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Series Editor’s Preface

JERZY ANDRZEJEWSKI MAY BE best known in the West as the author of the screenplay for Ashes and Diamonds, the great postwar film by Polish director Andrzej Wajda. Andrzejewski, though, was a monumental figure in post–World War II Polish literature with both a broad canon of work in literature and a heroic record of participation in Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity movement.

Among Andrzejewski’s many achievements was a little book, ironically titled Holy Week, which arguably ranks among his most interesting and significant works. Although virtually unknown among English-language readers, Holy Week merits attention as one of the first attempts by Polish intellectuals during the postwar period to confront the problem of anti-Semitism in Polish society.

Holy Week, which we publish here for the first time in English translation, is a troubling story of failed human possibilities set against the backdrop of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis. It is a story of love and fear, of ethnic bigotry and Christian charity, of heroism and victimhood, of human weakness and societal limits. As such, it draws out moral lessons—for persons and peoples—about the toll that prejudice takes on individuals’ humanity and on national self-identity. In its own imperfect way, it marked the beginning of a great national moral self-examination in Poland, one that has proceeded only in fits and starts since the end of the war but has gained momentum since the end of Poland’s Communist regime and, in large measure, has revolutionized Polish national values and sensibilities regarding the country’s Jewish minority.

In bringing out this edition of Holy Week at this time, we hope to encourage a continuation of the dialogue and introspection inspired by the papal visits to the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the recent publication of such works as Jan Gross’s Neighbors, and the revival of Jewish culture in contemporary Poland, as well as by other political events and developments in Polish society that suggest some resurgence in right-wing Polish nationalism. We no less believe that the publication of this work also should serve to honor and memorialize its author and other Poles possessed of the courage and integrity to plumb this dark recess within the otherwise noble heart of their country. May it also warn just and righteous men and women of all nations, creeds, and races against intolerance in thought, words, and deeds now and in the future.

Publication of the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series marks a milestone in the maturation of the Polish studies field and stands as a fitting tribute to the scholars and organizations whose efforts have brought it to fruition. Supported by a series advisory board of accomplished Polonists and Polish-Americanists, the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible through generous financial assistance from the Polish American Historical Association, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, and the Piast Institute and through institutional support from Wayne State University and Ohio University Press. Publication of this particular series volume has been aided by a grant from the Richard D. and Mary Jane Edwards Endowed Publication Fund at the University of Pittsburgh, the home institution of the volume’s principal translator, Professor Oscar Swan, whose efforts to bring this project to fruition also should be especially recognized here. The series meanwhile has benefited from the warm encouragement of a number of other persons, including Gillian Berchowitz, M. B. B. Biskupski, the late Stanislaus A. Blejwas, Mary Erdmans, Thaddeus Gromada, James S. Pula, Thaddeus Radzilowski, and David Sanders. The moral and material support from all of these institutions and individuals is gratefully acknowledged.

John J. Bukowczyk