The experience of the “anti-Zionist campaign” from the autobiographical perspective of its victims

The aim of this article is to deepen the reflection on the ways in which the events of March ’68 in Poland are described by those who were targeted by the brutal anti-Semitic campaign of the period. The main analytical category used here is “experience” as proposed by Martin Jay, in which the distinction between Erfahrung and Erlebnis is of fundamental importance. The proposed analysis is primarily based on the previously unused interviews with members of what is known as the “post-March emigration” collected at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Those are extensively supplemented by references to the already published “March ’68 narratives” gathered by, among others, Joanna Wiszniewicz, Krystyna Naszkowska and Mikołaj Grynberg.