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In Search of Polin: Chasing Jewish Ghosts in Today’s Poland

Binem Heller, seen as a liberation. The great value of this book lies in the numerous quotations of Yiddish poetry and literature, and in translating them Ruta has introduced to a Polish readership new perspectives on Jewish experiences after the Holocaust. The poetry and literature explored here show the history of survivors in a different light than that usually offered by more familiar historical documents such as the press, memoirs, or testimonies. In writing about life in the shadow of the Holocaust, Ruta does not shirk from the tragedy of the topic at hand: in one particularly heartbreaking poem, the author Guta Guterman sits happily drinking red wine on a joyful New Year’s Eve until she suddenly notices “through the frothy scarlet, her murdered sister.” Ruta also writes about the trauma of those Yiddish writers who, having come back home after the war, were confronted with the post-Holocaust reality of a land long held deep in their hearts. She writes eloquently about the ways in which Jews tried to cope with the “landscape of death” they encountered upon their return. Once again, Ruta moves beyond the presentation of dry descriptions and instead brings to life a set of deeply felt human emotions. This is a book that will be of interest not only to literary experts, but to all researchers interested in Jewish life in Poland both during and after the Second World War, regardless of their specialisation. It deserves to be considered essential reading for all scholars working on the history of the Jewish community in post-war Poland.