You are cordially invited to a book event for
Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?
with
Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz
Editor
Pawel Styrna
Editor
Saturday, May 12
2:00-4:00 PM
The Institute of World Politics
1521 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu.
This event is sponsored by the Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies at IWP.
IWP Professor and holder of the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies, Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, and Kościuszko Chair Assistant Pawel Styrna have published a new study, co-edited with Dr. Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński from Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, on the Holocaust in Poland.
Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? rejects the pop-cultural-cum-post-modernist image of a Polish Christian benefiting from the Holocaust and, instead, recognizes a variety of nuanced attitudes of the gentiles toward the great Jewish tragedy. There were a few who harmed the Jews, while reaping a “golden harvest” from the Jewish misfortune. The majority was cowed into inaction by fear of the Nazis. There were also others who assisted Jewish fugitives – both actively and passively – at a time when even the failure to report the presence of a Jew nearby might have cost one and one’s family their lives. However, neither a “golden harvest” nor “hearts of gold” were the norm. Pathologies and heroism never are. The reality was much more nuanced and involved a variety of attitudes. The conclusions of Chodakiewicz’s team were the results of careful primary source research.
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Wojciech Jerzy Muszynski, and Pawel Styrna, Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? Studies on the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews (Washington, DC: Leopolis Press, 2012).
To purchase this work, please click here.