Books Briefly

Janek Gryta, Jews and Poles in the Holocaust Exhibitions of Kraków, 1980–2013: Between Urban Past and National Memory (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), xiv +148 pp., photographs, bibliographical references, index. ISBN 978-3-030-38978-9 (hbk), 978-3-030-38979-6 (ebk).This slim but ambitious volume joins an emerging body of scholarship that problematizes two widely accepted generalizations. First, it reconsiders the notion that the fall of the Polish communist regime in 1989 constitutes a caesura separating Holocaust amnesia under the communists from Holocaust anamnesis in a new, democratic Poland. “Contrary to an assumption still widespread in scholarship,” Janek Gryta argues, “the events of 1989 had little, if any, impact on Holocaust memory” in Poland (p. 5). Or, as he bluntly puts it later in the book, “The year 1989 symbolises a non-breakthrough for Holocaust memory in Poland” (p. 98). Second, his book questions the idea that the incorporation of cosmopolitan values such as inclusivity into memory work on the Holocaust was “an American/Western European invention which spread to the East after the fall of the Iron Curtain” (p. 1). To develop his argument, Gryta draws on Holocaust-related museum exhibitions in Kraków. As he reminds us (we tend to forget such things), Poland's first stand-alone Holocaust museum, the Eagle Pharmacy, opened in Kraków in 1983. It was created by a group of local activists who found ways to bypass government policies. Gryta's research also enables him to trace the emergence of cosmopolitan memory work on the Holocaust “in local efforts rather than Western pressure” and to counter the criticism that cosmopolitanism reflects a disdain for the local (p. 14; here, his account would have benefited from the moral philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah's work on rooted cosmopolitanism, a concept that was also advocated by Hannah Arendt). The centerpiece of his book is a sensitive though not uncritical discussion of Kraków's Memory Trail. Completed in 2013, it includes Oskar Schindler's Factory and the redesigned Eagle Pharmacy Museum. With this book, Gryta makes a compelling case for a quietly subversive approach to cultural memory studies that does not allow analyses of “state politics and the discourse of leading public intellectuals” to overshadow the on-the-ground work performed by memory activists (p. 16). (hf)Elisa-Maria Hiemer, Jiří Holý, Agata Firlej, and Hana Nichtburgerová, eds., Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction: Works and Contexts (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021), x + 505 pp., bibliographical references, index of names, index of topics, motifs, images, places, and devices. ISBN 978-3-11-066725-7 (hbk), 978-3-11-066741-7 (ebk).A massive body of commentary on Holocaust literature creates the impression that Holocaust literary studies is a well-plowed field. This volume, on the contrary, shows that large areas of Holocaust literature in less commonly taught languages still remain only lightly covered in critical discourse. A collaborative project of scholars affiliated with the universities of Giessen, Łódź, Poznań, and Prague, the Handbook seeks to increase the visibility of East-Central European writing on the Holocaust and to showcase the richness of this literature. Aided by Open Access technology, the contributors offer more than 100 articles on individual works. Although each article can be read independently, the essays’ interlocking themes and contrasting viewpoints produce an overall effect of coherent unity in diversity. Unfortunately, the title of the volume, with its spotlight on Holocaust fiction, is likely to mislead those potential readers who take the term fiction to mean prose fiction. In truth, the Handbook also covers poetry, drama, survivor testimonies, memoirs, and cross-genre works such as Calek (Calel) Perechodnik's Spowiedź [Confession, 2004]. As with any anthology, one may quibble about editorial decisions and wonder why some works have been excluded. The omission of Joanna Kulmowa's Szukam [Searching, 1988], arguably the most complex and sophisticated of the Polish-language plays on the Holocaust experience, is especially puzzling. Still, the importance of the Handbook can hardly be overstated. Anyone with an interest in Holocaust literature and, more broadly, in the conundrum of representation after Auschwitz, will appreciate the contributors’ impressive scholarship and a wealth of information they provide. (hf)Kazimierz M. Słomczyński et al., Social Mobility and Unequal Chances: Polish Panel Survey POLPAN (Warsaw: IFiS Publishers, 2025), 314 pp., tables, biographical references. ISBN 978-83-7683-224-1.This volume presents the latest findings from the long-running Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN), an ambitious social science project analyzing the dynamics of social structure and inequality in Poland since 1988. Structured around ten empirically rich chapters, the book addresses a broad spectrum of issues, including intergenerational educational mobility, occupational transitions, health outcomes, and perceptions of meritocracy. The authors draw on robust panel data collected over more than three decades, offering a rare longitudinal perspective on post-communist societal change. The volume stands out for its interdisciplinary scope and methodological sophistication. Topics range from the effects of temporary employment on long-term career trajectories, to the lingering material consequences of childhood wartime experiences, to evolving attitudes toward social fairness. Contributions from leading Polish sociologists—such as Henryk Domański, Anna Kiersztyn, and Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek—combine quantitative analysis with nuanced theoretical reflection. Social Mobility and Unequal Chances will be of particular interest to scholars of inequality, labor markets, and postsocialist societies. While grounded in the Polish context, the themes addressed are of broad relevance to comparative researchers exploring the long-term implications of social stratification and mobility in transitional economies. (pp)Beata Jarosz, Język zawodowy polskich dziennikarzy prasowych (XIX–XXI w.) (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2023), 951 pp., bibliographical references. ISBN 978-83-227-9717-4.In this comprehensive linguistic study, Beata Jarosz explores the professional language (or profesjolekt) of Polish print journalists from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Her book offers an extensive historical-linguistic analysis of how the specialized sublanguage used in newsrooms evolved in tandem with the changing shape of the press and journalistic profession in Poland. Drawing on a large body of historical sources, including periodicals, editorial materials, and press manuals, Jarosz reconstructs the lexical, semantic, and structural features of this professional sociolect over more than two centuries. The monograph is divided into eight chapters. It begins with a theoretical and methodological introduction, followed by an in-depth exploration of the evolution of journalistic terminology from proto-professional language to contemporary newsroom parlance. Distinct lexical layers—such as terms for people, actions, places, errors, tools, and textual materials—are meticulously categorized across three major periods: the nineteenth century, the twentieth century (until the 1980s), and the present day. A final chapter examines the processes of lexical innovation and semantic shifts, including inter- and intra-register variation. Jarosz's work fills a significant gap in Polish sociolinguistics and media studies. It will be of great interest to scholars of professional language, the history of journalism, and the sociology of communication. The sheer scope of the data (over 2,600 analyzed items) and its thoughtful systematization make this monograph a foundational reference for future research on the language of the Polish press. (pp)