European studies blog: History

22 January 2025

Silenced memories: the Holocaust Narrative in the Soviet Union

Monument to children murdered in Babi Yar, Ukraine (image from Wikipedia)

‘Field of Burial’ where the ashes of murdered and cremated prisoners were scattered, Maly Trostenets, Belarus (image from Wikipedia)

In 1961, a young Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko visited the Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv. He was taken there by a fellow writer Anatolii Kuznetsov. A native of Kyiv, Kuznetsov experienced Nazi occupation as a child and knew about the tragedy in Babi Yar firsthand. Both authors were shocked to see that there was no sign in memory of 33,771 Jews who had been murdered by the Nazis just in two days in September 1941. Possibly over 100,000 more people, among them prisoners of war, Soviet partisans, Ukrainian nationalists and Roma people, were killed there in the following months. However, the Soviet authorities were reluctant to collect and disclose records of those crimes. On the same day, Yevtushenko wrote a poem:

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.

Cover of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, The collected poems 1952-1990 (Edinburgh, 1991) YC.1991.b.6558

The poem was published in the influential Moscow newspaper Literaturnaia gazeta (‘The Literary Newspaper’) but was severely criticised by the authorities and Communist Party officials for presenting Jews as the main victims of the fascist Germany.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Stalin designed his own antisemitic campaigns such as the prosecution of members of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee and the Night of the Murdered Poets, the campaign against ‘rootless cosmopolitans’and the so-called ‘doctors’ plot’. Although the campaigns stopped with the death of Stalin, antisemitism in the Soviet Union was strong, and the official party line was not to accept the Holocaust as a concept. Instead, all victims of genocide and atrocities were put together under the ideologically loaded term ‘peaceful Soviet civilians’.

However, in the time of the Khrushchev Thaw artists were hopeful that their voices would be heard in the new political climate. In 1962, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No 13 for bass soloist, bass chorus, and large orchestra with lyrics by Yevtushenko. Although the symphony does not have an official title, it is known as ‘Babi Yar’. Anatolii Kuznetsov tried to publish his autobiographical book also under the title of Babi Yar. The book was seriously cut by censors but was eventually published in 1967. After defecting to the West, Kuznetsov managed to publish the book in full in 1970.

Anatolii Kuznetsov, Babii Iar: roman-dokument (Frankfurt am Main, 1970) X.900/6037

However, neither Yevtushenko, nor Kuznetsov were the first to write about Babi Yar. Probably the first poem (lost and rediscovered only in 1991) about the murder in Babi Yar was written by a Jewish-Ukrainian poet Liudmila Titova in 1941:

The order was supported by the threat of execution,
They obeyed but were shot.
Not a single candle was lit that night,
Those who could, left and hid in the basement.
The stars and the Sun hid in the clouds
From our world that is too cruel.

Liudmila Titova (image from Wikipedia)

In 1943, another Ukrainian poet and at that time a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Commissars) of the Ukrainian SSR, Mykola Bazhan,wrote his response:

The grave wind blew from those ravines —
The smoke of mortal fires, the smoking of burning bodies.
Kyiv watched, angry Kyiv,
As Babi Yar was thrown into flames.
There can be no atonement for this flame.
There is no measure of revenge for this burning.
Cursed be the one who dares to forget.
Cursed be the one who tells us: “forgive me...”

Only in 1991 was a Ukrainian Jewish poet, Yurii Kaplan, able to compile a small anthology – Ekho Bab’ego IAra (‘The Echo of Babi Yar’) where he managed to include other pieces of contemporary poetry.

Page from Literatura ta Zhittia, N 2, zhovten’, 2007.

Cover of Ekho Bab'ego Iara : poeticheskaia antologiia (Kyiv, 1991) YA.1996.a.9243

In 1946, Ilya Ehrenburg, a prominent Soviet writer, published a poem under the title of ‘Babi Yar’ about the genocide of his people:

My child! My blush!
My countless relatives!
I hear how you call me
from every hole.

Together with another Jewish Soviet writer Leonid Grossman, Ehrenburg compiled and tried to publish a volume of eyewitness accounts documenting the atrocities during the Holocaust on the Soviet territories occupied by the Nazis.

During the war, frontline soldiers sent Ilya Ehrenburg a huge number of documents found in the territories liberated from the occupiers and told in their letters what they had seen or heard. Ehrenburg decided to collect the diaries, suicide letters, and testimonies related to the Nazis’ extermination of Jews and to publish the ‘Black Book’. A couple of extracts from the book were published in a magazine in 1944. However, after the end of the war, the publication was delayed several times. In November 1948, when the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was closed, the set of the ‘Black Book’ was scattered, the galleys (printer’s proof) and the manuscript were taken away. Ehrenburg’s daughter later gave the manuscript and other documents to the Yad Vashem archives and the book was published in Russian in 1980. However, that was not the full text. The first full Russian edition appeared only in 1991.

The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry : [prepared by] Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, translated and edited by David Patterson ; with a foreword by Irving Louis Horowitz and an introduction by Helen Segall. (London, 2002) YC.2002.b.953

The book documents atrocities that were committed on all occupied Soviets territories, such sites as Fort IX in Kovno (Kaunas), the Rumbula and Bikernieki Forests in Riga and Maly Trostenets near Minsk and Zmiyovskaya Balka near Rostov-on-Don.

Analysing the policy of ‘forgetting the specificity of Jewish suffering’, Izabella Tabarovsky of the Kennan Institute, points out that “by 2006, Yad Vashem, the world’s leading Holocaust Museum and research institution, found it had barely 10-15% of the names of the 1.5 million Jews who had died in Ukraine (in contrast to 90% of European Jews whose names were known)”.

At the Holocaust Memorial Day Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration, Professor Jeremy Hicks will give a talk on ‘ Representations of the Holocaust in Soviet Cinema’, which will examine further the creation of silences and gaps in memories of Holocaust.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator, East European Collections

References/Further reading:

Maxim D. Shrayer (2010). ‘Poets Bearing Witness to the Shoah’ in Studies in Slavic Languages and Literature (ICCEES Congress Stockholm 2010 Papers and Contributions), edited by Stefano Garzonio. PECOB: Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe. University of Bologna. Pp. 59-119.

Ekho Bab’ego IAra: poeticheskaia antologiia, [sostavlenie i vstupitelʹnaia statʹiia IU.G. Kaplana]. (Kyiv, 1991). YA.1996.a.9243

A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov), Babi Yar: a Document in the Form of a Novel, translated by David Floyd. (London, 1970) W67/8178

Izabella Tabarovsky. Don’t Learn from Russians about the Holocaust. Published: February 2, 2017

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Belarus , Germanic , Germany , History , Literature , Russia , Slavonic , Ukraine | Permalink

20 January 2025

Through the Eyes of Terezín’s Ghetto Children

The Holocaust stands as one of the most tragic chapters in human history. Yet, through the voices of children who lived through its horrors, we are offered a glimpse into the quiet courage that endured even in the darkest of times.

The diaries of youth, written in ghettos and concentration camps, are personal testaments to the strength of the human spirit. The young writers found ways to express their creativity, and hope, leaving behind a legacy that preserves their voices.

The stories entrusted to paper carried immense emotional weight for the survivors or their families. Many of these diaries remained unpublished for decades, with some only reaching readers in the 21st century. The British Library holds examples of these works, including memoirs and writings of young people from the Terezín ghetto in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.

In the Living Quarters - a drawing by Bedrich Fritta of the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, source: Wikipedia, public domain

Terezín, the ‘Model’ Ghetto

Terezín, called by the Germans Theresienstadt, a Nazi ‘camp-ghetto’ in operation from 1941 to 1945, was portrayed by the occupier’s propaganda as a ‘spa town’ for elderly Jews. In reality, it served as a transit hub for deportations to extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

It was a chilling symbol of Nazi deception, serving as a stage for efforts to obscure the true nature of their genocidal actions, including a 1944 Red Cross visit carefully orchestrated to portray the ghetto as humane.

The truth, however, lay in its devastating death toll and its role as a waypoint on the road to extermination.

Despite these dire circumstances, Terezín became a centre of remarkable cultural activity. In the face of oppression, artists, musicians and writers produced works of art, music and literature, while children found ways to express hope and imagination through secret schooling, painting and poetry.

The boy who loved Jules Verne

Petr Ginz, born in Prague in 1928, was a talented young writer, artist and editor. By the time he was a teenager, he had written multiple short stories and novels inspired by his favourite author, Jules Verne. His adventure novel Návštěva z Pravěku (‘A Visit from Prehistory’) where engineer Gérard Guiness and his son Petr confront the mysterious creature Ka-du, reflects his belief in courage and ingenuity. Illustrated by Ginz himself, it is the only surviving novel out of several that he wrote.

Illustration from Petr Ginz, Návštěva z Pravěku: roman, (Prague, 2007) YF.2008.a.22831

In Terezín, Ginz became the editor of Vedem, a clandestine magazine created by boys in the ghetto. Writing under the pen name ‘Akademie’, he contributed essays, stories and illustrations. The Diary of Petr Ginz 1928-1944, written between 1941 and 1942, provides an account of life under Nazi oppression. It was later published by his sister Chava Pressburger ensuring his voice would not be forgotten.

Cover of The Diary of Petr Ginz 1928-1944

Ginz was a prolific illustrator. His linocut, Moon Landscape, created around 1942, depicts an imagined view of Earth from the Moon, reflecting his fascination with exploration and the cosmos. In a tribute, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon carried a copy of this drawing aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, symbolically fulfilling Ginz’s dream of reaching the stars. Tragically, both Ginz and Ramon lost their lives prematurely – Ginz perished in Auschwitz at 16, and Ramon died when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry – but their stories highlight the importance of preserving history and art.

Petr Ginz, Moon Landscape, source: Wikipedia, public domain

The writings and art of Terezín’s children

In 1995, the Jewish Museum in Prague published the anthology Je mojí vlastí hradba ghett? (‘Is the Wall of Ghettos My Homeland?) which features writings and artwork created by children in Terezín. The collection includes texts from Vedem and other works, offering insight into the emotional and psychological worlds of young people living in extreme conditions.

Cover of Je mojí vlastí hradba ghett? Básně, próza a kresby terezínských dětí, edited by Marie Rút Křížková, Kurt Jiří Kotouč and Zdeněk Ornest (Prague, 1995) YA.2000.b.2154

The testimony of Hana Bořkovcová

Hana Bořkovcová, a renowned Czech author, also left behind a powerful diary, Píšu a sešit mi leží na kolenou: deníky 1940 - 1946 (‘I Write, and the Notebook Lies on My Lap: Diaries 1940–1946’ (Prague, 2011) YF.2012.a.13806.

Published posthumously in 2011, her writings chronicle her family’s experiences, from their life in Prague’s Jewish community to their deportation to Terezín when she was 16 years old, Auschwitz, and a labour camp in Kurzbach. Her diary concludes with her post-war life, including the birth of her son.

Bořkovcová’s account is striking for its sensitivity and strength. Her observations about life in the Jewish school and among young Zionists offer a rich cultural and social context, making her diary a valuable resource for readers and historians alike.

Documenting the unimaginable

In 2012, Michal Kraus published his diary, originally written in Czech, which was later translated into English and published in 2016 under the title Drawing the Holocaust. His entries are marked by stark realism and are accompanied by detailed drawings. Kraus’s meticulous documentation provides an unflinching account of the brutality of the Holocaust and its impact on those who survived. The diary also reflects Kraus’s struggle to return to a ‘normal’ life after the war.

Michal Kraus, Drawing the Holocaust: A Teenager’s Memory of Terezin, Birkenau, and Mauthausen (Cincinnati, 2016) YKL.2016.a.8040

A story saved in the walls

Helga Weissová’s diary is another remarkable testament. Starting at age nine, she documented her life during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Like Petr Ginz, Helga was sent to Terezín before being deported to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Her diary is accompanied by her drawings, which vividly depict her experiences. Before her deportation, Weissová entrusted her diary to her uncle, who hid it within the walls of Terezín. After the war, she recovered and expanded it to include her harrowing memories from the camps. Published decades later, her work offers a powerful narrative.

Cover of Helga’s Diary: a Young Girl’s Account of Life in a Concentration Camp (London, 2013) YC.2013.a.16374

The importance of remembrance

As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 2025, it is imperative to reflect on the significance of these personal narratives. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, where over a million people perished. Just like Petr Ginz, many of those who lost their lives in Auschwitz were first imprisoned in Terezín before being transported to their deaths. The diaries of these individuals are not merely archival records; they are powerful reminders of the human capacity for resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. Their writings challenge us to remember the past and to educate future generations about the dangers of hatred and intolerance. By reading and sharing these stories, we preserve their voices and the lessons they left behind for a better, more compassionate world.

Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 10:32 AM in Czech Republic , Germanic , Germany , History , Literature , Slavonic | Permalink

06 January 2025

Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration. Holocaust Memorial Day 2025

Join us on Monday 27 January 2025 for the event ‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ and explore how the Holocaust has shaped memory, identity, and culture. Bringing together scholars, historians, and artists, this conference examines the Holocaust’s profound and enduring impact, as well as the varied methods used to preserve its legacy.

From antisemitism in post-First World War Hungary, the Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust, and the commemoration of hidden killing sites in postwar Poland, to Soviet depictions of the Shoah in film and contemporary counter-monument approaches, the programme offers insights into Holocaust memory and its ongoing significance.

‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ event poster

The conference is organised by the European Collections section of the British Library in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute. The event is open to all, and attendance is free, but registration is required. Booking details can be found here.

Programme:

Date: 27 January 2025
Location: Eliot Room, Knowledge Centre
Time: 2 pm – 5 pm

Antisemitic versus Jewish Humour in Budapest Post-WWI
Prof. Dr Béla Bodó, Department of East-European History, University of Bonn
The Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust
Dr Halik Kochanski, Writer and Historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
‘The grave […] has been planted over with potatoes’: Transnational Jewish Fight to Commemorate Holocaust Killing Sites in Poland in the First Postwar Decades
Dr Janek Gryta, Lecturer in Holocaust History, University of Southampton
Representations of the Holocaust in Soviet Cinema
Prof. Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Russian Culture and Film, Queen Mary University of London
There and Not There: (Im)Possibility of a Monument
Paulina Pukyte, Interdisciplinary Artist, Writer, Curator, and Critic, Vilnius Academy of Arts
Poetics of the Archive in Marianne Rubinstein’s ‘C’est maintenant du passé’ and Ivan Jablonka’s ‘Histoire des grands-parents que je n'ai pas eus’
Dr Diane Otosaka, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Holocaust Literature, University of Leeds

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in France , Germany , History , Hungary , Lithuania , Poland , Russia , Slavonic , Ukraine | Permalink

02 January 2025

New Year, Old Years: a Look Back

Usually around the start of a new year we look back over our previous year’s blogging before turning our faces to the future. This time we’re actually looking back over 2023 as well as 2024 because BL blogging activity was suspended for a while following the cyber-attack on the Library in October 2023, so we couldn’t do a review of that year at the time. And to break up the prose, we include some wintery scenes from the BL’ s Flickr stream.

Reindeer from Sophus Tromholt, Under Nordlysets Straaler. Skildringer fra Lappernes Land (Copenhagen, 1885) 10280.eee.13.

Both years saw our usual excitement over the annual European Writers’ Festival held in May. In 2023 we featured an interview with Greek Cypriot writer Anthony Anaxagorou, winner of the 2024 RSL Ondaatje Prize, while in 2024 we published a series of posts, beginning with this one, profiling some of the authors featured in the festival. As usual, literature featured in many other posts. We celebrated the award of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature to Norway’s Jon Fosse and mourned the death in 2024 of Albanian author Ismail Kadare. We were proud to learn that our Curator of Italian, Valentina Mirabella, was one of the judges of the 2024 Premio Strega, a major Italian literary prize, and she wrote about her experience for us.

A theme that ran through both years was the work of the Endangered Archives Project to preserve cultural heritage from Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Our coverage included posts on the indigenous peoples of Siberia, minority communities in Bulgaria, an important Serbian family archive, and material relating to the Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko, who was also the subject of a small display in our Treasures Gallery.

Polar scene from Die zweite Deutsche Nordpolarfahrt in den Jahren 1869 und 1870, unter Führung des Kapitän Karl Koldewey, edited by Alexander Georg Mosle und Georg Albrecht (Leipzig, 1873-4) 10460.ff.11.

Events in the library are a regular source of inspiration for our blog posts. In 2023 we highlighted events commemorating two colleagues who died in recent years: a symposium on Italian Futurism was dedicated to the memory of Chris Michaelides, former curator of Italian and Modern Greek, who did much to build our collection of Futurist books. The Graham Nattrass Lecture, in memory of the former Head of Germanic Collections is an annual event, and in 2023 marked the 80th anniversary of the arrest and execution of members of the German resistance group ‘Die Weisse Rose’. A conference on European political refugees in Britain generated posts on the same topic, including one on how the then British Museum Library became ‘a lifeline of books’ for Polish refugees from Soviet and Nazi occupation. On a lighter note, we celebrated the BL’s annual Food Season in May 2024 with a post introducing a selection of cookbooks from around the continent.

In summer 2024 we went a bit sports mad with both the European Football Championships and the Summer Olympics taking place. We highlighted the world-beating football tactics of the Hungarian ‘Golden Team’ in the early 1950s and the ‘Miracle of Bern’ that saw them unexpectedly beaten by West Germany in 1954’s World Cup, as well as exploring why the Dutch fans show symptoms of ‘orange fever’ at international matches. Our Olympic posts included explorations of the political side of the supposedly apolitical games in Czechoslovakia and the two German states during the Cold War, and a look at the Baltic States’ love for (and proud record in) basketball.

The northern lights, from Emmanuel Liais, L’Espace céleste et la nature tropicale, description physique de l’univers (Paris, 1866) 10003.d.10.

But not all our blog posts are driven by events and unifying themes. As ever, we continued to write about items from our vast and varied collections, from Georgian manuscripts to contemporary Queer writing in Poland, via a Russian Braille edition of The Hobbit, French caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War, and pamphlets from the Cypriot independence campaign. We also explored stories of the Slovenian Enlightenment and the first Professor of Spanish in Britain, and discovered the hidden but crucial role played by women in underground publishing under the Polish Communist regime.

As we head into 2025 we would like to wish all our readers and contributors a very happy new year. We look forward to bringing you another year of stories and discoveries from the Library’s European Collections.

Susan Reed and Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, European Studies Blog Editors

Ice-skating, from A.J. van der Aa, Ons Vaderland en zijne Bewoners (Amsterdam,1855-57) 10270.f.5

Posted by European Studies at 12:31 PM in Cyprus , Czech Republic , European Literature Night , France , Georgia , Germanic , Germany , History , Hungary , Italy , Latvia , Literature , Lithuania , Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Popular culture , Romance languages , Russia , Serbia , Slavonic , Slovenia , Spain , Ukraine | Permalink

30 December 2024

Christmas in Scheveningen 1942

On Friday 15 November at the British Library conference European Political Refugees to the UK from 1800, I spoke about a little-known group of ordinary people who travelled to the UK from occupied Netherlands, between 1940 and 1944, called ‘Engelandvaarders’, or ‘England Farers’. It sounds simple enough, but it was a very dangerous undertaking and many did not make it.

One of those whose attempt failed was Binnert Philip de Beaufort (1919-1945)

Binnert Philip de Beaufort (1919-1945), from the fourth edition of his book Kerstmis in Scheveningen (Hilversum, 2021) YF.2022.a.7493.

Binnert had been on a mission to take some important papers to England via the Southern Route, which led from the Netherlands through Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. Almost a thousand England Farers took this route to England. He set off for England in 1942, but when he arrived in Brussels he was betrayed, arrested and taken back to the Netherlands where he was imprisoned in Scheveningen Prison. This prison held people persecuted by the Nazis: Jews, gay people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the resistance. The last group gave the prison its nickname Het Oranjehotel (‘The Orange Hotel’). Oranje refers to the Dutch Royal Family, particularly Queen Wilhelmina, who had taken refuge in London, from where she was one of the leaders of the resistance.

The so-called ‘Oranjehotel’, the prison in Scheveningen. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

It was from the Oranjehotel that 250 prisoners were taken to the dunes, executed and buried there. Binnert knew he was going to be among them. So did his friends outside the prison. They hatched a plan to get him out. Binnert was admitted to a hospital nearby, from where he managed to escape in May 1943. He went into hiding for fourteen months, and this is when he wrote his account of his time in prison, about Christmas 1942. In December 1944 it was published anonymously and clandestinely in Amsterdam by Th. E. Nije as Kerstmis in Scheveningen (‘Christmas in Scheveningen’).

Title page of Kerstmis in Scheveningen (Amsterdam, 1944) X.809.4019.

Nije was a small printers house and publisher, who was acquainted with a larger publishing house, owned by the family with whom Binnert had stayed.

In February 1945 Binnert was walking down the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam when he ran into some German police who shot him. Although he managed to climb onto the rooftops, he fell and died. He was buried in the dunes, amongst many other resistance fighters. This burial place was later made into the Cemetery of Honour in Bloemendaal.

Kerstmis in Scheveningen tells the story of how Binnert became aware of his strong Christian faith. Faced with enormous pressures of the endless interrogations, the hunger and cold and terrible conditions in prison he found strength in the words ‘As long as God is with me, who can be against me?’ Christmas 1942 was very challenging for him. On 23 December the Germans had taken away 500 inmates, including his two cellmates. He did not know where they had been taken. His block was almost empty, and he felt lonely. On Christmas Eve he was again taken for interrogation to the Binnenhof, or Inner Court in the centre of The Hague. His technique of getting through these long hours of questioning was to concentrate on something else, mainly his faith. On the way out of the building he had to pass tables groaning under all sorts of Christmas treats, whilst he had hardly eaten anything. That evening he was at a particularly low point, but his spirits were lifted by the arrival of a new cellmate and Christmas parcels from the Red Cross. After having eaten, Binnert felt inspired to read the Nativity story to his cellmate. However, other prisoners wanted to hear this too. Standing on a little stool so he could talk through an air vent, Binnert found himself preaching a Christmas sermon. Other prisoners told Christmas stories and the evening ended by all of them singing ‘Silent Night’. The carol reverberated throughout the prison. It was a true spiritual experience, and it gave him strength to sit out the next five months, before his escape.

Kerstmis in Scheveningen was printed in 3000 copies. Proceeds went to various resistance groups in support of their work. This was how the publishing of clandestine titles worked. Nearly 1100 individual book titles were printed clandestinely, ‘with much trouble and danger’, as stated on the title page of Kerstmis in Scheveningen. Both amateur and professional printers risked their freedom and indeed their lives in making these books. Some print runs were tiny, around 25 copies, some were large, counting thousands of copies. Their aim was the same: to give the readers hope, as well as to raise funds for the resistance. That is also why not many titles appeared in later editions after the war, but Kerstmis in Scheveningen did see a second edition. In 1945 the publishing house De Bezige Bij (‘The Busy Bee’) published a new edition with a tribute to Binnert. In 1960 a third edition appeared, published by Buskes in Amsterdam and in 2021 a new, fourth edition was published by Verloren, with a prologue and a biography of Binnert by Esther Blom.

Cover of the fourth edition of Kerstmis in Scheveningen

Kerstmis in Scheveningen captures the spirit of those who resisted the Nazi occupation like few other titles. It shines a light on the involvement of young people; some of whom paid with their lives. It is part of a very special collection of almost 600 clandestinely published books held by the British Library.

Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections

The wolf children of East Prussia

When Alvydas Šlepikas’ book Mano vardas – Marytė (‘My name is Marytė’) was published in Lithuania in 2011, it caused a nationwide discussion. Beautifully written and based on historical facts, it was the most read novel in Lithuania in 2012. Since then this multi-award winning book has had numerous editions in Lithuania and has been translated into many languages. Its excellent English translation by Romas Kinka was published under the title In the Shadows of Wolves.

Cover of Mano vardas – Marytė (Vilnius, 2018) YF.2019.a.12103

Cover of In the Shadows of Wolves (London, 2019) Nov.2022/1050

Mano vardas – Marytė tells a story of a group of ‘wolf children’ from East Prussia (vilko vaikai in Lithuanian, Wolfskinder in German) who found their way to Lithuania. Who were the wolf children and why, for decades, was their existence surrounded by silence?

During the Second World War, in August 1944, the Royal Air Force heavily bombed Königsberg, the capital of the enclave of East Prussia, then part of the territory of the German Reich. The mediaeval city, home of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, was almost completely destroyed. A month later the Red Army reached this part of Germany. The battles continued until April 1945. With adult men fighting on the front, the civilian population consisted of women, children and elderly men. Once in East Prussia, the Soviet soldiers took revenge on the civilians for the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war. Towns and villages were plundered and turned into wasteland; brutal killings and mass rapes were widespread. Famine soon followed, so severe that cases of cannibalism were recorded.

Map of East Prussia in 1939. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Postcard of Königsberg before the Second World War from Königsberg in alten Ansichtskarten (Würzburg, 2001) YA.2003.a.25095

Königsberg in August 1944. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Thousands of children became orphaned. They witnessed unimaginable horrors: killings, rapes, death of their siblings – one by one – from starvation, hypothermia and typhoid. Sometimes mothers approached farmers from neighbouring Lithuania, who were allowed to come to East Prussia and sell their produce, and offered their older children as farm workers in exchange for food; it gave those children – and their starving siblings – a chance of survival. Some children were sent out in search of food by their families, or volunteered themselves, crossing the border with Lithuania by stowing away on trains or crossing the frozen Nemunas river. Traumatised, they hid in the forests and moved, on their own or with younger siblings in tow, from village to village, begging, stealing, foraging for food and looking for shelter.

Some Lithuanian farmers took pity on these vokietukai (little Germans), and took them in as farm workers. Those children who still had families in East Prussia took hard-earned food across the border to share with their starving mothers and siblings. The lucky ones were adopted by Lithuanian families and treated as their own. The not so fortunate ones were exploited as cheap labour. The children were split from their siblings and had to move from place to place, from family to family, uprooted again and again. Whatever their situation, the wolf children were still grateful they had something to eat and a place to stay. The price they had to pay for survival, however, was their identity. The title of Šlepikas’ book is a Lithuanian phrase the main protagonist, a girl called Renate, is taught by her mother: my name is Marytė. She repeats it again and again when she gets to Lithuania. Being German is dangerous so German Renate becomes Lithuanian Marytė.

Two brothers from East Prussia, begging for food in Vilnius in May 1947. ‘Wolf children on Lithuanian farms’, from Imagining Lithuania: 100 years, 100 visions: 1918-2018 (Vilnius, 2018) [awaiting shelfmark]

German children adopted by Lithuanians were often given new Lithuanian names and new identities. Sometimes helpful priests falsified parish records. The adoptive parents and their families risked severe punishment by the Soviet authorities and lived in constant fear of the truth coming out. As a result most of the wolf children received very little schooling; many were illiterate and ended up living in poverty. It was only after the fall of communism that their identities could be safely revealed. Some of the wolf children only found out that they were German when they were elderly. With no original documents or with documents containing wrong or incomplete information, they faced an uphill struggle to find their German roots. Some managed to find relatives in Germany; for some it was too late. Having forgotten their native language, some re-learnt German to be able to communicate with their families. There were stories of happy reunions but sometimes wolf children were met with suspicion from their German relatives, or outright rejection. They were often uneducated, didn‘t know the language; they were seen as a possible burden.

For decades after the war, the wolf children of East Prussia didn’t get much attention in Germany, either. The country had to reckon with its Nazi past and the accompanying guilt; there was reluctance about presenting Germans – even innocent children – as victims of war. In addition, the wolf children who managed to get to Germany were unwilling to talk about their experiences, too traumatic to revisit.

In any military conflict children can become collateral damage and erased from history. Mano vardas – Marytė gives voice to those who, for decades, have been forgotten. The book is not just a story of loss and unimaginable suffering but also of love, resilience, and hope against all odds.

Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

References and further reading:

Norbertas Černiauskas, ‘Wolf children on Lithuanian farms’, in Imagining Lithuania: 100 years, 100 visions: 1918-2018 (Vilnius, 2018) [awaiting shelfmark]

Sonya Winterberg with Kerstin Lieff, The wolf children of Eastern Front: alone and forgotten (Barnsley, 2022)

Population displacement in Lithuania in the twentieth century, edited by Tomas Balkelis and Violeta Davoliūtė (Leiden, 2016). YD.2016.a.1761

Displaced children in Russia and Eastern Europe, 1915-1953, edited by Nick Baron (Leiden, 2016). YD.2017.a.1602

Sigita Kraniauskienė, Silva Pocytė, Ruth Leiserowitz, Irena Šutinienė, Klaipėdos kraštas 1945-1960 m.: naujos visuomenės kūrimasis ir jo atspindžiai šeimų istorijose (Klaipėda, 2019). YF.2021.a.9595

Christopher Spatz, Ostpreußische Wolfskinder: Erfahrungsräume und Identitäten in der deutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaft (Osnabrück, 2016). YF.2016.a.15325

Ruth Maria Wagner, Königsberg in alten Ansichtskarten (Würzburg, 2001). YA.2003.a.25095

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Germany , History , Lithuania , Slavonic | Permalink

14 November 2024

Marx versus Kinkel – a tale of two newspapers

On 15 November we are hosting a conference on European Political exiles and émigrés in Britain. This is one of a series of blog posts on the same topic. Conference details can be found here. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

If you were asked to name the most famous German political refugee in 19th-century Britain, you’d probably choose Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels. But at the time, Marx and Engels were comparatively little known outside a relatively small faction of communists. In wider émigré circles and among the British public, a far more familiar name was that of Gottfried Kinkel, an academic, writer and revolutionary who had arrived in London in November 1850 after making a dramatic escape from Spandau prison.

Gottfried Kinkel in the early 1860s (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Marx would no doubt be delighted to know that his fame today far eclipses Kinkel’s because he thoroughly despised Kinkel, considering him to be a self-aggrandising third-rate writer and thinker. And since Marx was never one to nurse his dislikes quietly, his letters and other writings, especially the posthumously-published Die großen Männer des Exils (Heroes of the Exile) are full of vitriol against Kinkel and his allies.

While Marx’s dismissal of Kinkel’s work was doubtless based on genuine conviction, it’s not hard to see an element of envy there too. In the decade following his arrival in London, Kinkel began to make quite a name for himself as a teacher and lecturer, and was respected by other revolutionary exiles, especially those of the middle class, in a way that Marx could only dream of. At the end of the 1850s, Marx’s loathing would be further exacerbated when both men became involved with newspapers.

First Issue of Kinkel’s newspaper Hermann, 8 January 1859. NEWS14565

In 1859 Kinkel founded a newspaper for Germans in London, naming it Hermann, after the ancient Germanic leader who defeated the Roman army. Hermann did not appear in a vacuum. Various German papers had been published in London since 1812 in an attempt to serve a growing German community and the arrival of political exiles after 1848 had led to a number of new Anglo-German newspapers with a more radical slant, most of them short lived as was the case with many such ventures. A few issues of Marx’s own Neue Rheinische Zeitung (‘New Rhenish Journal’) had been edited from London in 1850, but Marx had been involved with later London titles as a contributor rather than an editor. Now, with Kinkel promoting his own newspaper (which Marx and Engels cynically referred to as ‘Gottfried’), Marx felt more strongly the need for a similar platform of his own.

First issue of Das Volk, 7 May 1859. NEWS14239

A solution appeared in the form of Das Volk (‘The People’). This was founded in May 1859 by the Communist Workers’ Educational Association to replace a previous title, Die neue Zeit (‘The New Age’) which had recently folded. Again, Marx was initially only a contributor, but he very much approved of the paper (and of its strong opposition to Kinkel) and gradually sought to increase his influence on it. Although never officially its editor, he was effectively carrying out the role by mid-July, with Engels helping the venture financially. As Das Volk became increasingly a mouthpiece for Marx’s ideas it began to lose readers, and it closed in August. Marx, with typical self-confidence, blamed the paper’s demise on its readers’ failure to appreciate the quality of his work. He was also convinced that Kinkel was deliberately working to sabotage potential rivals to Hermann.

Whether by fair means or foul, Hermann certainly thrived. Kinkel’s name was seen as a guarantee of quality to many fellow exiles as well as to other Germans immigrants and even to some British readers. Although the paper promoted broadly liberal politics, it also reported on arts and culture and, crucially, on the activities of German clubs, organisations and institutions in Britain. Das Volk had initially also covered the latter, but this declined under Marx’s control, alienating readers who wanted a more general newspaper for their community. Kinkel and Herrmann also made much of the celebrations in November 1859 of Friedrich Schiller’s centenary, an event that transcended political allegiances and helped unite Germans in Britain in a show of cultural pride.

Illustrated page from Hermann issue 44, 12 November 1859, with portraits of Schiller’s parents and wife as part of an article about the 1859 London Schiller Festival

Hermann would survive, under different editors and with changes in its political direction, into the 20th century, the longest run of any Anglo-German newspaper. Only the ban on German publishing in Britain on the outbreak of war in 1914 put an end to its appearance.

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/further reading:

Christine Lattek, Revolutionary Refugees: German Socialism in Britain, 1840-1860 (London, 2006) YC.2007.a.3912

Susan Reed, ‘A modest sentinel for German interests in England: The Anglo-German Press in the Long Nineteenth Century’ in Stéphanie Prévost and Bénédicte Deschamps (eds.), Immigration and Exile Foreign-Language Press in the UK and the US: Connected Histories of the 19th and 20th Centuries (London, 2024) [Not yet catalogued]

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Anglo-German , Germanic , Germany , History , Newsroom , Publishing and printing | Permalink

07 November 2024

A Lifeline of Books: The British Library and Polish Exiles

For those forced to leave their homeland, a library is far more than just a building filled with books—it becomes a lifeline. Traditionally, libraries have served as essential repositories of knowledge, but during times of upheaval, exile and displacement, they transform into symbols of cultural survival. For many Polish people who found themselves in London after the Second World War and throughout the communist era, these cultural spaces provided not only archives of their heritage but also comfort, community, and hope for a better future.

The Polish diaspora in London stands as a testament to the power of cultural institutions. Polish libraries, archives and publishing houses in the city have been pivotal in preserving cultural heritage, fostering identity and offering emotional and intellectual sustenance to exiles and migrants. These organizations, both large and small, played a crucial role in helping Polish people stay connected to their roots despite being far from home. The establishment of the Polish government-in-exile in London further solidified the community’s presence, spurring the growth of cultural and educational institutions.

Even before these organizations fully developed, displaced Poles found refuge in the reading rooms of the British Museum Library (later the British Library), which became a vital support system for the Polish diaspora. As exiles fleeing Nazi and Soviet occupations arrived in the UK, they found themselves cut off from their homeland and the cultural materials that connected them to it. The British Museum Library became an essential resource, providing access to Polish books, newspapers and historical documents that were otherwise inaccessible during the war.

The library played an especially important role in supporting Polish intellectuals, writers, and journalists working in exile. Among them was Mieczysław Grydzewski, a prominent journalist and editor, who relied heavily on its resources. Grydzewski edited Wiadomości Polskie (later Wiadomości), a journal that served as a critical platform for Polish writers and intellectuals throughout the war and post-war years. For Grydzewski and others, the British Museum Library was indispensable in their efforts to maintain Polish literary and journalistic traditions while in exile.

Mieczysław Grydzewski at the British Museum Library. Illustration from Listy (Warsaw, 2022) YF.2023.a.3958

Faced with limited access to Polish literary works in wartime London, Grydzewski often had to transcribe passages from books only available at the Library. By the end of 1940, his reliance on these resources was so great that the institution allowed him to set up an additional desk in one of its corridors, where a secretary assisted him in copying texts. Together, they diligently transcribed important passages from authors such as the chronicler Jan Długosz (see the book: Vita beatissimi Stanislai Cracoviensis episcopi. Nec nō legende sanctorum Polonie Hungarie Bohemie Moravie Prussie et Slesie patronorum, in lombardica historia nō contente. (Kraków, 1511) C.110.d.8.) and many modern writers. These excerpts were then prepared for typesetting and publication, ensuring that Polish literature and history continued to reach the diaspora despite the conflict.

Other distinguished Polish scholars also relied on the British Museum Library during this period. Maria Danilewiczowa, who would later become director of the Polish Library in London, conducted much of her research there, as did General Marian Kukiel, a historian and military figure whose work on Polish military history greatly benefited from the Library’s extensive collections. Similarly, Stefan Westfal, known for his linguistic analysis of Polish (Rzecz o Polszczyźnie (London, 1956) 012977.l.4.), and Tadeusz Sulimirski, who edited a journal Biuletyn Zachodnio-Słowiański, drew heavily from the British Museum Library’s resources. Their research contributed to the preservation and enrichment of Polish intellectual life in exile.

Biuletyn Zachodnio-Słowiański (Edinburgh, 1940- )PP.3554.nem]

The British Library’s holdings include many valuable works essential to maintaining Poland’s cultural memory. Among them are rare historical texts, literary works, and political documents preserved from before the war. The library’s Polonica collection is particularly rich, encompassing key texts in Polish history, literature, and law, as well as works by 19th-century Polish poets and political figures who fought for the country’s independence. During the communist era, post-war émigré publications, including materials related to the Solidarity movement and other dissident groups, connected the diaspora with ongoing struggles in Poland. Today, after democratic changes, our contemporary collections continue to keep the Polish diaspora in touch with current developments in the country.

Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in History , Poland , Publishing and printing , Slavonic | Permalink

01 October 2024

How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800

Join us on Friday 15 November 2024 for the ‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference taking place in Pigott Theatre, Knowledge Centre at the British Library. This one-day in-person event will explore the rich history of political refugees from Europe who sought asylum in the UK from the 19th century onwards. International academics, scholars, and curators will investigate how European diaspora communities have woven themselves into the fabric of British society, fostering intercultural exchange and contributing to the shaping of modern Britain.

‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference poster

The conference is organised by the European Collections section of the British Library in partnership with the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) London. It will be accompanied by the exhibition ‘Music, Migration, and Mobility: The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain’ and by events run by the conference partners.

The event is open to all and attendance is free, but registration is required. Booking details can be found here.

Programme

10:00 Welcome

10:05 Session 1: Artists

Moderator: Olga Topol, British Library

‘Leaving Home’ – Franciszka Themerson and Her Artistic Community in the UK, Jasia Reichardt, Art Critic and Curator

Austrian Musicians and Writers in Exile in the 1930s and 1940s, Oliver Rathkolb, University of Vienna and Vienna Institute of Contemporary and Cultural History and Art (VICCA)

On the Rock of Exiles: Victor Hugo in the Channel Islands, Bradley Stephens, University of Bristol

Music, Migration & Mobility, The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain, Norbert Meyn, Royal College of Music, London

12:00 The stone that spoke screening

Introduction by Gail Borrow, ExploreTheArch arts facilitated by EUNIC London

12:15 Lunch

13:00 Session 2: Governments in Exile

Moderator: Valentina Mirabella, British Library

London Exile of the Yugoslav Government during the Second World War and its Internal Problems, Milan Sovilj, Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

The Spanish Republican Exile in Great Britain: General Characteristics and the case of Roberto Gerhard, Mari Paz Balibrea, Birkbeck, University of London

Fascism and anti-fascism in London's 'Little Italy' and Giacomo Matteotti's secret visit to London in 1924, Alfio Bernabei, Historian and Author

14:30 Break

14:45 Session 3: Building Communities

Moderator: Katya Rogatchevskaia, British Library

Tefcros Anthias: poet, writer, activist, and public intellectual in Cyprus and the Cypriot Community in London, Floya Anthias, University of Roehampton, London

The Journeys in Stories: Jewish emigration from Lithuania via United Kingdom, Dovilė Čypaitė-Gilė, Vilna Gaon, Museum of Jewish History, Vilnius University

Political migration from Hungary, 1918-1956, Thomas Lorman, UCL's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London

16:15 Break

16:30 – 17:00 Session 4: Writing Diaspora

Moderator: Anthony Chapman-Joy, Royal Holloway, University of London, British Library

Newspapers published by 19th-century German political exiles in England, Susan Reed, British Library

Clandestine WWII pamphlets, Marja Kingma, British Library

We look forward to welcoming you to the conference in November. In the meantime, we invite you to discover a new display of works by Franciszka Themerson ‘Walking Backwards’, currently on show at Tate Britain, and to explore the history of Lithuanian Jewish immigration to the UK at the annual Litvak Days in London.

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Austria , Croatia , Cyprus , France , Germanic , Germany , History , Hungary , Italy , Lithuania , Music , Netherlands , Poland , Politics , Publishing and printing , Romance languages , Serbia , Slavonic , Slovenia , Spain | Permalink

05 September 2024

Underground Publishing in Poland under Communist Regime: Through Female Eyes

The Gdańsk Agreement of 1980, established between the workers of the Lenin shipyard and the Polish People’s Republic’s undemocratically elected government, saw the beginning of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union’s fight against the Communist Regime. In the following seven years, around 4830 books and 2027 journals, many of which are in the British Library’s Solidarity Collection, were published underground in a so-called ‘second circulation’. As far as the records go, only 175 of these works were authored by a mere 97 female writers.

Superficial research into female involvement in Polish anti-government publishing could end here. Women in print? Official numbers leave no doubt: they were few and far between. To broaden the scope of this quest to uncover unheard female voices in the Solidarity Collection, avenues other than scholarly browsing of the Library’s basements had to be incorporated. And so, on a brisk December morning, one of them led all the way out of the bustle of central London into the quiet of Hampshire countryside.

“At that time my involvement in the anti-communist opposition was very important for me, probably more important than my medical studies”, recalls Anna Młynik-Shawcross, a retired psychiatrist based in Britain since 1985 – the year when she arrived here as a political refugee. Anna reflects on the times after the strikes in the shipyard ended and she graduated from the medical school. “However, I decided to follow medicine instead of getting involved as the unions’ activist”, she confirms. But how does this story begin? The interview with her is meant to deepen the present understanding of diverse roles women played in the 1970s-1980s Polish underground publishing.

Anna Młynik-Shawcross in her home (photo by Olga Topol).

Anna, born in 1955 in Gdańsk, first became involved with the democratic anti-communist movement at the beginning of her Medical School years, in the winter of 1976. When the communist government pushed for changes in the Polish constitution of the time, Anna, alongside a small group of Gdańsk students, joined the movement which started with signing the protest letters against those changes. In the summer of the same year the famous strikes began in Radom and Lublin and spread all over the country, while lots of people lost their employment. At that time the famous ‘Committee for Social Self-Defence’ (KOR) was set up. “I was able to get the list of names of the workers who were sacked [so that they could be helped by KOR]”, recalls Anna. In the years 1977-1978, she was part of the ‘Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights’ (ROPCiO). She was a founder member of the Student Solidarity Committee set up in Gdańsk in November 1977 and was involved in organising student discussion groups and helping those persecuted by the Communist regime.

Around the same time, one of the first printing machines intended for the independent underground printing of works by authors censored by the regime was shipped from abroad with the help of Jaraczewski family, Józef Piłsudski’s descendants. Anna remembers the times she spent printing leaflets and the establishment of an underground periodical Bratniak published by the ‘Movement of Young Poland’, a Free Trade Union periodical called Robotnik Wybrzeża, as well as the first independent publishing house involved in distributing books across the country, Nowa.

An example of an underground publication, Kazimierz Brandys, Miesiące, (Warszawa 1980) Sol. 241w.

“I was in contact with them and was involved into distribution of books across Poland. They had to be well protected, so we had to have a network of people. We would distribute them through friends, all just through networks”, recalls Anna. Distribution of printed material posed challenges, with private flats acting as places of conspiracy. In the following years, Anna contributed to nothing less than the establishment of a new publishing house, Klin. Together with a small group of friends they set the ambitious goal of about 3,500 published books to be published, and worked tirelessly towards it. Still today she recalls, not without excitement, getting a ‘Western’ paper trimmer, as well as gaining the support of a bookbinder.

“It started with my money that I earned working as a student abroad”, Anna recalls, “We needed a lot of paper, but you couldn’t simply go into a shop and buy tons of paper. So we were going to different shops and buying small amounts.” The printing was primitive, primarily in the offset technique. “We got the paint and were spending hours and hours copying books”, adds Anna, a 2009 recipient of an Order of Polonia Restituta. Now, let us look again at the initial number mentioned above: 97 female writers? What about the women behind the scenes?

Anna expands on female involvement in the opposition movement, including the free press. Although often reluctant about such contribution because of concern for the welfare of their children, especially at that challenging time, many women were involved. She and Magda Modzelewska were involved in Gdańsk’s Student Solidarity Commitee. Joanna Duda-Gwiazda and Alinka Pieńkowska belonged to the Wolne Związki Zawodowe trade unions, which published journal Robotnik Wybrzeża. Finally, Bożena Rybicka, Małgorzata Rybicka, and Magda Modzelewska supported the journal Bratniak: “Małgorzata Rybicka was writing articles in Bratniak, while Magda Modzelewska was involved into editing and publishing”, recalls Anna.

Back cover of Marguerite Duras Kochanek (Siedlce, 1987) Sol.235j. featuring a dedication to female colleagues working in the independent publishing movement.

Any involvement in the opposition’s fight for democracy and freedom of speech involved high risk and intimidation. Secret police employed numerous tactics, including arrests, house searches, sending anonymous letters with false information and all kind of threats. “One day my parents received an anonymous letter informing them that I was under the influence of drug addicts and that [my parents] should put pressure on me to disengage from the opposition. My parents were threatened that they would lose their employment. Also, for me, getting a job was hard, especially locally”, she recollects.

Friendships developed during her involvement with underground publishing, which were based on enormous levels of trust to support the clandestine activities. She reflects upon the fact that most of the people involved in the opposition groups belonged to the intelligentsia: “After Wałęsa joined the movement it was a bit easier to reach the working-class people. But they were being persecuted”.

The fascinating conversation goes on for hours. Initial conclusions drawn from limited research done so far into women in Poland’s ‘second circulation’ go down the drain. And with that emerges a richer picture: that of publishing houses which, although dominated by men, could not have accomplished their mission fully without female efforts around printing and distribution of illegal pro-democratic materials. And so, a brisk December morning spent in a quiet Hampshire town can alone paint a fascinating picture of women working alongside men to help true information reach larger numbers of Poles during the Cold War. Imagine what could more such encounters, and digging deeper into the potential of oral history, bring to surface.

Agata Piotrowska, Doctoral Fellow 2024, Slavonic and East European collections

European studies blog

310 posts categorized "History"

Silenced memories: the Holocaust Narrative in the Soviet Union

Through the Eyes of Terezín’s Ghetto Children

Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration. Holocaust Memorial Day 2025

New Year, Old Years: a Look Back

Christmas in Scheveningen 1942

The wolf children of East Prussia

Marx versus Kinkel – a tale of two newspapers

A Lifeline of Books: The British Library and Polish Exiles

How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800

Underground Publishing in Poland under Communist Regime: Through Female Eyes

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