Communist Poland

Holli Levitsky is founder and director of the Jewish Studies Program and professor of English at Loyola Marymount University. Justyna Wlodarczyk is associate professor and chair of the Department of North American Cultures and Literatures at the University of Warsaw.

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.

• 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