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Polnische Kultur im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Bestandteil der Geschichte Polens
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Vorlage:Polish Underground State Vorlage:Culture of Poland Polish culture was brutally suppressed during World War II by the country's occupiers, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of which were hostile to Polish culture and to the Polish people and sought their destruction.[1]

Polish culture was preserved by underground groups and institutions. After World War II, this period influenced a new generation of Polish artists.

Destruction of Polish culture

Immediately after the German invasion of Poland, the Nazi German government declared the confiscation of all Polish state property, as well as various kinds of property owned by private individuals.[2] Places of learning and culture such as universities, schools, libraries, museums, theaters and cinemas were either closed or changed to "Nur für Deutsche" status. Many university professors, as well as teachers, lawyers, artists, writers and other members of the Polish intelligentsia were arrested and executed or sent to concentration camps (in operations such as AB-Aktion, which produced the infamous Sonderaktion Krakau[3] and massacre of Lvov professors[4]).[2] The matter was perhaps most simply put by one Nazi administrator: "In my area, whoever shows signs of intelligence will be shot."[2]

The war against the Polish language included the tearing down of signs in Polish and the banning of Polish speech in public places. Those who spoke Polish in the streets were often insulted and beaten. Germanization of all names was thoroughgoing.[5] Many treasures of Polish culture, such as monuments to Polish national heroes (e.g., the Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Kraków) were wilfully destroyed.[6] The Nazis planned eventually to level entire cities.[7][5][6]

Publication of any Polish-language book, literary study or scholarly paper was prohibited.[6] [2] The occupying powers destroyed Polish book collections, including the Sejm and Senate Library, the Przedziecki Estate Library, the Zamoyski Estate Library, the Central Military Library, and the Rapperswil Collection.[8][2] The last remaining Polish library in German-occupied territories, the Warsaw Public Library, was closed in 1941.[6] Bookstores were emptied, and the last thousand or so Polish book titles, not previously proscribed, were withdrawn in 1943 (even Polish prayer books were confiscated).[6] An index of prohibited books was created, and over 1,500 Polish writers were declared "dangerous to the German state and culture" (including Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Stefan Żeromski, Stanisław Wyspiański and Maria Konopnicka); mere possession of such books was made illegal and punishable by imprisonment. The press was reduced from over 2,000 publications to a few dozen, all censored by the Germans. The only officially available reading matter was the propaganda press published by the German occupation administration.[6] Twenty-five museums and many other institutions were destroyed.[9]

 
Queen Bona's 16th-century Royal Casket, looted and destroyed by the Germans in 1939

Countless art objects were looted and taken to Germany, in execution of a plan that had been prepared well in advance of the invasion.[9] Over 516,000 individual art pieces were taken, including 2,800 paintings by European painters; 11,000 works by Polish painters; 1,400 sculptures, 75,000 manuscripts, 25,000 maps, and 90,000 books (including over 20,000 printed before 1800); as well as hundreds of thousands of other objects of artistic and historic value.[9] Even exotic animals were carted off from the zoos.[10]

To forestall the rise of a new generation of educated Poles, German officials decreed that Polish children's schooling should end after a few years of elementary education. Heinrich Himmler wrote in a May 1940 memorandum, "The sole purpose of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans... I do not think that a knowledge of reading is desirable."[7][2] Hans Frank echoed him: "The Poles do not need universities or secondary schools; the Polish lands are to be converted into an intellectual desert."[5]

Soviet authorities likewise sought, particularly in the years 1939-1941, to remove all traces of the Polish history of the area under their control by crash Sovietization and by eliminating much of what had any connection to the Polish state or even to Polish culture in general.[11] All institutions of the dismantled Polish state, including Lviv University, were closed, then reopened with new, mostly Russian directors.[11] Soviet communist ideology became paramount in all teaching; Polish literature and language studies were dissolved by the Soviet authorities; the Polish language was replaced with Russian or Ukrainian, even in the primary schools; Polish-language books were burned in the schools.[11]

The Soviet authorities regarded service to the prewar Polish state as a "crime against revolution"[12] and "counter-revolutionary activity,"[13] and proceeded to arrest large numbers of Polish intelligentsia, politicians, civil servants and academics, but also ordinary people suspected of posing a threat to Soviet rule. Many were sent to Gulags for years, even decades; others died, including over 20,000 Polish officers in the infamous Katyn massacres.[11] Many writers obeyed Soviet orders and wrote anti-Polish and pro-Soviet propaganda, including Wanda Wasilewska, Jerzy Putrament and Teodor Bujnicki. Polish monuments were torn down. Most scholars believe that "In the Soviet occupation zone, conditions were only marginally less harsh than under the Germans."[5]

Altogether, during World War II, Poland lost 45% of physicians and dentists (both Christian and Jewish), 57% of lawyers, over 15% of teachers, 40% of university professors and over 18% of clergy.[5]

Underground culture

Polish Underground State created a Department of Culture and Art, which together with the Department of Labour and Social Care and the Department for the Elimination of the Effects of War became the underground patron of Polish culture.[8] The Departments oversaw efforts to save from looting or destruction works of art in state and private collections, compiled reports on the looted and destroyed works, and provided artists and scholars with means of continuing and publishing their work, as well as to support their families.[8] For example, they sponsored of the underground publications (bibuła) of works by Winston Churchill or Arkady Fiedler as well as 10,000 copies of a Polish primary-school primer, and commissioned artists to create pro-resistance artwork (see for example Action N).[8] Occasionally even secret exhibitions, theater performances and concerts were sponsored as well.[8] Other important patron of Polish culture was the Catholic Church and various members of Polish aristocracy, who also had various initiatives related to supporting artists and safeguarding Polish heritage (notable patrons included Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha and former politician, Janusz Radziwiłł).[8]

The Polish culture persisted through various underground activities, like underground publications, underground education or even underground theater.[14][5] In the General Governement alone there were about 100,000 secondary school pupils and over 10,000 university students involved in secret education.[15] There were over over a 100 underground newspapers[16] and over 200 underground publications dedicated to literature alone (for example, the Biuletyn Informacyjny or Sztuka i Naród); novels and anthologies would be published underground; literary discussions held and even some scientific research carried out. Prominent artists of that period that worked in Poland included Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Tadeusz Borowski, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Maria Dąbrowska, Tadeusz Gajcy, Zuzanna Ginczanka, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, future Nobel prize winner Czesław Miłosz, Zofia Nałkowska, Leopold Staff and others. There were artists creating and publishing works in prisoner of war camps and even concentration camps. Many artists - like Baczyński, Ginczanka or Boy-Żeleński - would not survive the war.

During the Warsaw Uprising in summer 1944, in Polish-controlled territory, people tried to recreate the normal day-to-day life of their free country. Cultural life was vibrant, both among the soldiers and civilian population, with theatres, post offices, newspapers and similar activities.[17] Headed by Antoni Bohdziewicz, the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Home Army had even created three newsreels and over 30,000 meters of film tape documenting the struggles.[18] Eugeniusz Lokajski made about 1000 pictures before he died, Sylwester Braun about 3000, 1520 of which survived. Vorlage:Listen

Culture in exile

There were also Polish writers on emigration, creating and publishing their works. Arkady Fiedler wrote about the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron; Melchior Wańkowicz about Battle of Monte Cassino; among others were Jan Lechoń, Antoni Słonimski, Kazimierz Wierzyński, and Julian Tuwim.

Influence on postwar culture

Datei:Rozstrzelanie V - execution V - Wróblewski.jpg
"Rozstrzelanie V" ("Execution V"), by Andrzej Wróblewski, portraying the horrors of the German occupation

Vorlage:Seealso Perhaps ironically, the attempts to destroy Polish culture during the war made it stronger; Norman Davies in his God's Playground wrote: "In 1945, as a prize for untold sacrifices, the attachment of the survivors to their native culture was stronger than ever before.[19] That culture was however different from the culture of interwar Poland; most notably - with the destruction of Polish Jewish community, territorial changes of Poland after World War II and post-war migrations, Poland lost its various ethnic minorities. The multicultural nation was no more.[20]

The events of WWII had significantly influenced a generation of Polish artists that became known as the Generation of Columbuses. This term denotes the entire generation of Poles born soon after Poland regained her independence in 1918, and whose adolescence has been marked by the tragic times of the World War II; in their art they "discover a new Poland" - one forever changed by the atrocities of WWII and following creation of a communist Poland.[21][22][23]

Over the years, close to three quarters of Polish population have stressed the importance of WWII on country's identity.[24] Many Polish works of art created after the war center around the events of the war. Books by Tadeusz Borowski, Adolf Rudnicki, Henryk Grynberg, Miron Białoszewski, Hanna Krall and others; movies - including those by Andrzej Wajda (A Generation, Kanał, Ashes and Diamonds, Lotna, A Love in Germany, Korczak, Katyń) and others, TV series (Four tank men and a dog and Stakes Larger Than Life), music (Powstanie Warszawskie (album)) and even comics - various works reflected those times. Polish historian Tomasz Szarota wrote in 1996: "Educational and training programmes place a special emphasis on the World War II period and on the occupation. Events and individuals connected to the war are ubiquitous, whether on TV, on the radio, or in printed media. The theme remains an important element in literature and science, in film, theatre, and fine arts. Not to mention the fact that political elements constantly instrumentalize it. Probably no other country marks anniversaries related to the events of World War II so often and so ceremoniously".[24]

See also

Citations

Vorlage:Reflist

References

  • Barbara Nawrocka-Dońska: Powszedni dzień dramatu. 1st edition Auflage. Czytelnik, Warsaw 1961 (polnisch).
  • Trela-Mazur, Elżbieta, Bonusiak, Włodzimierz; Ciesielski, Stanisław Jan; Mańkowski, Zygmunt; Iwanow, Mikołaj (eds.): Sowietyzacja oświaty w Małopolsce Wschodniej pod radziecką okupacją 1939-1941 (Sovietization of education in eastern Lesser Poland during the Soviet occupation 1939-1941). Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna im. Jana Kochanowskiego, Kielce 1997, ISBN 978-83-7133-100-8 (polnisch).

Further reading

  • Andrzej Mężyńskia, Paszkiewicz, Urszula; Bieńkowska, Barbara: Straty bibliotek w czasie II wojny światowej w granicach Polski z 1945 roku. Wstępny raport o stanie wiedzy (Losses of Libraries During World War II within the Polish Borders of 1945. An Introductory Report on the State of Knowledge). Wydawnictwo Reklama, Warsaw 1994, ISBN 83-902167-0-1 (polnisch).
  • Adam Ordęga, Terlecki, Tymon: Straty kultury polskiej, 1939–1944 (Losses of Polish Culture, 1939–1944). Książnica Polska, Glasgow 1945 (polnisch).
  • Antoni Symonowicz, Nazi Campaign against Polish Culture, in Roman Nurowski, ed., 1939-1945 War Losses in Poland (Poznan: Wydaw- nictwo Zachodnie, 1960
  • Jan P. Pruszynski, Poland: The War Losses, Cultural Heritage, and Cultural Legitimacy,, in Elizabeth Simpson (ed.), The Spoils of War: World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property, Harry N. Abrams: New York, 1997, ISBN 0810944693
  1. ↑ Judith Olsak-Glass: Review of Piotrowski's Poland's Holocaust. In: Sarmatian Review. Januar 1999, abgerufen am 24. Januar 2008: „The prisons, ghettos, internment, transit, labor and extermination camps, roundups, mass deportations, public executions, mobile killing units, death marches, deprivation, hunger, disease, and exposure all testify to the 'inhuman policies of both Hitler and Stalin' and 'were clearly aimed at the total extermination of Polish citizens, both Jews and Christians. Both regimes endorsed a systematic program of genocide.'“
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Rebecca Knuth, Libricide:The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, ISBN 027598088X, Google Print, p.86-89
  3. ↑ Burek, Edward (ed.) “Sonderaktion Krakau” in Encyklopedia Krakowa. Krakow: PWM, 2000.
  4. ↑ Albert, Zygmunt (1989). Kaźń profesorów lwowskich - lipiec 1941 - collection of documents. Wrocław, University of Wrocław Press. ISBN 8322903510.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Piotr Wrobel: The Devil's Playground: Poland in World War II, part I & II. In: Project InPosterum. Price-Patterson, abgerufen am 25. Januar 2008.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f The Nazi Kultur in Poland by several authors, with Foreword by John Masefield. Polish Ministry of Information, 1945, abgerufen am 23. Januar 2008.
  7. ↑ a b Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era. In: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Abgerufen am 24. Januar 2008.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Grzegorz Ostasz, Polish Underground State's Patronage of the Arts and Literature (1939-1945). Last retrieved on 20 March 2008.
  9. ↑ a b c Vorlage:Pl icon Rewindykacja dóbr kultury
  10. ↑ Vernon N. Kisling, Zoo and Aquarium History: Ancient Animal Collections to Zoological Gardens, CRC Press, 2001, ISBN 084932100X, Google Print, p.122-123
  11. ↑ a b c d Trela-Mazur 1997.
  12. ↑ Vorlage:En icon Gustaw Herling-Grudziński: A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp during World War II. Penguin Books, 1996, ISBN 0140251847, S. 284.
  13. ↑ Vorlage:Pl icon Władysław Anders: Bez ostatniego rozdziału. Test, Lublin 1995, ISBN 8370381685, S. 540.
  14. ↑ World War II and The Communist Regime: Shakespeare in the Theatre of Political Allusions and Metaphors. In: Internet Shakespeare Editions. Abgerufen am 24. Januar 2008.
  15. ↑ The Second World War: The Fourth Partition. In: The History of Poland. Abgerufen am 25. Januar 2008.
  16. ↑ Polish Facts and Figures in World War II 56. More Than 110 Underground Newspapers
  17. ↑ Nawrocka-Dońska 1961.
  18. ↑ Warsaw Uprising - Timeline. In: Warsaw Uprising 1944. Abgerufen am 25. Januar 2008.
  19. ↑ Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231128193, Google Print, p.174
  20. ↑ Marek Haltof, Polish National Cinema, Berghahn Books, 2002, ISBN 1571812768, Google Print, p.223
  21. ↑ Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer, History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004, ISBN 9027234523, Print, p.146
  22. ↑ Bolesław Klimaszewski, An Outline History of Polish Culture, Interpress, 1984, ISBN 8322320361, Print, p.343
  23. ↑ Marek Haltof, Polish National Cinema, Berghahn Books, 2002, ISBN 1571812768, Print, p.76
  24. ↑ a b Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, The memory of World War II in Poland, Eurozine, 2007-09-05. Retrieved on 26 March 2008.
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