Seared into memory

HISTORY: Rediscovering Traces of Memory: The Jewish Heritage of Polish GaliciaBy Jonathan Webberand Chris Schwarz, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford, and Indiana University Press, 186pp. £15.95

IN 1988, NOT much more than a kilometre from Auschwitz, Jonathan Webber discovered a warehouse, once a small synagogue, with plaques in Hebrew hidden under piles of carpets. All local memory of it had been lost. This inspired him to research traces of Jewish life in Galicia in southern Poland. At a time when some deny the fact of the Holocaust or seek to downplay its effects, perhaps the most effective response is to recall the world it destroyed. Throughout central Europe are ruined synagogues or Jewish graveyards that testify to lost communities.

This astonishing book is a collaboration between Webber, a professor of social anthropology at Oxford and Birmingham, and Chris Schwarz, a photojournalist who used the proceeds of the sale of his flat in Brighton to establish the Galicia Jewish Museum in Cracow in 2004.

In 1993 Webber and Schwarz began collaborating on a project, Traces of Memory, aimed at identifying and recording remains of Jewish culture in Galicia. Sadly, Schwarz died of cancer in 2007, and this book is dedicated to his memory.

Here we are shown, through photographs and descriptions, what remains of a Jewish heritage still to be found in Poland, more than 60 years after the Holocaust.

The photography is outstanding, adding much to the poignancy of what the images portray. One picture shows a clearing in dense forest; a fenced area at the centre is lit by sunlight. It seems an image of tranquillity until one reads that this is the site of a mass grave of 800 children from the Jewish orphanage in the nearby city of Tarnów. In another we see an empty field bordered by trees and the long shadows of a summer’s evening. It is the site of Belzec, a death camp where about 450,000 Jews were gassed in 1942. Fewer than 10 survived.

A complex subject has been imaginatively handled by dividing the book into five sections suggesting different ways of approaching it. There is a profound sadness in the encounter with the ruins, such as empty synagogues and shattered graveyards. Then we have the opportunity to connect with an exceptionally vigorous and vibrant Jewish civilisation – reflected in the variety of traces, from a courtyard in the Jewish quarter of Cracow to Hebrew inscriptions above buildings, to restored synagogues.

There is a sense of horror at the destruction and suffering brought by the Holocaust, with an exploration of buildings such as the camp at Auschwitz or a remaining section of the wall of the Cracow ghetto.

Section four explores varied ways of coping with the past, including the desire to forget it. At the Rema synagogue, where tombstones were too badly damaged to know where they belonged, they were incorporated into a memorial wall, while in another image we see a Holocaust monument daubed with a Nazi slogan in a Jewish cemetery in Wieliczka.

In the final section we are shown the work of individuals and institutions committed to preserving the memory of the Polish Jewish culture, in museums, commemorations and conferences.

We can approach this wonderful book in several ways. One could simply look at the photographs and their informative captions. However, each caption leads on to more extensive notes at the back, which in turn often point the reader to sources for further information.

Webber, whose narrative is thoughtful and understated, deals sensitively with relations between Poles and their Jewish past, pointing out that much of the history of the war is still contested and remembered differently. A striking symbol is a photograph of two monuments in the forest of Zbylitowska Góra, within a stone’s throw of each other, commemorating separate occasions when Jews and Poles were shot in mass graves. The Polish state erected one and the small community of local Jewish survivors the other.

On the other hand, Webber points to efforts to educate the young about Poland’s Jewish past, and pays tribute to the assistance of non-Jewish Poles who assisted in identifying buildings and names, pulling from their wallets faded pre-war photos of Jewish friends and neighbours.

This is a beautiful and informative book that provides an inspiring introduction to Poland’s Jewish heritage.

Carla King is a lecturer in modern history at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, in Dublin