Henryka Łazowertówna | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1909-06-19)19 June 1909 |
| Died | August 1942 (1942-09) (aged 33) |
| Pen name | Henryka[1] H. Łaz.[2] |
| Occupation | Poet and writer |
| Period | Interbellum Second World War |
| Genre | Lyric poetry |
| Literary movement | Skamander |
| Notable works | Zamknięty pokój (1930) Imiona świata (1934) |
Henryka Łazowertówna (pronounced['xɛnˈrɨkawaˌzɔvɛrˈtuvna];in fullHenryka Wanda Łazowertówna);alsoHenryka Lazowert,[3] or incorrectlyLazawert,[4] (19 June 1909 – August 1942) was aPolishlyric poet. While in general deeply personal in nature and of great emotive intensity, her poetry is not devoid of social concerns and patriotic overtones. She is considered one of the eminent Polish authors of Jewish descent.[5]
To thereading public she is known as the author of the poem "Mały szmugler" (The Little Smuggler),[6] written in theWarsaw Ghettoc.1941 and first published posthumously in 1947. The poem deals with the subject of a child struggling single-handedly to keep his family alive in the Ghetto by smuggling provisions from the"Aryan" side at the risk of his own life. A poem begins with the stanza also known froman adaptive translation provided byRichard C. Lukas. It reads as follows:
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The original text of the poem, together with translations in English and in Hebrew, is today inscribed on theMemorial to the Child Victims of the Holocaust (Pomnik Pamięci Dzieci inWarsaw), serving as theepitaph for the million children murdered in theHolocaust.
Henryka Łazowertówna was the daughter of Maksymilian Łazowert and his wife Bluma. Her mother was a schoolteacher.[9] Łazowertówna studiedPolish andRomancephilology at theUniversity of Warsaw, and subsequentlyFrench literature at theUniversity of Grenoble on a scholarship funded by thePolish interwar Government.[1][9]
She was a very active member of the Warsaw section of thePolish Writers' Union, participating in the events organized by the institution, such as for example the conference commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of the writerStefan Żeromski in December 1935, an event during which she read from her works alongside such famous poets asCzesław Miłosz,Juljan Tuwim, andKazimierz Wierzyński.[10] Among theliterary magazines of the day Łazowertówna collaborated principally with the literary journalsDroga andPion. She was seen as being poetically close to theSkamander circle, publishing in her short life of 33 years two collections of poetry,Zamknięty pokój ("A Closed Room"), in which the Closed Room of the title poem is self-avowedly ametaphor for the person of the poet herself,[11] andImiona świata ("The Names the World is Known By"), whose programmatic poem fulfills the poet's promise of the earlier collection to sound a voice uniquely her own among the women poets of theinterbellum period.[12]Zamknięty pokój ("A Closed Room") was – in the words of the writer and a sternliterary criticKarol Wiktor Zawodziński (1890–1949) – a manifestation of a particularly subtile poetic talent and an extraordinary intelligence, both struggling to break free of the magic circle ofsubjectivism and onto the rough and tough ferment of the world (zamęt życia).[13]
Politically speaking, Henryka Łazowertówna was known for her left-wing sympathies, a point on which she differed – in the opinion ofJózef Łobodowski – from another famous poet of her generation,Zuzanna Ginczanka.[14] However, herleftism was a condition of her sensitivity to social injustice and her moral rejection of all forms of oppression rather than an outcome of a political ideology.[9] In contradistinction toLucjan Szenwald, her contemporary, she remained fundamentally alyric poet to the end.[9]
Also unlikeGinczanka Łazowertówna was not a woman of extraordinary physical beauty, but she possessed charm and grace which, coupled with her simplicity of demeanour and straightforward attitude, made her in the eyes of those who knew her personally the embodiment of femininity.[15] A certain simplicity and straightforwardness of style characterizes also her poetry.[9] Łazowertówna never tried to project herself as other than she was.[16] She lived in Warsaw with her mother in theulica Sienna.[16] She loved books, which she bought at a considerable harm to her meagre budget rather than using libraries because, as she explained, "when I tackle a book I do not part with it until I am finished, reading at meals, in bed... The book is with me at all times, I do not take a single step away from it, and such close companionship is possible only where a book does not repulse by its physical appearance [sc. as many library books do]. I do prefer to read a book untouched by the hands of others, to cut the pages, to rejoice in the peculiar fragrance of the printer's ink."[15]
Biographer Eugenia Prokop-Janiec ofJagiellonian University asserts that it is the activeantisemitism of the Polish society (Gazeta Warszawska) in the 1930s that ultimately forced the writers and poets like Henryka Łazowertówna who never espoused any particular aspect of specifically Jewish identity while working in thePolish language, to align themselves with the Jewish community for the first time during eitherthe Interbellum or theSecond World War.[17] Indeed, the hostility obtaining between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities in Poland receives an eloquent treatment in Łazowertówna's own fictional short storyWrogowie ("The Enemies"), published in 1938 – sixteen months before the outbreak of theSecond World War – where she tells the story of two childhawkers ofpretzels, the one Jewish the other Gentile, who with great animosity towards each other aggressively compete for custom until common misfortune counsels them to join forces in the cause of common good (seeWorks in Prose).[17]
Other established Jewish writers enjoyed the utmost prestige in the country, such asBolesław Leśmian,Julian Tuwim,Antoni Słonimski as well as other Jewish members and celebrated recipients of the Golden Laurel from thePolish Academy of Literature (PAL),[18] thus making Łazowertówna's biography somewhat unusual.[15]
During theNazi Germany'sInvasion of Poland in September 1939 part of Łazowertówna's Warsaw apartment in the ulica Sienna, which she shared with her mother, was destroyed in thestrategic bombing conducted by theLuftwaffe, but it was found possible to make the remaining quarters habitable again.[9] (Łazowertówna's father had died of natural causes before the War.)
A year after the outbreak of theSecond World War Henryka Łazowertówna found herself suddenly interned in theWarsaw Ghetto, like other residents of Jewish origin in the city, though withoutforced resettlement — the ulica Sienna of her residence having been simply encircled by the borders of the so-called "Little Ghetto" (of the Ghetto's two parts, the North Side and the South Side, this was the South Side).[15] As observed by Władysław Smólski (1909–1986), who visited her often during the first year of the War, the drama unfolding around her proved for Łazowertówna an opportunity to rise to the occasion displaying unhoped-for reserves of determination and strength.[9] She immediately began collaboration with the Jewish charitable organizationCENTOS whose mission was the care for orphaned or homeless children.[19] Here she was recruited byEmanuel Ringelblum as a worker at his social-aid organization, theŻydowska Samopomoc Społeczna orAleynhilf. Her duties were those of acopy-writer for the variousad hoc utilitarian publications of that charitable institution (information leaflets, appeals for donations, etc.).[20]
She was subsequently recruited by Ringelblum to staff the Oyneg Shabbos Archives — also known as theEmanuel Ringelblum Archives in theUNESCO'sMemory of the World Programme'sMemory of the World Register — where she distinguished herself in her work documenting the tragic vicissitudes of fate of refugees from various parts of Poland, having been praised by Ringelblum for her remarkable ability to bring to life and instill with vivid actuality the dry statistical facts recorded for the posterity by the organization about individual human beings.[21]
In theGhetto she continued to write poetry. Apart from the testimony to the realities of Ghetto life memorialized in the famous poem "Mały szmugler" (The Little Smuggler), there also survives (preserved in theAdam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature ofWarsaw) the letter of Łazowertówna addressed to the poetRoman Kołoniecki (1906–1978) and dated 6 September 1941, a moving lyrical account of the Ghetto streets and the passersby to be encountered in them.[22]
Łazowertówna had apparently no illusions that she needed outside help in order to survive: already in February or March 1940 (many months before the creation of theGhetto), she enlisted the services of Ludwik Brandstaetter, the father of the well-known writerRoman Brandstaetter, in approaching a mutual Polish poet-friend with a request for assistance with resettlement inKrakóww, a city which she believed would offer her anonymity and hence greater security.[23] One last (bitter) comment on the ultimate fate of Łazowertówna is offered byEmanuel Ringelblum himself:
However, Władysław Smólski reports that when it became clear in the course of 1941 that the Ghetto would be eventually closed off from the outside world, many of Łazowertówna's friends counselled her to leave the precinct (together with her mother) while this was still possible, offering to find asafe house for the two of them. She apparently refused to do so, arguing that she was needed by the most unfortunate of beings, the children, orphaned or homeless, for whom she cared at the time.[24]
Between July and September 1942, the Nazis undertook the so-calledGroßaktion Warschau, the mass deportation of theWarsaw Ghetto population, who were murdered in thegas chambers atTreblinka extermination camp, some 84 kilometres (52 mi) to the north-east. Of her own free will, Henryka Łazowertówna accompanied her mother to theUmschlagplatz, or the railway loading-dock, that served as a point of departure for the victims. The organization that employed her, theAleynhilf, attempted to rescue Łazowertówna from being included in the transport, but when she learned that she would have to leave her mother behind, Łazowertówna declined the assistance being offered to her alone.[25][26][27]
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Lazawert, Henryka, as quoted in Trunk, Isiah,Holocaust Curriculum for Jewish Schools – "Civil Self Defense", New York: American Association for Jewish Education, date unknown, p. 8.
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