Biographical Collective Memories of “The last generation” – Jewish Youth and the Dilemmas of Identity

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to indicate a considerable research potential of the collection edited by Alina Cała: „Ostatnie Pokolenie. Autobiografie polskiej młodzieży żydowskiej okresu międzywojennego ze zbiorów YIVO Institute of Jewish Research w Nowym Jorku” (The Last Generation. Interwar autobiographies of Polish Jewish youth from the collection of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York), published in Warsaw in 2003. The autobiographies includes twenty journals by Jewish youth which were sent in for a competition organized by the Jewish Scientific Institute in Vilnius (YIVO) in 1932, 1934 and 1939. In this paper I focus on demarcation and presentation of educational paths of Polish-speaking Jews and their views about the Polish-Jewish reality of schooling in Interwar Poland. Increasing anti-Semitism of the Polish society and deepening economic crisis were in that time the most influential factors on development of social-cultural identity. The process of acculturation of Jewish youth executed mainly by public education was halted by anti-Semitic attitude of some teachers and Polish students. Ambivalence becomes the main characteristic of social-cultural identity, “cultural schizophrenia”, conflict of individual identity between Polish and Jewish culture. Consequently, this results in a rejection of the idea of biculturalism directing attention towards the Jewish national identity and intensified tendency for emigration to Palestine.