Refleksje i uwagi o książce Omera Bartova Anatomia pewnego ludobójstwa. Życie i śmierć Buczacza, tłum. A. Musiał, Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo „Czarne, 2019, ss. 358.

Abstract

Several reviews have appeared on the Omer Bartov’s book, published in English in 2018 (Bartov, Omer. Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018. xiv, 398 pages, illustrations, maps. ISBN-978-1-4516-8453-7), and translated into Polish in 2019 by Adam Musiał. All the reviewers stressed its importance for Holocaust studies. Unfortunately, in Poland no university-based author meetings were held in connection with this publication, and the author was not asked many questions. Nor was the book awarded any prize in Poland, despite receiving recognition abroad. Were, if it was not for the reviews, it would have passed almost unnoticed in the Polish academic world.

The present text is a reflection on the book devoted to Buczacz in the first half of the twentieth century, but at the same time - by following its content - also on the end of an era in the history of the multicultural and multinational local communities of Central Europe. This book deserves close attention and a pause for consideration of the conclusions drawn from the research it presents.

What I reflect upon above all is what, how, and why was written in it, why the author chose this particular perspective rather than another, and what constitutes the scholarly discovery in this book regarding the history of former Buczacz. Why was the story of the events that unfolded in this small Galician town - Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian - told only after more than eighty years? What lessons for the future does the history of this community carry?