Natan Gross
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774600
- eISBN:
- 9781800340701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774600.003.0043
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explores Natan Gross's The History of Jewish Cinema in Poland, which begins with an assumption about the Jewish involvement in Polish cinema during the 1920s and 1930s. The vibrant ...
More
This chapter explores Natan Gross's The History of Jewish Cinema in Poland, which begins with an assumption about the Jewish involvement in Polish cinema during the 1920s and 1930s. The vibrant Jewish community in the urban centres of Poland, first under the tsarist regime and then as part of independent Poland, supplied not only most of the film-makers and many of the writers and actors, but a large part of moviegoers as well. One of the most remarkable results of the phenomenon was that during the twenty years of independent Poland (1918–39), a country known for its widespread and deep-seated antisemitism, not even one overtly anti-Jewish film was produced. Natan Gross's short account of Jewish cinema in Poland reads like a cross between a production list and an annotated anthology of all the Jewish films that were ever produced in Poland. This may not sound like a resounding recommendation, but these are notable features for two reasons. First, Gross has valuable first-hand knowledge of the subject matter because he was a Jewish film-maker who worked on various Jewish films in Poland after the Second World War. Second, the tragic demise of that old and remarkable community lends a transcendent value to this — as well as any other — account of it.Less
This chapter explores Natan Gross's The History of Jewish Cinema in Poland, which begins with an assumption about the Jewish involvement in Polish cinema during the 1920s and 1930s. The vibrant Jewish community in the urban centres of Poland, first under the tsarist regime and then as part of independent Poland, supplied not only most of the film-makers and many of the writers and actors, but a large part of moviegoers as well. One of the most remarkable results of the phenomenon was that during the twenty years of independent Poland (1918–39), a country known for its widespread and deep-seated antisemitism, not even one overtly anti-Jewish film was produced. Natan Gross's short account of Jewish cinema in Poland reads like a cross between a production list and an annotated anthology of all the Jewish films that were ever produced in Poland. This may not sound like a resounding recommendation, but these are notable features for two reasons. First, Gross has valuable first-hand knowledge of the subject matter because he was a Jewish film-maker who worked on various Jewish films in Poland after the Second World War. Second, the tragic demise of that old and remarkable community lends a transcendent value to this — as well as any other — account of it.
Michael C. Steinlauf and Antony Polonsky (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774730
- eISBN:
- 9781800340732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774730.003.0046
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines an exchange between Józef Lewandowski and Joanna Rostropowicz Clark. In Lewandowski's letter, he argues that Clark failed to credit him as 'the source of her knowledge and ...
More
This chapter examines an exchange between Józef Lewandowski and Joanna Rostropowicz Clark. In Lewandowski's letter, he argues that Clark failed to credit him as 'the source of her knowledge and quotations' in her article, 'Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński: A Poet-Hero'. Lewandowski goes on to describe how his 'work on Baczyński was the product of many years' work, and its publication encountered strong resistance from people who were important in the Polish opposition of those days, who could not swallow the idea that the poet of the underground should have shown solidarity with the murdered Jews'. For that reason, Lewandowski resents the appropriation of the results of his work. In response to Lewandowski, Clark apologizes in her letter, but contends that the inspiration for her own essay did not come from Lewandowski's work, but from Natan Gross's book Poeci i Szoa. Nevertheless, Clark says that 'the full credit of being the first unbiased reader of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński belongs to Józef Lewandowski'.Less
This chapter examines an exchange between Józef Lewandowski and Joanna Rostropowicz Clark. In Lewandowski's letter, he argues that Clark failed to credit him as 'the source of her knowledge and quotations' in her article, 'Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński: A Poet-Hero'. Lewandowski goes on to describe how his 'work on Baczyński was the product of many years' work, and its publication encountered strong resistance from people who were important in the Polish opposition of those days, who could not swallow the idea that the poet of the underground should have shown solidarity with the murdered Jews'. For that reason, Lewandowski resents the appropriation of the results of his work. In response to Lewandowski, Clark apologizes in her letter, but contends that the inspiration for her own essay did not come from Lewandowski's work, but from Natan Gross's book Poeci i Szoa. Nevertheless, Clark says that 'the full credit of being the first unbiased reader of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński belongs to Józef Lewandowski'.
