2000. Studia i szkice literackie (Warszawa: Elipsa, 2002), 110–127.
- 5.
For an analysis of Huelle’s work against the wider backdrop of his contemporaries, see Irene Sywenky, “Representations of German-Polish Border Regions in Contemporary Polish Fiction: Space, Memory, Identity”, German Politics and Society 109/31 (2013): 65–66.
- 6.
Arjun Appadurai, “Fear of Small Numbers”, in Jennifer Harding and E. Deidre Pribram (eds.), Emotions: A Cultural Studies Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 236.
- 7.
Emphasis is mine. See Halina Gomułka et al., “Apel do Rady Miasta Gdańska w sprawie Pomnika Pomordowanych Dzieci Polskich w latach 1939–45”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 25 May 2009.
- 8.
See, for example, Maria Bucur, Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth-Century Romania (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009).
- 9.
Emphasis is mine. Halina Gomułka et al., “Apel do Rady Miasta Gdańska w sprawie Pomnika Pomordowanych Dzieci Polskich w latach 1939–45”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 25 May 2009.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Andrzej Fic, “Wstępne ujęcie zakresu tematycznego do opracowania idei Pomnika Pomordowanych Dzieci Polskich”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 10 July 2009.
- 12.
This cliché became particularly popular in the nineteenth century and was spread further after the publication of the hoax text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which described the purported Jewish plans to dominate the world. For a long time since its publication in the beginning of the twentieth century, The Protocols served as a justification for anti-Semitic outbursts, not only in Poland but also elsewhere.
- 13.
See, for example, Avraham Barkai, “Der Kapitalist”, in Julius H. Schoeps and Joachim Schlör (eds.), Antisemitismus. Vorurteile und Mythen (München and Zürich: Piper, 1995), 265–272; Peter Niedermüller, “Der Kommunist”, in ibid., 272–278.
- 14.
For a discussion of how such social emotions are organized, see, for example, Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 1–2.
- 15.
See Ewa Stańczyk, “Recycling the Orphan Photograph: The New Life of Jewish Objects”, Visual Studies 31/1 (2016): 63–76.
- 16.
Karen C. Underhill, “Next Year in Drohobych: On the Uses of Jewish Absence”, East European Politics and Societies 25 (2011): 582–583.
- 17.
See Joanna Michlic, “‘Remembering to Remember,’ ‘Remembering to Benefit,’ ‘Remembering to Forget’: The Variety of Memories of Jews and the Holocaust in Postcommunist Poland”, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 3 January 2012, http://jcpa.org/article/remembering-to-remember-remembering-to-benefit-remembering-to-forget-the-variety-of-memories-of-jews-and-the-holocaust-in-postcommunist-poland/ [accessed 10 August 2017].
- 18.
Michael Meng, Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland (Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Harvard University Press, 2011), 10.
- 19.
Mark, The Unfinished Revolution, xvi.
- 20.
Andrzej Fic, “Szyderstwo czy prowokacja”, Gazeta Polska (18 August 2009).
- 21.
Mieczysław Abramowicz, “Podróż życia. W siedemdziesiątą rocznicę Kindertransportów”, 30 Dni 2/82 (2009): 12–22. Aside from the transport that left the Free City of Danzig and travelled by train to the Hook of Holland near Rotterdam to then board a ferry to the British port of Harwich, there were also three transports from the Polish port of Gdynia by sea on board the steamer “Warszawa”. See Jennifer Craig-Norton, “The Polish Kinder and the Struggle for Identity”, in Andrea Hammel and Bea Lewkowicz (eds.), The Kindertransport to Britain 1938/39: New Perspectives (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012), 29–46.
- 22.
Danuta Janczarek, “Dotyczy wniosku nr 43-11/120-30/2009”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives (BPK-00570/11/09), 21 September 2009.
- 23.
Andrzej Fic, “Dotyczy: odpowiedzi Prezydenta Miasta Gdańska (BPK-00570/11/09)”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 30 October 2009.
- 24.
See Małgorzata Pakier and Bo Stråth, “Introduction. A European Memory?” in A European Memory? Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance, 11–12.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
Paweł Adamowicz, “Dotyczy: pisma z dnia 30 października 2009”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives (BPK-761/109/319852), 30 November 2009.
- 27.
Andrzej Fic, “Dotyczy: pisma z 30 listopada 2009 r.”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 21 December 2009.
- 28.
Emphasis is mine. Andrzej Fic, “Dotyczy: uzupełnienia wniosku do Komisji Rewizyjnej”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 7 January 2010.
- 29.
Andrzej Fic, “Dotyczy: Protokołu nr 35-11/2009 z posiedzenia Komisji Rewizyjnej Rady Miasta Gdańska”, Gdańsk, City Council Archives, 9 February 2010.
- 30.
Stefan Grabski and Bogdan Oleszek, “BRMG-0065/KR-I/1-8/9904410/BP”, Gdańsk, The City Council Archives, 31 March 2010.
- 31.
Joanna Regulska, “Governance or Self-Governance in Poland? Benefits and Threats 20 Years Later”, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 22/4 (2009): 544.
- 32.
Marzena Klimowicz-Sikorska, “Flash mob przy dworcu. Gimnazjaliści pamiętają o Kindertransportach”, http://www.trojmiasto.pl/wiadomosci/Flash-mob-przy-dworcu-Gimnazjalisci-pamietaja-o-Kindertransportach-n70123.html [accessed 26 September 2016].
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Stańczyk, E. (2019). Jingoistic Rage: The Kindertransport Memorial in Gdańsk. In: Commemorating the Children of World War II in Poland. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32262-5_6
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