The House at Ujazdowskie 16: Jewish Families in Warsaw after the Holocaust

Acknowledgements

xi A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S This project has benefited from the assistance and generosity of many individuals. I would like first of all to express my gratitude to Antony Polonsky, whose guidance and wealth of knowledge as my doctoral advisor at Brandeis University influenced every aspect of this book. David Cesarani, ChaeRan Freeze, Seamus O’Hanlon, Jonathan Plaut, Jonathan Sarna, and Eugene Sheppard provided feedback on all or parts of themanuscript.ThesteadfastsupportofMarcBrettlerandEllieKellman helped make it possible to see this project through to completion, and MichaelSteinlauf’sworkonpostwarPolandpointedmetowarddoctoral studies. Israel Bartal and Gabriella Safran commented on sections of the dissertation on which this book is based as part of the International Forum of Young Scholars on East European Jewry, as did David Biale, Laura Levitt, and other participants in the Posen Summer Seminar on Approaches to Jewish Secularism. Sylvia Fuks Fried was always willing to offer helpful advice. Deborah Dash Moore’s comments significantly improved this book, and she facilitated its publication as coeditor of IndianaUniversityPress ’sModernJewishExperienceseries.Iamindebted as well to the late Paula Hyman, who was the series’ coeditor, and to its current coeditor, Marsha Rozenblit, for their comments. This book would not have been possible without the support of Janet Rabinowitch at Indiana University Press, where Peter Froehlich and Nancy Lightfoot alsoshepherdedmethroughthepublishingprocessandfreelancerCarol Kennedy copyedited the manuscript. xii acknowledgments I pursued this project in several wonderfully supportive environments . I benefited from the insights of colleagues at the University of Southampton in England and the religious studies faculty at Virginia Tech, and I completed the final stages of writing at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where new colleagues in the European history researchsupportgroupgavethoughtfulfeedback,andwheretheAustralianCentreforJewishCivilisationprovidedmewithahomeontheother side of the world. Conny Aust, Michael Cohen, Adam Mendelsohn, Simon Rabinovitch, Monika Rice, David Slucki, Melissa Weininger, and Kalman Weiser have helped to form a collegial circle in Jewish studies. I am especially grateful to the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where a postdoctoral fellowship in 2010–2011 gave me the needed time to write this book, and to the AmericanCouncilofLearnedSocieties,theAmericanSocietyforJewish Heritage in Poland, the Kościuszko Foundation, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, andtheDepartmentofNearEasternandJudaicStudiesatBrandeisUniversity for grants and fellowships that funded my research and training. Previous versions of portions of chapter 4 of this book appeared in “‘Nusekh Poyln’? Communism, Publishing, and Paths to Polishness among the Jewish Parents of 16 Ujazdowskie Avenue,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 24: 275–297, 2012. Previous versions of portions of chapter 6 and the epilogue appeared in “Elders Transmit Holocaust Memory in Vivid Detail to Younger Interviewers: In Warsaw, Ghetto Buildings Are a Palimpsest of the Past,” Forward [New York, N.Y.], April 16, 1999, 15; “Youngsters Rebuild Life in Poland, Then Decamp for Israel, America: A Revival Turns Complicated in a Haunted Land,” Forward [New York, N.Y.], December 18, 1998, 1; and “Natan Cywiak, 81, Was Stalwart of Warsaw Synagogue,” Forward [New York, N.Y.], May 28, 1999, 6. I am deeply indebted to my interviewees, who were generous with their time as they helped to reconstruct their family histories. This work would not have been possible without the assistance of the “children” of Ujazdowskie16andtheirrelatives:MarianAdler,HalinaAdler-Bramley, Lena Bergman, Feliks Falk, Krystyna Heldwein, Bernard Krutz, Jurek Neftalin, Włodek Paszyński, Szymon Rudnicki, Jan and Franek Sławny, Piotr Sztuczyński, Liliana Tyszelman, and the late Zofia Zarębska. I am acknowledgments xiii particularly grateful to Marian Adler and Halina Adler-Bramley for allowing me access to their parents’ personal papers. At the Jewish Historical Institute, which provided me with an academic home in Warsaw, I was assisted by many individuals, especially Edyta Kurek, Monika Natkowska-Tarasowa, Yale Reisner, Agnieszka Reszka, and Feliks Tych. I am continuously inspired by their dedication . Monika Krawczyk has accompanied me through many years of friendship and conversations about postwar Polish Jewish life since my earliest research. I am grateful for the insights and camaraderie of Natalia Aleksiun, Robyn Berman, Michał Bilewicz, August Grabski, Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov, Martyna Rusyniak, Piotr Rytka-Zandberg, Albert Stankowski, Karolina Szymaniak, Marcin Urynowicz, Wendy Widom, Zosia Wóycicka, and Kasia Żarnecka-Lasota during numerous extended stays in Warsaw. I also benefited from conversations with and assistance from Jerzy W. Borejsza, Helena Datner, Stanisław Krajewski, AdamRok,HannaWęgrzynek,andAndrzejŻbikowski.ThelateJoanna Wiszniewicz looked after me in Warsaw, and...