A Microhistory of Anna Frajlich's Émigré Experience

Abstract

Abstract This article is an anthropological and literary analysis of the letters written by Anna Frajlich, her husband, and sister to Frajlich's parents, Amalia and Psachie Frajlich. The correspondence begins the moment they left Poland in November 1969, forced into exile as a result of the government-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign, political and social repression, and merciless propaganda directed against citizens of Jewish nationality. The correspondence ends with Frajlich's parents’ arrival in the United States in June 1971. The letters are examined as a microhistory marked with a female signature, in which it is important to expose the subjective awareness of the determination of an individual's fate by an external situation, to see the complex process, complications and consequences of throwing the individual and her loved ones into the whirlwind of history. The correspondence shows the experience of being deprived of the possibility to be “at home,” documents this radical loss, and gives it a personal dimension. It emphasizes the importance of family, her intimate world, and the individual focused on the issue of redefining her identity. The parameters of that dimension are set by those close to them, their intimate world, individuals living in the here and now, oriented toward self-understanding. The horizon of expectations and the will to knowledge are determined by the most important element in an authentic encounter with the self—the desire to protect oneself and those around her from chaos and uncertainty.