KAMIL KIJEK ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney. Today is April 30th, 2013. I'm here in the University of Wrocław with Kamil Kijek. We are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

KAMIL KIJEK:Yes, of course.

CW:Thank you. So, to start, can you tell me what you know about your family background?

KK:Um-hm. Out of -- in terms of national, religious terms, I have two family backgrounds. One is from side of my father, which is Christian. Christian, Catholic. And from my mother -- my mother is from Jewish family, from Odessa. She was raised in Odessa. Her parents were born in -- during the First World War 1:00in the 1920s in Soviet Ukraine, in Vinnytsya. And then, came to study in Odessa before the war. Then, during the war, my grandfather was a Soviet soldier. My grandmother was a doctor in Siberia. After the war, they got married in Moscow, lived in many places, and then came back to Odessa in 1958 with small -- my small mother. And, yes, so how it came that my mother married my father, my father was a student, was a Polish student sent on a scholarship to study in Soviet Union. And he -- actually, he was also student of my grandfather in a poly-technical school, and that's how he met my mother. Then, he got married in Odessa, there. They lived there for some time, and already when my mother was pregnant with me, they came to Poland, which was a kind of special situation, since, in her family, I think she was only one of two people that married non-Jew, and -- but she also -- not only married non-Jew, but married a Pole. 2:00And being from that kind of professors, in -- but intellectual family, she married the son of a Polish peasant family. My grandparents from my mother's side had the higher education. My grandparents from Polish side, they finished just three classes of primary school. So, it kind of was -- it was very special. And it is very special marriage. And the -- my mother's family, they were kind of typical, I would say. Typical Russian Jewish family. Maybe not -- not typical -- was -- a big part of family was very engaged in the refusenik movement, and brother of my grandmother, Alexander Lerner, was one of the leaders of the refusenik movement in Moscow. So, big part of the family -- they very much, from 1970s, wanted to emigrate to Israel, and eventually all of them, they did it. But my mother did a dafke [opposite decision]. Married the Polish guy, went to Poland, so she kind of establish her new life in Poland and -- while her 3:00parents, her sister, all her cousins, everyone emigrated to Israel, and parts of family members to United States. So, that's the story.

CW:Are there any particular family stories that have been passed down?

KK:A lot of them. I think a lot, and also -- so, lot of -- a lot of stories were not passed down, but kind of felt. And now they are recreated by me, by some of my uncles, by my mother and my aunt -- which was, I guess, connected to that specific situation of the Jews in Soviet Union and the Soviet Jewish history that affected very much our family life. One is, I think, very important -- about -- connected to the Yiddish language that -- I think that my mother knew that her mother knows some Yiddish, that her father probably knows some Yiddish words. And she was raised also by her grandmother, who was a native Yiddish speaker, and -- but nobody saw them speaking Yiddish, and actually, nobody -- 4:00Yiddish was not the issue at home at all. When I -- what I remember from 1980s in Odessa, when I was visiting my grandparents -- and then suddenly, when they immigrated to Israel, I noticed that, on the post, official post, my grandmother is speaking fluent Yiddish. That was their Jewish language, how they communicated with non-Russian Jews in Israel, old ones. They couldn't speak Hebrew, so they talked Yiddish. But the story is that my only -- in the Yiddish communication, the only person who stepping in to this communication was my grandmother. My grandfather never said nothing, so we're sure that he forgot Yiddish. He was raised in much more Russian atmosphere. But only after his death, we discovered that he finished all the steps of Russian -- Yiddish Soviet education in 1920s and 1930s. And actually, his Yiddish was -- it was his native language that he spoke at home with his father. Only Yiddish. But because of his 5:00kind of, I think, attitude, also, and what happened to him during his life, he kind of pressed, totally -- and pressed it away. And so, what -- about what we were talking, what effect did I think his attitude to the Yiddish culture, that -- my grandmother was from very educated Russian Jewish family. Already in Soviet Russia, they were kind of shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community] elite, and -- but my grandfather was a son of a very poor shoemaker who was very religious, even in -- already in the beginning of the communist times. And kind of from that, what we know, what he -- said few words. Had a very bad family relationship. He -- very early, when he was thirteen or fourteen, left home to use all the benefits of the Soviet systems for the Jews, that he can study in a high school and then go to the university at Odessa. And 6:00I heard -- I think he had a very big resentment to that kind of traditional shtetl life. And all his longings were to go outside, to become Russian, to -- he was all the time consciously Jewish, but his kind of -- all his social advance, all his ambitions were in the Russian world. So, my mother was raised totally in Russian literature, in admiration of Chekhov, of Tolstoy, of everything what was high Russian. And nothing -- really, at home, there was -- I think even conscious repression of everything what was kind of traditionally Jewish, you know, so it was connected to the Yiddish culture. And I think it was also affected by this -- that my grandfather, who was a mathematician, studied mathematics before the war. And when the -- 1941, when the Germans attacked Soviet Union -- and he was drafted to the army, and there was lack of artillery 7:00officers. And he was a mathematician, so he was perfect for artillery, anti-aircraft artillery. He was trained and became officer and advanced very fast in -- during the Second World War. He was in Stalingrad, he was in -- among the forces that conquered Budapest, Vienna, and being very good mathematician, in 1945, he was straightaway transferred to the highest kind of Russian military academy in Moscow, where he did doctorate for mathematics. And it was kind of applied mathematics used in a -- in the projects of creation of first Soviet rockets. And it was very nice until, I think, 1948 or '49, I don't know exactly -- when, as many Jews of the time, he was accused of kosmopolityzm [Polish: cosmopolitanism] on the basis that we had some family in Mexico who tried to find Russian family and send some packages to UNRRA. And as a cosmopolite, he 8:00was imprisoned, almost got killed. Eventually, he was released, but one month before doctorate -- so, all his academic career at the end of his life had ended. And in order to be able to sustain his family -- because my aunt was already -- she was born and she was very small. He was kind of administrative person in the Soviet army, living in Lithuania, in Abkhazia, in Georgia, in all these awkward places? And this what we know, because we -- I already saw it in the childhood. He was full of fear all the time, kind of, of being -- and of feeling of personal kind of -- of personal harm that's -- was done to him, and he -- I think he was very afraid of manifesting publicly -- of things Jewish. 9:00And I think it very much affected how my mother was raised, that -- for example, my grandfather very much admired what brother of his wife, this refusenik, did. And he very much kind of was -- admired, and was sympathetic to the refusenik movement, but he was very much afraid to engage. And I think it also affected how she was raised. She knew that she's Jewish. Most of the social sphere around, all the family friends were Jewish. But simultaneously, her education was totally Russian. And also, my mother, I think, have choice of marrying my father, and going to Poland, was kind of wanting to get away from this kind of stigma I guess. It was never told stigma, and my mother never, I don't know, baptized. She's consciously Jewish, but there is -- it's the Jewishness without 10:00any content. And I think this affected why he really, in Israel, he used to speak Yiddish. Or he said that he forgot, but I -- if he did, I think that he -- or even his high school exams were in Yiddish. Like, all his education until he went to study in Odessa was in Yiddish language or in Jewish schools, and he spoke home Yiddish with his father and mother. I think it will be impossible that he would forget it. And I think he had a lot of these things -- what Russian Jews had that was -- who were already kind of Russified, and they were admiring Hebrew, of course, yes? And he was very much kind of -- very much liked his life in Israel, last eleven years of his life. So, it was admiration for Hebrew, but it was never -- and I think I got it, also -- when they started to do Jewish studies, I was all Hebrew, Hebrew, Hebrew.

CW:Yeah, we'll get to that. Can you tell me a little about how all of these 11:00aspects and also your father's family shaped the home you grew up in?

KK:Okay, so, my father's family, they are very kind of -- they're lower cla-- I'm not saying it in a diminutive sense. Lower class Catholic people, very conservative kind of -- I would say closed to the other cultures who are not accessible to them through the language barrier and through the kind of -- they live in a Polish Catholic mental wall, which -- yes, I'm not saying it in a diminutive sense. And also, my father's decision to study in Soviet Union, to study at all. He's the only one who got higher education. Was kind of against it, kind of -- he wanted to emancipate himself from that. And the -- marrying my mother -- and he also -- my father had very good relationship with my grandparents. They loved him very much and the -- you know, that's the -- he was living even with them before my mother married. They were just dating and he was 12:00living already with his future parents-in-law. So, kind of -- when they came to Poland, they did totally new opening. So, there was nothing Catholic at home, nothing kind of Jewish. It was kind of Polish home. Polish home with a Russian Jewish kind of family and contact, but without any cultural and the religious aspects. And my mother was raised totally without religion and my father is staunchly anti-religious. And because of his, I guess, childhood experience. So, there was a conscious -- I was, I think, eight when I consciously knew that the -- my mother is Jewish and her parents are Jewish. And the moment they emigrated to Israel. I stopped going to Odessa and I then went to visit my grandparents in Israel. So, suddenly, wow, yes? They're not these kind of strange, different Russians, but they are Jews. So, yes, but -- so, my kind of Jewish consciousness 13:00of my family was home was having family, Russian Jewish family, in Israel. But, again, with no festivals, with no tradition, without any knowledge about tradition -- that my mother also lacks. She -- last ten, fifteen years, she starts to read about it, rediscover, and then she remembers some things that her grandmother did. But there was no conscious kind of -- or Jewish education or Jewish culture at my family home.

CW:What -- when you sort of discovered this, at age eight, what did you think when you sort of realized, oh, actually --

KK:Yes.

CW:-- I have this --

KK:It's -- this consciousness of Jewish roots had very different stages that are very much, I think, connected to the Polish context of my early biography. So, 14:00that means that when I was ten, eleven, there was -- I did not -- thought about meaning of this so much. But when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, I guess I had this thing that most of the people of Jewish origins in Poland had when they were teens: kind of negative culture, negative definition, meaning that the -- all -- most of the things that they heard about the Jews, yes, had -- if I heard something about the Jews, it was anti-Semitic context. So, kind of -- I built first stage of my identity -- besides the fact I had this positive part of identity going to Israel and spending time with my family there. In Poland, I manifested mainly -- telling everybody when I meet somebody for first time, in the second sentence I'm Jewish. Kind of checking -- "I'm Jewish, if you have a problem with that." Was kind of very aggressive, and I now even kind of don't like myself from the time -- everybody I met, "I'm Jewish, I'm Jewish," because 15:00it was kind of checking somebody's -- else reaction. And -- but then, when I was high school, I read some books, something, being fifteen, sixteen. But again, it was -- and I met one guy who had -- at high school (UNCLEAR) who had also Jewish roots. But -- and because of him -- I was seventeen when I went for some joint seminary in Warsaw and they start to go for Jewish youth camps in Poland. And slowly, also being active here in Bratislava community and then going to Warsaw, meeting people, other Jewish people my age -- also foreigners coming to Poland, kind of I developed my identity and it got more positive meaning. And that was the main reason why I came to study Jewish studies here in Wrocław. Now I study -- I do it from totally other reasons. But my need was kind of dealing with my own identity, understanding better history of my family. It was why I came. It 16:00was my main motivation why I came to -- I started -- I was a sociology student, and then suddenly I decided I needed to do something extra and for me it was Jewish studies.

CW:Can you tell me just briefly about the Jewish camps?

KK:Um-hm. Yes. It was the -- these were set of -- these were, like, seminaries done throughout the years, weekend seminars, about Shabbat, about some festivals, done all by the joint -- or by Sochnut -- of course, by Sochnut, it was very much alyiah-oriented. And also, then they were -- there was organization called Polish Union of Jewish Students, and they did summer camps, sponsored by -- mainly by joint -- this Russian committee. And these were summer camps -- also, when we studied aspects of Jewish history, Jewish culture -- mainly working on the renovation of the deserted Jewish cemeteries around 17:00Poland. And it was -- you -- my first camp was in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. So, these were like two weeks, three weeks camps in different parts of Poland. We are working the cemetery. People came, or older, more knowledgeable people gave us lectures about Jewish history, Jewish tradition, et cetera, et cetera. And I started to read, so -- also, so I kind of gained more and more knowledge.

CW:Um-hm. So, can you tell me now more about sort of how you got interested academically in the topic?

KK:Um-hm. So, as I said, my interests were totally non-academic. Academic -- I was studying sociology. I like it very much. I -- being second or third student already thought wow, it would be nice to maybe -- to do doctorate from sociology. And I thought would -- maybe it would be nice to write something 18:00about Israel, Israeli society. So, it was kind of Israeli -- so, current and -- Israeli society, sociologic and political affairs. I was -- in my mind, I did not so much -- connected this to the Jewish history. But I wanted very much to study a little bit of Jewish history in order to understand my family better, all these roots that got lost in a kind of intra-generation transmission. And I start to study here and after half year or one year doing the studies, first I discovered that academic studies are not the best tool to create your own identity. And actually, much more interesting and passionating [sic] -- much more interesting and passion for me is the -- simply researching Jewish Polish -- Jewish history, which is also not my family history, which is Russian Jewish. And suddenly, from sociology, I turned into the Jewish history, and you got, for 19:00me, intellectual passion. And it's also interesting, because while I started to study Jewish studies, I was a madrich [Hebrew: counselor] on a different Jewish -- they have camps in Poland and also in Hungary. I came also to teach little bit in Lithuania and in different parts of former Soviet Union in the framer of Joint. And I wanted -- I -- at the beginning, I found it -- what I will be -- what I will learn about Jewish history to help me to become madrich. But then, I noticed that being a madrich and working on somebody's identity, it's very different -- of being somebody who works in the critical history. So, being a madrich, I felt less and less engaged. It felt for me less and less appealing. And much more appealing for me was to -- simply to be a scholar. So, actually, maybe, it is kind of parallels to Jewish studies. I went out of -- from being a 20:00Jewish activist, I would say, because I was very engaged, working in big -- the biggest European youth Jewish camp, which is Szarvas in Hungary. I worked the first six years. I was kind of advanced in learning the structure and -- I like it very much. But in the moment, when I start -- wanted -- decided I want to be a Jewish studies scholar, I stopped to do this. And also, now I need to admit I'm much less engaged in all the community things that are happening -- my kind of Jewish identity, I guess, I mainly -- how to say -- I pay tribute -- it to contacts with -- personal contacts with some Jewish friends that I have in Poland, and then going to Israel very often. Not so much in a Polish Jewish community.

CW:So, what was the reaction of your family, first in being involved in the 21:00Jewish community life and then also in the academic?

KK:Okay, so in the Jewish community life, it was kind of -- was very open, do -- very acceptive [sic]. I think that there was a moment that my parents and my father, but also my mother, would become afraid that if I will become religious. Because, of course, for them, having a religious Jewish son at home, it make all the hardships -- for them, it was totally strange, totally foreign thing. But I think -- but at the moment when they saw that I -- that it's not the case, they were very much acceptive (sic), and it -- even -- my engagement. And after me, my younger brother started to do same thing. And my mother also got into the -- some things that are happening in the community. She got -- she's going someplace for a concert. She's now taking part in a Limud program that is -- 22:00that each year takes place in Warsaw. She starts to read more books. She met some of the Jewish community members from Wrocław and she made friends with them. For example, from -- we've been to Kraków -- that they're liked very much there, and very good contacts. So, I guess, to me, my mother and my father, we've -- they've kind of entered, also, borders of Polish Jewish community. And for the intellectuals -- think they were very, of course, acceptive [sic]. They always felt that that's the direction they wanted to go. They also saw how many possibilities are given by the Jewish studies to -- for Polish scholars, because through that, you can travel. You can study in different parts of the world. You can meet people, you can develop. And I think from point of view of my parents, they were very happy that it gives me also a possibility to go abroad, to meet 23:00different people. The things that they always dreamt of, but in the communist times they couldn't -- never do it. So, one hundred percent acceptance, they --

CW:So, are you engaged in a political movement now?

KK:No.

CW:No.

KK:No, no, no. I think I would say that I am staunchly apolitical. Maybe not anti. I have my strong opinions and views and I vote, but I think I'm a son of this anti-ideological generation -- as my parents, and the grandson of this -- the most ideological generation of both these communists, Zionists, or I don't know, right, left wing Polish Catholics. So, I am very much kind of -- I think that's a big privilege of liberal society of Poland -- is a liberal democratic 24:00society, that you can be apolitical and really take a step back to look from far away on all these matters. And I enjoy this privilege. I cherish it. And I don't think I will be ever politically active. Of course, if there will be a threat to democratic society, I guess yes. But I very much enjoy -- (laughter)

CW:Can -- I want to talk about language for a second. So, how did you come to Jewish languages, Hebrew and Yiddish?

KK:So, since 1991, when I was going to Israel, I was exposed, mainly, for -- on Hebrew language, because I heard it everywhere. But I never had -- I learned some words, but all my social skill when I was a child was Russian there. My neighborhood friends were Russians, my -- all my family spoke Russian. So, my 25:00Jewish language was always Russian. Hebrew, I heard, I knew -- I learned few words, but nothing -- and Yiddish, of course, I heard my grandmother speaking to the postman or to some -- or to some old Romanian grandmothers on the bench beside the family home. But for me, Yiddish was kind of -- thing of past that I'm totally not connected to this. And then, already, when they started to study Jewish studies here, I started to study here -- at that time, were choosing here or -- Hebrew or Yiddish. I, of course, decided Hebrew, because I'm going to Israel, it's a living, you know, language. I think I shared a lot of stereotypes about the Yiddish -- yeah, not I think, I'm sure. For me, Yiddish language and culture was this tradition that is totally not mine. I think it was a lot of images of these, you know, poor, weak, you know, unattractive Jews, that it was 26:00-- and Hebrew, of course, there's -- these were these, you know, beautiful, bold, new Jews that -- I think I very much shared this view and (UNCLEAR) started to study Hebrew and I studied just Hebrew. And then, after -- when I was already PhD student and I went for one year to study -- to Jerusalem in 2006, I -- for -- during the one year I intensively studied Hebrew, I had a lot of, also, Israeli friends from the times that I was counselor in the different Jewish camps. So, it helped me very fast to learn Hebrew, to be a Hebrew speaker and not to use English but Hebrew in Israel. But also, luckily, I had very good university mentors there, like Shaul, [Shanford?], Gershon Bacon, and also I had the privilege to talk a few times to Ezra Mendelsohn, to read a lot of their 27:00books. And then I understood that if I want to be a Jewish scholar, a good Jewish scholar, I cannot do it without Yiddish. So, after this one year, I went for a one-month Yiddish school, so -- at the Tel Aviv University. It was possible because of Professor Daniel Blatman, and Israel Bartal supported me financially. They gave me scholarship that I could study Yiddish. And then, afterwards, I never -- my formal Yiddish education was only one month, but already I decided what kind of topic -- doctorate topic I want to do. I knew that eighty percent, ninety percent of my sources will be Yiddish, handwritten Yiddish. So, I simply -- and I knew Hebrew pretty well. I knew Polish and Russian, and I was studying at the German school. So, simply, I took a Weinreich dictionary and I took the text and I read, read, read. And I learned myself to read Yiddish pretty fluently. I think I read Yiddish better than Hebrew. I 28:00cannot speak it. I cannot write it. I don't have any knowledge about the grammar. So, my knowledge of Yiddish is very limited, but -- and I want to, of course, develop it. But still, I can read the Yiddish sources. I can do it. And, of course, with the time, my perspective on Yiddish culture and this not true dissonance between Hebrew and Yiddish culture very much changed. And I think got rid -- most of -- all of the prejudice that I had towards the Yiddish language. But personally, kind of -- I probably -- I will never become a Yiddishist, a person working towards recreation of a Yiddish culture today. I very much kind of accept and admire people who do it, but I don't think it's kind of part of 29:00me. I think it's very important for me to know it -- Yiddish language as a scholar. But no -- but kind of I accept my family choices. I understand them now better. But I kind of understand why my grandfather had such stereotypes, why he raised my mother how it -- was raised, why my mother married my father, and I kind of accept these choices. This is what it came -- lack of knowledge of Yiddish and this connection with this culture, it's a part of my family -- complicated family heritage, and I don't -- I'm not rebelling against it. So, it is a -- my connection to Yiddish and Hebrew -- to Hebrew is much more personal because of family and friends. The youngest members of my family in Israel, they speak only now Hebrew, but -- they speak better Hebrew than Russian. And I talk 30:00to them to Hebrew, so it's also family part of language for me now. My family's evolving from being Russian to becoming Israeli. And in Yiddish, no. But in terms of tool, intellectual tool, of course, it's probably even more important than Hebrew, for sure, for me.

CW:Can you talk for -- just briefly, introduce what your academic focus is?

KK:My doctorate is on political socialism -- well, tak [Polish: yes], one second. (laughter) My doctorate's on the socialization and political consciousness of a Jewish youth in interwar Poland. So, it's about this very unique generation that was born during the First World War or just after, the only generation that was socialized in independent Poland, in this short twenty years, that -- for example, eighty percent of them went to the Polish schooling. 31:00From the other side, they were the most active in all the Jewish political movements, you know, Jewish culture associations. So, I study how all these two influences affected the way how these people thought and behaved in 1930s in the political sphere. And so, that's topic of my doctorate. But my general field of interest is the nineteen and twentieth century, Eastern European Jewish history, Polish and also Russian. That's -- these are my interests. Now, in my postdoc project, I want to work on the post-war Jewish history, here in the lower Silesia but using Hebrew and Yiddish sources to -- so it will be not Polish kind of oriented, but it will have this wide -- also American and Israel-slash-Palestine context of 1940s, 1950s.

CW:Great. I think you have worked a little bit with the Warsaw Museum, doing 32:00some interviewing. Can you tell me about that?

KK:Okay, so I did a lot of things for the museum. I started, like, doing very small job. I was asked by Marcin Wodziński and by Helena Datner -- she was the head of the post-war exhibition, minor kind of designer of post-war exhibition. I was asked by them to do a -- archival research about the Jewish community in Lower Silesia after the war. I did it -- a few archives here in Lower Silesia. And then, I found so many things there about my hometown. It was one of the Jewish centers after the war that -- I was aware of it, but never kind of got deeper into it. And then, I started to -- I offered to the museum -- there's some -- still some old Jewish people living in the area that -- we need to 33:00interview them. And I prepared the interview scenario. And with Helena Datner and Joanna Licek, my teacher from here, from the Jewish Studies Institute, we started to -- interviewing all the Jewish inhabitants of Dzierżoniów and local area. And then, when I went to study in Israel, I offered the museum possibility of interviewing former Jewish inhabitants of lower Silesia in Israel. And I did there, I think, thirteen or fourteen interviews. And also, then I -- when I worked -- went to the United States to work in YIVO archives on my doctorate, I also start interviewing people in the United States. And so, together, I did thirty interviews. I think that the museum used also my interview scenario in other interviews that they did. And the interviews that they did, they are now parts of this Our Roots Project of the museum, of collecting the interviews. But it was only a beginning of my engagement to the museum. Then, I did parts of -- 34:00I designed parts of the inter-war exhibition that are connected to my doctorate. I worked little bit with Marcin Wodziński on some aspects of eighteenth century exhibition. And I did some parts of the -- end of the nineteenth century exhibition in museum, after -- of course, under supervision of scholars. I received some materials, and from them I designed some parts of exhibition. Also, I did some minor archival research. I gave some sources that -- from my research to -- for the exposition of the museum. So, it's mainly now inter-war and end of nineteenth century that -- I contributed little bit to the museum, working with Barbara Kirshenblatt Gimblett, Marcin Wodziński, Helena Datner, and -- yeah.

CW:What do you foresee or what do you understand as the mission of this new museum?

KK:It has many missions, of course. It has a very important mission of spreading the consciousness of eternal kind -- not eternal, but for -- of the constant Jewish presence in all of the Polish history and all of the Polish affairs -- that this Jewish history's a part of the picture, that it's indistinguishable part of Polish history. But it has consequences. Like, it doesn't mean -- once again, what I want to say, that this awareness of constant Jewish presence, it should be also awareness of that, that the Jewish history has its internal dynamics, that the Jews were equals to the Poles, also in terms of their 36:00national consciousness, of their religious conscious-- of their cultural specialty. So, they were subject, the same as the Poles are subject. So, they were fully at home, the same as the Poles were. So, even if the country's called Poland and it's now inhabited ninety, eighty percent -- ninety, eighty percent of its inhabitants were Poles -- there was here autonomous Jewish history that has its internal dynamics -- that these Jews were connected to the Jews in Russia, to the Jews in different parts of the world. Jews in Russia are kind of come from there, yes? Polish commonwealth, but -- that we'll understand that there was a living Jewish people, Jewish nation, whatever you will call it. And, yes, they were kind of equal subject of everything what happened here, the same as the Poles were and the other nationalities. So, that's the mission for the Poles. But, of course, there is a very big, important mission for -- that it's 37:00-- the museum has to do with the world Jewish community, of seeing the Jewish history in Poland not only through the prism of the Holocaust -- of course, Holocaust is very important -- but to really make people aware of this one-thousand-year history, of making people aware of their roots. Israeli Jews, American Jews, of course, most of their roots are -- not all -- in case of United States I guess most of the roots are in Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, yes, with this big pre-modern Poland, and in terms of Israel, it's a lot of them, of course. They have Polish roots. Of course, there is also very important mission of giving people understanding of complexity of Polish Christian or -- 38:00Polish Jewish or Jewish Christian relations here, with all the good and bad sides and daily sides -- of the daily life, that there was a constant interaction, constant stereotypes. Sometimes hatred, but also -- people were all the time interacting with each other -- that they were all the time present. Poles were present in the Jewish life and Jews were present in life of the Poles. I think that's that very wide picture of making all these people -- all the Jews around the world and the Poles empathetical [sic] towards their own experiences, making them much -- making for them much easier to understand the other side, the other narrative, the other prejudices of the other people. I think that the -- I think, in general, empathy, it's the most important value that the -- teaching history of -- good teaching of the history gives to the 39:00people, that they are not only able to understand better themselves, which is pretty easy, but also understand somebody -- the other, the so-called other. And I think that that's the biggest mission of the museum, the empathy that Jews will receive and Poles will receive.

CW:Do you think that's possible, that the museum --

KK:Of course! Not in a -- no, that's that kind of value, yes, that's the goal towards which we all tend -- we want to go and we are going, but we'll never reach it. But I think, yes, for some people, it will open some, you know, some kind of windows in their heads and they will say, "Wow, I never thought about it. Wow, well, it's interesting that, yeah, there was no -- always eternal hatred, and there was not always this -- Jews all the time closed, all the time, you know, anti-everything what's Christian and Polish." So, I think that for 40:00both of the people, really, the museum exhibition and activity, it can open lot of -- kind of intellectual windows that are -- and doors that are closed in the people's heads. But, of course, people will be prejudiced. Polish-Jewish relations are so much -- negatively loaded because of the -- and Holocaust and post-war history, and also the -- all the modern anti-Semitism, and also traditional prejudice that, of course, there'll be very much -- negatively loaded. They will have -- inside, lot of stereotypes, lot of prejudice. It will -- I don't think it will change, that in the future, suddenly we'll have, you know, very nice and very open relation. But still, it helps. It helps. I don't think that the -- also, there is a problem that -- today, there is no kind of 41:00social platform for daily Polish-Jewish relations, because Poles live here, Jews live outside. There are no platform of day-to-day economical contact, cultural contact. So, most of the contacts are taking place in the historical framework. And popular history framework is a popular memory. It's not a good, sophisticated history for the sides. It's a popular memory which is based, of course, on some simplifications, stereotypes, et cetera. And so, if mainly Polish-Jewish context will take place on the historical platform, it needs to contain lot of the prejudices, and it will never change. But still, museum -- what we do here, it helps. It doesn't solve problem, but it helps.

CW:What do you see as sort of the general perception of Jewish culture in Poland -- now, today?

KK:It's very different, of course. I would say that -- for many people -- like, little -- in last twenty years, that -- this what I said about the Jewish present, about the constant Jewish factor in Polish history, people got aware of it. They know. They don't kind of -- people start to repress it. It's kind of accepted fact. But, of course, there is a group in society, on the academic level and on the non-academic level, in all parts of the Polish society, that for them, it's a problem. It's a negative problem of Polish history that the Jews were so much present. And the Jews are always a problem, like, for these people. And also, there is a -- other, radical side. I think, also, it -- I don't like so much ethics of these kind of people, that these people -- being 43:00kind of critical towards some negative aspects of Polish society, of xenophobia, of it being closed. They use the Jewish history, the Jewish studies as an instrument of a critique of Polish society. So, Jews are used to attack all the, you know, bad sides of the Poles, of xenophobia, et cetera. And I think this kind of attitude also instrumentalizes the Jews. You can find it, for example, in some of the anti-Semitism research, that is so much concentrated on anti-Semitism that the Jews inside there, they're only behaving -- that the only factor in Jewish history is anti-Semitism. They don't have their autonomous history, they don't have their autonomous culture. They don't react towards anti-Semitism. They're all the times victims. And that's -- and so, I think 44:00that's a problem, that in Poland Jewish studies are so much dominated by the studies of anti-Semitism that we lose Jewish presence, we lose the Jewish history. We lose the Jewish subjectivity. And also, sometimes -- I don't want to say about everybody doing this kind of Polish critical history with kind of a Jewish content, but parts -- part of this history of the -- part of these people are people who very much love the Jews who are not here but not so much like the Jews who are today. They're very stereotypic towards Israel, et cetera, et cetera, so -- and they're not very empathetic, I think, toward the Jewish experience. So, this kind of -- there is also this kind of -- Jewish studies also are present in this context in Poland, and also in this context of 45:00anti-Semitism that is prevailing. But these are two extremes, yes? I think that there is a general core of accepting and understanding the Jewish presence, which is very important. And in terms of academic studies, Jewish studies have their place in Poland. Of course, we complain that most of the historians don't so much read our works, but still, it's changing. I see, really, historians who wrote -- I don't know, wrote for forty years books and articles -- nothing -- not writing nothing about the Jews. Not taking Jews as a part of the picture, and suddenly in their new publications, at least they write something, yes? They kind of included this history into their words. So, I think it's a good kind of development, and I kind of -- not very much optimistic, but carefully optimistic, yes, that it will get better.

CW:I'm curious, you having spent -- having, as a child, visited Israel, and also yourself having lived there, what did you see as the attitude towards -- toward Poland and toward Jews living in Poland from the Israeli perspective?

KK:I've got -- I think it's very much still dominated by this, you know, early 1950s, 1960s narration of -- negation of the Diaspora, so -- and Poland, of course, being its symbol, and also negation of the Diaspora that finds it speaking at Holocaust. And Poland, of course, is the main place where the Holocaust happened. It's -- everything about Poland is negative and connected to the -- to weakness, to killings, to anti-Semitism, to everything what was bad in Jewish history, and kind of a total negation of everything what's good, which is 47:00-- and normal, which is Israel. And you can still -- when you talk to some people my age, younger, older, who are not professionally dealing with Jewish history, you will find this stereotype dominant. And it's also this kind of, you know, Israeli openness that you'll, like, sit on a bus stop and somebody asks you a question, you answer him in Hebrew. He says, "Ah, well, this strange accent you have, where are you from?" Say, "From Poland." And then, suddenly, in a second says, "How you can live there? How you can be Jewish and in Poland. Are you mother -- is your mother crazy, living there," and all these things. So, you experience them all the time. But also, lot of people like in -- people who start to read and -- or deal with Jewish studies or Jewish histories, you see? Total change of the attitude, yes? You can see this -- people interested, yes, 48:00in Polish/Jewish history. Not to -- they're looking to -- logically towards it, seeing that there were different possibilities. Not only Holocaust and Israel, but people who kind of appreciate all the great Jewish creativity and the richness of a Jewish history in Poland after the Holocaust and -- before Holocaust and even after the Holocaust. So, on the academic level, I think that it's pretty much changing. But on the popular level, there is still big work to be done. But I don't think it's connected to Poland. I think it's much more connected to the Israel problems with identity. It's very much connected to the Middle Eastern conflict and to the -- and the xenophobia that it creates among the Israeli Jews. To say it very simply, if Israel would be a normal country with normal neighbors, with normal political situation, with normal internal 49:00relations, I think that then its popular view of Jewish past would also be much more stereotypical -- much less stereotypical, much more democratic, and et cetera. But situation is like it is and it affects how the also Polish-Jewish history is viewed. And, yeah, and that's the big picture. I would add one more observation, and I guess there are much -- that you talk to many people who are much more competent in this subject, but you -- what you can notice, that there is a -- less and less interest in a Jewish history -- in European or Eastern European Jewish history, which I think is a normal process and healthy process, that this European Jewish past, it's far -- it's more and more remote. And Israel is already a country and society which is more deeply and deeply grounded 50:00in the Middle East. So, you see students much more interest with Middle Eastern studies in Israeli studies and much less interested in the European past, which is less and less relevant in today's Israel. I think it's a natural process, and I think it's even good process, because, as a historian, I have a definition of -- I think that all the societies who are over -- like, too much concentrated on their history, they are not so healthy societies, that -- you -- if you see all the totalitarian regimes, they are regimes very much obsessed in history. And I -- demographic -- in a democratic country, with the people going very much abroad, meeting all the other people, history is the thing to be done by professional historians who are people interested. It's not a tool of propaganda, of popular education, because this kind of history's very much 51:00simplified, is very much stereotypical, is very much nationality-oriented, yes? We are these good ones, the other are bad ones. So, I guess that, yes, it's a normal -- natural process, and the same as Poland, Israel is going through this.

CW:I'm curious -- a little different -- about how you learned about the Holocaust, both in Polish education and then outside.

KK:Okay. So, this is interesting and very important question. In Polish -- education, I was in -- I was exposed from primary school on lessons of Polish literature, with Polish literary relations. No, you don't say literary. In the Polish prose and poetry relating to the Holocaust -- and these were stories of Broniewski, these were poems of Milosz, of Polish Christian poets referring to 52:00the killings of the Jews by the Germans. Of course, only by the Germans in Poland. And the only Jewish source that I recollect that I was taught -- Holocaust through the prism of the Jewish source were stories of Hanna Krall and her interview with Marek Edelman, "Zdazyć przed Panem Bogiem" -- how to translate for English, "To Be Before the God," yes? About -- Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, about their motivations of deciding to do uprising and et cetera. But, of course, this interview was done in -- still in communist Poland, and it was done with Bundist leader, so you can see they're, like, the -- not so much, for example, Zionist or -- kind of revisionist -- I am not even saying about the religious Jewish experience 53:00present there, not at all. And I -- and then, also in high school, it was, you know, you need to teach about Holocaust. So, you teach Germans came, killed millions of the Jews, et cetera, et cetera. So, my Holocaust education was very basic and very limited. And about all the complexity, of course, I learned much more from the current public debate of last ten, fifteen years, that all of the -- you know, issues of different directions of the post-war's -- the Holocaust, of different Jewish behavior in -- during the time of -- but especially, the most important, I think, is the -- yes, the -- also participation of some of the different kinds of participation of the Polish Christian society in the Holocaust. All of these things I learned from a very strong public debate that's 54:00now taking place in Poland. It's a part of general democratization of Polish culture, the political culture, of Polish historical consciousness, of Polish historical academic field. So, too, from newspapers and books, I learned myself more about that, not from -- you know, not in formal educational system. Yeah.

CW:Where is that discussion? What is sort of the current discussion or debate or -- in the public sector about this period, historical period?

KK:I think that the main clue is kind of the constructing -- the construction of the national narration of the Second World War history, that you have this model of -- that was very much nationalistic model that was very much also supported by the communist regime, that the historical subject -- there is this kind of -- 55:00one Polish nation, you know, fighting with the occupant, fighting bravely in 1939, then resisting throughout all the time to -- against the Germans and against the Soviets. Parts of them, of course, helping the Jews, being honorable among the nations, saving the Jews, hiding them, et cetera, et cetera. And then, you have this new history that tries to deconstruct -- that tries to say that there is nothing -- there is -- nation is not the historical subject, that there are millions of people inside with different -- with millions -- ideological streams, millions of attitudes, millions of stances, million -- different contexts of different behaviors. And then, you also show all the bad sides, yes, of the behavior during the occupation. And then, of course, people who are very 56:00much -- kind of cherish this -- that's how they were taught to think about the reality, to think about the nation as one thing and think it -- think about it all -- that this is value. So, you cannot attack your most cherished value, and to defend it, you need to fight for a good name and et cetera. So, everyone who tries to publish this critical, more sophisticated studies, who show all the sides, it's considered attack on the Polish nation, attack on the Polish value and the Polish patriotism. So, until now, you don't have so much discussion, because -- okay, not -- maybe -- of course, most of the people, academics and a lot of non-academics accept that reality's very complicated and they accept and 57:00internalize these critical studies. But there is a very strong group of -- that understands anything about the Holocaust as attack on -- yes, on the Polish nation, yeah? I think that's the main context who organizes the public debate. But also, it has its -- you know, the sides of people who, I think, again, yes, use Holocaust all the -- and the Jews all the time to, you know, to fight with everything what's bad in Poland, which is also, as I said, has its -- it also has a -- its simplifying kind of dimension.

CW:I want to ask a couple questions about Yiddish. Where do you see the place of Yiddish in the Jewish studies in Poland?

KK:Oh, I think it's crucial. It's very important. It's, like -- it should be -- it's, yes, if you have a history course -- because you cannot do it without 58:00history course -- the Yiddish course throughout all the curriculum is the same important -- crucial, because that's the condition of -- to do a real Jewish history, when the Jews are subjects, when they have their own specificity, when they have -- you can study them with the connection to the surrounding cultures, but also with, like, connections of the different communities in different places. Simply, you cannot do -- if you want to do a Jewish history, good Jewish history, it should be critical towards the sources created by the Jews. But also, it needs to internalize the Jewish experience, the attitude of the people about whom we are writing. You cannot do it without Yiddish, and it's -- if it's -- if you are speaking about the Polish Jewish history, simply -- I don't think that the -- I would have problems in finding books written in Polish about 59:00Jewish history that I consider good books if they don't use the Yiddish sources. So, I think it's a kind of [unclear] -- necessary condition of Jewish studies in Poland to teach Yiddish.

CW:How -- where do you see the -- as -- what role does the academic have in transmitting culture?

KK:You mean culture -- I don't -- okay --

CW:It could be no role. It's a question --

KK:Yeah, the thing is that I think that the -- okay, maybe it's -- I'm speaking about my own experience. How to phrase it well? Myself, teaching kind of thing 60:00-- that I transmit the elements of the Jewish culture to my students, I transmit awareness of it. I transmit empathy. I transmit tools in which they can access and understand parts of Jewish cultural history. But I don't teach Jewish languages. I'm not here -- I'm not teaching Hebrew or Yiddish. I don't -- I tell them, yes, or we read about elements of Jewish tradition, but I don't, of course, promote them, yes, so -- and also, I mainly work with Christian students, so I would not even say that -- it's hard for me to say if I'm -- if I can be a transmitter of Yiddish -- Jewish culture if I don't live it so much, 61:00also, myself. So, I guess it's -- okay, if elements of understanding, of some consciousness is a part of the culture, the -- in this way, I transmit it. But I don't transmit cultural elements such as language, such as customs. And for sure, I -- not promote them, yes, among the students. If my students were only Jewish, also I would not do it, because that's not the thing that I do. But I think, of course, it's, like, people who -- I know people who also do it and it's very valuable and very important. But I don't do it because simply, also, I don't have the resources in order to transmit culture.

CW:How, if at all -- I mean, you've talked about this some, but how, if it all, 62:00has studying the history here in Poland changed your perception of these places?

KK:Very much. Like, even my -- I can say only example of my hometown, that throughout very interesting historical circumstances, in 1946, especially until the Kielce pogrom in July 1946, it was the town that thousands of Jews repatriants [sic] from Soviet Union emigrated there. Germans were in the process of being thrown away. Poles just start to come in because it was a -- lower Silesia before the war, it was German part of -- it was Germany, and only after the war it became Poland. So, we had the moment when the -- on fourteen, thirteen thousand inhabitants, eight, nine thousand of them were Jewish. So, we had a place, suddenly, in post-Holocaust Poland, and sixty-five percent of its 63:00inhabitants were Jewish. And these people established all these political parties, hospitals, schools, et cetera, et cetera. And lot of them left in 1940s, but then still lot of them were there. Then the second big wave of immigration was '56, '57, then March '68. But this -- but studying the subject -- and I walk around my hometown and I understand that here, beside this synagogue was a Jewish community. Here was a Party, here was a little mikvah, you know? I kind of -- and then through it also I can much more be empathetic on the German experience, yes? What -- the same walls what had -- meaning for Germans living there. And then, also, I can -- I start to be empathetic about this first Polish repatriance [sic] -- who come, see this foreign, you know, German kind of walls, German streets, and how they tried to give them their own private meeting. So, in this sense, kind of -- through Jewish history, I much 64:00better understand the space around me. I'm much -- deeply engaged in the space in which I live. Simply, I'm much better on this than my surrounding -- and not only -- it's Jewish kind of part, but also Polish, also German, because -- like, studying Jewish studies make more empathetic about all the other different groups, and only the -- on the example of my hometown, like, I can show it, but I -- and the same is the Warsaw, yes? And then, when I was walking around the ghetto area, when I was with my father -- that's twelve, thirteen, just -- and I didn't -- knew nothing, and now I walk, yes? And I -- of course, it makes the experience of the space and of the country, of my country, Poland, much more -- deeper. Better, I think.

CW:You have such a diverse family background, and also experiences living in 65:00these different countries. I'm wondering how they all fit together for you?

KK:No, they're not always fit so much, yes? But again, I think that today, I am very privileged being member of a generation -- first, I think, first generation in this part of Europe -- that this kind of complicated background experience is not a problem. It gives you -- it's source of good things, not bad things. So, I don't think that the -- I have the luxury of having friend-- all my friends accepting it and admiring it. I have this easiness of living in Poland for years and then going to Israel and feeling here and here at home, and having all the time very strong connections to people in Poland or to people in Israel. So, today, for me still not establishing family, being single, it's very much -- 66:00it's easy, it's -- it is easier than when I have -- start family life, yes? Yes, well, children being Jewish or non-Jewish, depending whom I will marry, although it has a relevance for me. But I guess, okay, again, it will be much easier to -- for me to raise my kids in this kind of very open, very multidimensional consciousness than was for my parents to do it with me. So, I'm lucky to live in -- I'm lucky to live in the times -- who made it not problematic, who made it a value, as something good and something bad. But, of course, if it will change for worse, I will have to, yes, make choices. But luckily, not today.

CW:Are -- where do you see yourself living?

KK:For now, or Poland or Israel, I guess. But if -- but, at the end, whenever -- when I have nice job, like, I would -- I can do my passion and my -- I hope that this will be the girlfriend with whom I'm now -- if we'll be still together and we'll establish family whenever it be good for both of us to live, because I know that from a -- all of these places, I will have contact with Poland and Israel these are kind of -- two main places for me. Poland the most important, 'cause I'm Polish. I was born here, raised here. And Israel as the second place. So, all -- it can be Poland, it can be Israel, it can be England, and it can be United States -- just until the moment that I will be able to be connected to these places and visit them very often. But it's not -- now, it's not such a big issue.

CW:Well, I have a couple more questions, but was there anything, any topics that you want to talk about or --

KK:No, no, I think, yeah, I -- I can, but let's continue the questions. Maybe at -- you have some more questions?

CW:I do, I have a couple more. I'm wondering about teaching. What do you see as the reasons that your students here become interested in Jewish studies, first of all?

KK:I think we have small part of students who came for the same reason that I came, that they discovered that they knew that they have some Jewish roots and came to do something about it. I think that, as I said, they can be disappointed that the academic studies do not give very good instruments, you know, for 69:00creation of your identity, but a lot of these people, they'll come to a Jewish community and then they find a place where they can do it. And I think that most -- as in general, most of the Poles, why they were started to be interested in Polish history, '90s and 2000s, and in -- even in 1980s or, yeah, even in 1980s was kind of discovering this big part of a Polish past that, as we were speaking, is so much present in the landscape, in these deserted cemeteries, in these libraries that were synagogues before, et cetera, et cetera, that it makes peoples eager to understand the -- what -- how this places were created, who are the people who are living on the same house that I am now living? Who are these neighbors of my grandfather that he talk about then? Also, lot of the people -- 70:00see this presence, and -- but hear about the Jews mainly in terms of some jokes or some negative stereotypes, of this Jew that is all the time present in the language, on the lips of the people, but it's never seen physically. So, people try to resolve this mystery, try to understand, even -- we have some students who wrote in surveys why they studied, who wrote, "We wanted to check if the -- what -- all these bad things that we heard about the Jews, if they are right." So, also, these are these kind of people who come, this kind of motivations. But in general, I think that these are people who want to better understand the reality in which they were raised and to see that -- how many -- how big part of this reality was Jewish and how much it was suppressed or how much it is seen in a very awkward way and they want to change it. They want to simply understand 71:00better. It think that's the most important motivation. Why -- it's very nice that you ask this question, because very often I hear in United States or in Israel that the most important motivation of the people is because they do it from a feeling of guilt about -- against anti-Semitism, or feeling of guilt that their grandparents did something bad during the Holocaust, or before or after. I guess we have -- yeah, we have such people in Poland, but none of them, I assure you -- maybe one percent of them would ever be interested to study Jewish history, Jewish culture for this reason. Mostly, all these people are suppressing all these things, and they don't have in common the -- nothing with the Jews. So, we don't have these people coming to study. There are people -- open, people who want to understand Poland better. That's the general -- that's 72:00my general opinion.

CW:I want to return, actually, to this idea of -- from your own experience and what we've been talking about -- of the academy not being the place to find identity, and particularly, in this case, Jewish identity. And where -- and that -- next to the Jewish community, and how they interact or don't, specifically around these identity topics.

KK:Yeah, it's a complicated issue. It's not so easy, how to organize it. I think that the connection should be all the time, because I think it's very important, very good that our students can come to the community, can take part and see how the Jewish festivals look, how the Jewish prayers look. Can meet, yes, people 73:00who have the living Jewish identities. Very important for a Jewish studies student to know -- simply know the Jews, yes? And also, to be in contact with -- not Polish Jews, who are now the -- kind of a margin of the Jewish world, but with living Jews from United States and from Israel. And then, for example, true connection with the Jewish community, our students can take part in the March of the Living, which is also very important for them of understanding different perspectives, seeing how -- what is the -- how foreign Jews interact with Poland today. It's very important, for instance, to know -- to share perspective, to see -- but, of course, I don't want to -- I want our studies to be good academic studies. Good and critical, and they cannot -- we cannot work on transmitting the identity, yes? This should be done in the Jewish community. They lack it. I 74:00think that they lack some educational activities. It's a very big weakness of the Wrocław community, I think. Less in Warsaw. In Warsaw now, the change -- situation's changing for better, but still, the kind of educational part of the communities is the weakness. So, they should do it, and maybe they should also involve us in doing that. But it should be done there, not in our department. We teach academic Jewish studies for Jews and non-Jews. It will be very good to have more Jewish students, but it will be very good to have more Jews in Poland. But it will not probably happen. So, yes, that's how -- I see that it should be constant relation, constant help from both sides. But still, we should do the academic studies, critical academic studies and only that.

CW:Where do you see the place of Yiddish language today in the Jewish world?

KK:I don't so much -- I'm not so much familiar with it, but I see it as a very important -- not -- Yiddish language, Yiddish secular culture is becoming -- it was always very small kind of sector of the Jewish society, but very important, very creative. It would be kind of avant-garde, yes, of these young people who mainly kind of learned a new Yiddish, or these few exceptional people who -- parents and their grandparents transmitted -- they would mainly speak to them Yiddish. And I know about some of these people and some of the institutions they create, mainly in the United States. And it's also very important and very interesting and very creative part of American Jewish work. In terms of numbers, 76:00it's very small, but in terms of creativity and the new things that they produce, it's very important. So, it's kind of a culture -- part of the culture, Jewish avant-garde. And this kind of avant-garde, also, is being, yes, created now in Israel. It's also very important sign of kind of, again, democratization, I think, of the Jewish society in Israel, which is very important. But still, together, in terms of demography, in terms of political kind of -- and cultures tracking the relevance, it will be a margin -- maybe not -- but it will be small part of it, yes? The future is Hebrew and the future is English. The future is defined -- still sustained -- I will not say nothing in college (UNCLEAR) to sustain a linkage between the two biggest -- the most important Jewish community. For the Polish Jews, again, I admire very much people who learn Yiddish and even learned it so well that they can, in their own circle, converse 77:00in Yiddish and they can write in Yiddish, they can create, like, Cwiszn -- magazine like Cwiszn -- which is the -- yes, very nice. Intellectual, but non-academic magazine about the Jewish and Yiddish culture, done by the young Poles of Jewish origin, of Christian Poles -- on a very high level, which is amazing thing. But it's just a part. And, for example, for Polish Jewish identity, again, I think that the most important is being in constant connection to Israel and the United States, that being -- we, being now very much in a community -- and in order to heal ourselves from all this complex of living in Holocaust country, of being some awkward kind of group, how we can be Jewish in Poland and all these questions, et cetera -- in order to get rid of the stigma, in order to get rid of the stigma of being -- of Holocaust being main part of 78:00our identity, we should be all the time in contact with the Jewish world. And Hebrew and English is the most important vernacular, the most important vehicle of that content, not Yiddish. So, Yiddish has a very important but, again, minor role.

CW:I have just one more question. So, let me know if there -- anything that you want to add to these topics?

KK:No, ask questions and then I will -- to --

CW:Okay. (laughs)

KK:Or I will ask you offline, like, if it's relevant, and then you decide.

CW:Okay. Actually, two things. First, maybe a little silly, but do you have a favorite Yiddish word?

KK:I need to think a little. I will tell you. I have few, yeah. Wait, I have -- okay, second one. I will tell you.

CW:Okay. And then, do you have advice for future generations?

KK:Wow, no. I'm too young, I think, for advices for future generations.

CW:Well, how 'bout aspiring Jewish historians?

KK:Hoo-hoo-hoo! In Poland or in general?

CW:Let's say in Poland.

KK:Okay, maybe I have, yes. Let's -- do not -- mistakes that much wiser people than we did. I think of -- about all these great writers, culture activists and politicians who ideologized one of the languages, or ideologized some elements of the Jewish culture, all this kultur kamf, culture war, between Hebrew and 80:00Yiddish, and Polish Jewish culture, Russian Jewish culture. And the fact that when -- for example, when we look at my field, inter-war Jewish history, that everyone lived in this beautiful, nice, multicultural reality, like Khone Shmeruk wrote it. But he did not show the -- wrote it, and this is not so much research, that the fact was that all of these people living in these different sectors, they were not accepting this reality. They were against this reality. There was fighting against -- Yiddishists were fighting against Hebreists and et cetera, et cetera. So, I guess we should concentrate on studying all of these spheres as equals, and in constant connection interaction with the -- with each other. The -- I think that that -- the best Yiddish studies are the studies who 81:00so much appreciate the same things, that were written in a topic in Polish and in Hebrew and vice-versa. So, I think that's the -- I think that we shouldn't, yeah, we shouldn't -- we should take consequences for the experience of the former generations and, yeah, not ideologize our work, yeah.

CW:Good. Well, a sheynem dank [thank you very much]. (laughter) Did you think of your favorite Yiddish word?

KK:Yes, but I forgot --

CW:We can pause.

KK:Ah, kokhlepl [sic] [cooking spoon].

CW:So, sorry, say it again?

KK:Kokhlepl, the -- I, yeah, I find it -- yes, it's my favorite one.

CW:And what does it mean?

KK:I don't know in English.

CW:A ladle?

KK:Okay, maybe. Yeah, I don't know the English word, yeah.

CW:Like --

KK:Cholewka [Polish: Bootleg]

CW:-- for soup?

KK:Yeah, cholewka -- yeah -- Boże [Polish: God], I forgot. Chochelka [Polish: 82:00Ladle], no -- yeah, to take (UNCLEAR) I forgot -- you know, I know the --

CW:(laughs) What language are we in?

KK:Chochelka, yeah, "chochelka" in Polish, exact -- chochelka, yeah.

CW:Great.KK:Yeah.

CW:Cool. Well, thank you, and we can add some more if you want, but I'll stop --

KK:Yeah, yeah.

CW:-- for a second now.

KK:I think that's -- think it's --

CW:So, thank you very much for the --

KK:You're welcome.

CW:-- sharing with me and the Yiddish Book Center. (laughs)

[END OF INTERVIEW]