The language used by the authors to describe the society often sounds sacrilegious from today’s post-Holocaust perspective. The most striking examples from this volume are the texts titled “Ulica” [the street]10 and “Obrazki uliczne” [street scenes from the ghetto],11 both written by Stanisław Różycki within the framework of the research project called “Two and a Half Years”.12 They were an attempt to describe the physical and social space of the ghetto. The image of the Jewish quarter emerging from Różycki’s texts is very different from that conveyed by post-war texts. There are no young fighters in Różycki’s texts. There is no Janusz Korczak or even an Adam Czerniaków. There is no civilian or armed resistance, no sacrifice of individual social activists that bordered on heroism, no charities or cultural organisations that symbolised the noblest aspects of the ghetto. Instead, the ghetto streets are just places of indigence, fraud, and theft. In the midst of the fierce struggle for survival, crimes are committed against the weakest: children, refugees, and beggars. The corpses discarded onto the streets and stripped of their clothes become the symbol of the ghetto reality. “The family gets rid of the corpse — useless ballast generating costs and problems. And what does a corpse need a shirt for?” comments Różycki. Thieves, petty vendors, or prostitutes from his texts are not only people who continue their pre-war activity; many of them became forced to earn a living in that way only after they had found themselves in the ghetto. Różycki’s testimony shows no place for morality in the ghetto. Family and social ties simply cannot withstand the struggle for survival. The ghetto is no place for compassion. Numbed by hunger and diseases, mothers abandon their children. To provide for their families, other mothers send their children over the wall to smuggle and beg, thus sentencing them to almost certain death. Yet, new entertainment locales keep sprouting up in the midst of the nightmare of the street. “Because here you have a bar, a café, and a restaurant. You can play cards, dance, drink, and enjoy the company of women. You name it, you got it. ‘Heaven on Earth.’ Music, singing, a positive frame of mind, and wit add amusement to the bleak boredom of the life
Introduction XXV
