The Ghetto Benches (segregated seating in Universities between Jews and Non-Jews) was an institutionalized form of discrimination against the Jewish community inspired by the activities during the interwar period of the right-wing nationalist organizations: All-Poland Youth, Camp of Greater Poland, and the National Radical Camp. In the 1930s, ethno-religious segregation of students of Jewish origin was intensified, for example, by forcing them to take certain seats in lecture halls.
It was the university authorities of the time who were responsible for introducing these sanctions, and few know that these orders have, to this day, still not been repealed. Are they still a legal problem? Should they be officially repealed, and if so, should there be compensation or consequence again the universities? What actions have been taken so far, and what should be done to ensure that their significance is not purely symbolic?
The discussion will be attended by representatives of several Polish universities - Jagiellonian University, the National Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw - who are actively working on the restoration and critical reappraisal of the memory of the ghetto benches. Together with them, we will consider how to spread awareness of this inglorious chapter in the history of Polish universities and draw conclusions for the future, especially in times of ongoing humanitarian crises. We will also look for answers to uncomfortable questions - such as the involvement of intellectual elites in the discriminatory practises of the pre-war period and individual and collective responsibility.
The event is co-organized with the Research Center for Memory Cultures and the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow as part of the project "NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts", which FestivALT is implementing together with Fundacja Zapomniane and the Urban Memory Foundation thanks to the support of the European Union in the framework of the program Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV).
Speakers
19.00
Joanna Wawrzyniak
Beata Kowalska
Ewa Bukowska-Marczak
Grażyna Kubica-Heller
Przemysław Marcin Żukowski
Partners
Honorary Patronage
The event is under the patronage of Beata Kowalska, the Ombudswoman for Academic Rights and Values of the Jagiellonian University.
FestivALT Association
Galicia Jewish Museum
Research Center for Memory Cultures
Zapomniane Foundation
Urban Memory Foundation
Sponsors
Joanna Wawrzyniak
Sociologist and historian, directs the Center for Research on Social Memory at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the social history and collective memory of Polish society in a comparative perspective. She is currently working on the memory of the neoliberal transformation after 1989 and on the transformation of cultural memory in the European and global context. Co-initiator of the "Appeal to the Rectors and Senates of Polish Universities to Research and Commemorate the History of the Ghetto Benches and Other Forms of Discrimination in the 1930s".
Beata Kowalska
Professor at the Jagiellonian University. She works at the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University. She combines her research work with experience in working on gender equality programmes in Poland and abroad. Jagiellonian University representative in the InSPIREurope consortium (Horizon 2020) and in the Scholars at Risk Network, which promotes academic freedom and protection of persecuted members of the university community.
Winner of the Pro Arte Docendi Award, given to outstanding academic teachers at Jagiellonian University. Among the scholarships and internships abroad, the following are worth mentioning: Cambridge University, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, American Centre for Oriental Research in Amman, New School for Social Research in New York, Rutgers University, Bufflo University.
Ewa Bukowska-Marczak
Doktor historii, pracowniczka Muzeum Narodowego w Lublinie, współpracowniczka Instytutu Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Zajmuje się historią społeczną okresu międzywojennego. Jest autorką książki "Przyjaciele, koledzy, wrogowie? Relacje pomiędzy polskimi, żydowskimi i ukraińskimi studentami Uniwersytetu Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie w okresie międzywojennym (1918-1939)" (wyd. 2019). Stypendystka i współpracowniczka Centrum Historii Miejskiej Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej we Lwowie.
Grażyna Kubica-Heller
Grażyna Kubica-Heller pracuje w Zakładzie Antropologii Społecznej Instytutu Socjologii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Interesuje się historią antropologii, socjologią historyczną, historią mówioną i studiami nad pamięcią. Jest autorką wielu prac, m.in. artykułu: “The Survey of the Ghetto” in the Time of Anti-Semitism: Feliks Gross and his Unfinished Fieldwork on the Jewish Quarters of Krakow and Vilna, 1938-40 opublikowanego w "East European Politics and Societies".
Przemysław Marcin Żukowski
Ur. w 1978 r., dr hab. nauk humanistycznych UJ 2017 r., profesor UJ 2021 r., Archiwariusz Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i dyrektor Archiwum UJ od 2022 r.
Interesuje się historią dyplomacji polskiej i europejskiej I poł. XX wieku, biografistyką, historią nauki, w tym dziejami UJ oraz Uniwersytetu Stefana Batorego w Wilnie, wydawca źródeł.
Autor publikacji: Na przełomie pokoju i wojny. Francja w oczach polskiej opinii publicznej od wiosny 1938 roku do lata 1940 roku (Kraków 2012), Profesorowie Wydziału Prawa Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, t. II: 1780-2012, red. D. Malec (Kraków 2014), Wydział Prawa Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie w latach 1918-1939 (Kraków 2016), Wydział Prawa Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie w latach 1918-1939. Źródła (Kraków 2017), współautor pięciu tomów wydawnictwa Corpus Studiosorum Universitatis Iagellonicae 1850/51-1917/18: M-N, O-Q, R, S-Ś, T-Ż, red. K. Stopka (Kraków 2011-2015) oraz Kolekcja „Ex-librisów" Antoniego Ryszarda w Krakowie, red. D. Błońska (Kraków 2015).
Laureat nagrody Krakowska Książka Miesiąca. Stypendysta m.in. Fundacji z Brzezia Lanckorońskich, Fundacji Marii Zdziarskiej-Zaleskiej oraz Polonia Aid Foundation Trust.
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