ABSTRACT. The “narrative shock” caused in 2000 by Jan Tomasz Gross’s Neighbors and by the public discussions around the extermination of Jews by Poles resulted in an increase in well-documented scientific knowledge about the attitudes of the majority of Poles towards Jews during and after the Holocaust. In this study, I try to focus on the specific form of domestication and neutralization of return of the Lacanian “Real” and on the constant negotiation of the “Polish guilt” in the context of the Holocaust, commenting on the books by Mirosław Tryczyk and Jarosław Mikołajewski. The subject of reflection are, thus, substitute narratives, the protagonist of which is exotic, and at the same time, in a colonial and masculine-dominating way, “our”, unattainable, desirable, and phantasmatic Other – a Polish “beautiful Jewess”, murdered by schematically portrayed and clichéd Polish perpetrators, while the speaking subject represents the multi-level dominant majority spinning his fantasies around the murdered body of a Jewish woman: a gender binary, white ethnic Pole.
«pl.it / rassegna italiana di argomenti polacchi», 15, 2024, pp. 96-117
https://plitonline.it/2024/plit-15-2024-96-117-grzegorz-franczak
DOI: 10.57616/PLIT_2024_06
https://plitonline.it/2024/plit-15-2024-96-117-grzegorz-franczak
DOI: 10.57616/PLIT_2024_06
Grzegorz Franczak
University of Milan / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Powrót (nie)Realnej. “Piękna Żydówka” i przemoc filosemicka w najnowszej polskiej eseistyce
Return of the (un)Real. “Beautiful Jewess” and Philo-Semitic violence in recent Polish essay writingKEYWORDS: Holocaust Studies, PhiloSemitic Violence, Polish Contemporary Essay, Mirosław Tryczyk, Jarosław Mikołajewski
Read 280 times