BARBARA ENGELKING
Originally “Organizowanie pomocy dla Żydów po ‘aryjskiej’ stronie Warszawy, Przegląd Historyczny CXI 2020 zesz. 3, pp. 571-591
Translated with introduction and commentary by Gunnar S. Paulsson, 2024
Introduction
Barbara Engelking is the founder and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies – Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów (CBŻZ). A sociologist with a PhD from the University of Warsaw, she is also a member of the Polish academy of science, the author of a trilogy on the experiences of Jews during the Holocaust and several short books. I first met her at the conference in Warsaw on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1993. I arranged the translation of her book, Holocaust and Memory (Leicester University Press, 2000), and she and Jacek Leociak returned the favour as the co-editors of the revised Polish edition of mine, Utajone miasto: Zydzi po ‘aryjskiej’ stronie Warszawy 1940-1945 (Znak, 2007). As she notes, “This text arose within the framework of the research project of the National Science Centre no. 2016/21/B/HS3/00577, “Hiding in Warsaw on the ‘Aryan side’ 1940-1945.” – the exact subject of my book, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945 (Yale University Press, 2002), and almost the exact title of the doctoral dissertation it was based on, Hiding in Warsaw: The Jews on the ‘Aryan side’ in the Polish Capital, 1940-1945 (Oxford, 1998).
It is somewhat strancge, then, that she appears to know nothing at all of the subject matter of my book, and does not even mention the sources it is based on, showcased on this website. She writes: “In this article I will concentrate on certain aspects of the activity of the only such established network in Poland (and in Poland generally) – the Council to aid Jews.”
Engelking writes from a very Polish point of view
Organizing aid to the Jews on the Aryan side in Occupied Warsaw*[1]
Thousands of Jews lived in hiding on the Aryan side in Warsaw during the Hitlerite occupation.[2] Some of them helped each other mutually, keeping up contacts and creating a self-help network. Such Jewish networks, called natural ones, were created by family members, friends or migrants who came to Warsaw from other cities, seeking anonymity. A different kind of network – affiliative – was formed by Jews and Pole linked by a common outlooks or ideology (e.g. political parties) and who helped those in hiding, as it were incidentally to their other activity. Networks arose on the basis of personal contacts and trust, which grew with time and increasing needs and helped ever more Jews. From the beginning of the occupation, help to the Jews was individual in character (family, friendship, neighbourly) or within various milieux – a great deal has already been written about help between journalists, physicians, members of the Warsaw Housing Co-operative, prof. Baleja’s students or socialists. In this text, I will look into yet another kind of aid – an established network, in other words one that became organized by undergound subjects solely and exclusively with the aim of helping Jews living in hiding, and which grew, taking on the character of an organized, planned action.
In this article I will concentrate on certain aspects of the activity of the only such established network in Poland (and in Poland generally) – the Council to aid Jews.
[1] * This text arose within the framework of the research project of the National Science Centre no. 2016/21/B/HS3/00577, “Hiding in Warsaw on the ‘Aryan side’ 1940-1945”
[2] Estimates of their number range from 15,000-20,000 (GUTMAN, KRAKOWSKI 1986 p.195) to 28,000 (PAULSSON 2009)