<p>Sara Nomberg-Przytyk’s “memoir in piece” is one of the most important ego documents of a Polish-Jewish woman’s life in the twentieth century. Nomberg-Przytyk spreads out before us the richness and contradictions of Polish-Jewish existence in communist Poland. Her multi-layered life is filled with immense personal and communal losses during the Holocaust, post-war pains and joys of love, marriage, and motherhood, and swift success as a Jewish female investigative journalist under the communist regime. Nomberg-Przytyk, a descendent of a religious Jewish family from Lublin, an Auschwitz survivor, a communist believer who would undergo an ideological transformation in the 1960s during the anti-Zionist/anti-Jewish campaign, poignantly shows how an individual’s life suffers at the hands of great historical forces. Nomberg-Przytyk’s memoir, impressively annotated, is a must-read for everyone in the fields of European History, the Holocaust, Gender, and Memories studies.</p>

- Joanna Michlic, University College London,

<p>Communist Poland: A Jewish Woman’s Experience is a breathtaking memoir of Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, a Polish Jewish journalist born and raised in an Orthodox family during rabid anti-Semitism in Catholic Poland before WWII, imprisoned at Auschwitz, committed to communism in her naïve desire to rid Poland of anti-Semitism and social inequities, then destroyed by the same communism for being a Jew, and forced to emigrate to Israel stripped of the citizenship of the country to which she devoted most of her life and all of her professional passions. The book editors Holli Levitsky and Justyna Włodarczyk created a masterful text providing extraordinary rich and nuanced historical detail and context to Sara’s memoir. Both the memoir and the extensive historical annotations make this text an important insightful historical document about those dramatic times, with superb quality of writing – making the book hard to put down. </p>

- Bohdan Oppenheim, Loyola Marymount University,

Communist Poland: A Jewish Woman’s Experience is the first-person account by Jewish journalist Sara Nomberg-Przytyk of surviving Auschwitz then rising to various leadership roles in the newly-formed postwar Polish Communist Party. Building a just and equitable Poland for the common Pole through communism was her dream. The reality was neither simple nor successful. Working for heavily censored newspapers and periodicals, Nomberg-Przytyk witnessed firsthand the inner workings of a communist government plagued by the same Kafkaesque bureaucracy and antisemitism that she had been certain it would fix. Her memoir provides a comprehensive account as she slowly changed from enthusiastic practitioner to witness of a system that failed her and many others. This is the first published edition of this text, originally recorded as oral testimony in Polish but translated into English by Paula Parsky, and includes a critical introduction by the co-editors, American and Polish academics Holli Levitsky and Justyna Wlodarczyk, as well as extensive annotations.
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This annotated edition of Holocaust survivor Sara Nomberg-Przytyk's postwar memoir follows her life as an investigative journalist during the emergence and deterioration of the communist state in Poland. Once a devoted communist herself, Nomberg-Przytyk recounts how antisemitism and government corruption shattered her illusions.
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Table of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1 My First Day in the New PolandChapter 2 A Piece of White BreadChapter 3 An Armed Soldier at the Door of the Party Committee of LublinChapter 4 A Parade of People and PortraitsChapter 5 My First VictoryChapter 6 I Meet My Destined OneChapter 7 Small Candles Among the RuinsChapter 8 Old Friends in the New PolandChapter 9 The Kielce PogromChapter 10 You Don’t Know MeChapter 11 A New JobChapter 12 Why We Needed a 99% Majority in the ElectionsChapter 13 Tell Me—Is It Possible?Chapter 14 The Miracle in LublinChapter 15 The Ruins of the War Will Disappear; In Their Places New Houses Will StandChapter 16 You Are Going to DieChapter 17 I Want To, But My Wife Doesn’tChapter 18 The Light in the Shadows of the New TimesChapter 19 Threat of Provocation Looming Over My HeadChapter 20 The Death of a DictatorChapter 21 Nothing has Changed - ‘The Jews are Guilty’Chapter 22 Opportunism Wins OutChapter 23 At the New JobChapter 24 In the Chains of BureaucracyChapter 25 New Schools and Water in Peasant Houses – Optimistic Accents in the 1960sChapter 26 Is This the Role of a Journalist in Poland?Chapter 27 My First BookChapter 28 The Pillars of SamsonChapter 29 Jews in AuschwitzChapter 30 The Six-Day WarChapter 31 Feelings of Terror and Insecurity ReturnChapter 32 The Polish Spring of 1968Chapter 33 A Beilis-like Trial Against My HusbandChapter 34 We Can No Longer Eat Bread Full of WormsChapter 35 As Though After a PogromChapter 36 The Last Stage of Our ExodusChapter 37 On the RoadChapter 38 The Day of Escape for Jews in PolandEpilogue I am at Home
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781498577502
Publisert
2022-03-03
Utgiver
Vendor
Lexington Books
Vekt
508 gr
Høyde
237 mm
Bredde
163 mm
Dybde
21 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
254

Oversetter

Om bidragsyterne

Holli Levitsky is founder and director of the Jewish Studies Program and professor of English at Loyola Marymount University.

Justyna Włodarczyk is associate professor and chair of the Department of North American Cultures and Literatures at the University of Warsaw.