IDEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS OF WITNESSING THE HOLOCAUST IN WARTIME DIARIES OF JAROSŁAW IWASZKIEWICZ AND MARIA DĄBROWSKA

Abstract

The Polish writers Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1894–1980) and Maria Dąbrowska (1889–1965) spent the years of brutal German occupation in Warsaw. Both witnessed the establishment of the Ghetto, the 1942 deportations, and the 1943 Uprising, as well as the attempts of the Jewish fugitives to hide on the “Aryan side” of the city. Yet their war diaries reveal contrasting attitudes toward the destruction of the Jews. Whereas Dąbrowska projected indifference by practically ignoring the evolving genocide, Iwaszkiewicz expressed dismay and compassion. Iwaszkiewicz and his wife Anna engaged in rescuing Jews while Dąbrowska showed no sympathy for the Jewish plight. Such polarized responses to the Holocaust by individuals who were contemporaries, fellow writers, and prominent members of the intellectual elite of Warsaw raise questions about the nature of witnessing and responding to atrocities. This essay posits that the differences in these writers' attitudes toward the genocide of the Polish Jews were indelibly tied to the ideological systems that shaped their self-identities.