Bernard Mark

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Bernard Mark's grave in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw

Bernard Mark ( Russian Бернард Марк ; scientific transliteration Bernard Mark ) or Bernard Ber Mark or Berl Mark ; born on June 8, 1908 in Łomża , Łomża Governorate, Russian Empire ; died on August 4, 1966 in Warsaw , People's Republic of Poland , was a Polish-Jewish historian , literary critic , essayist , publicist and communist activist who is known for his account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising , which has been translated into many languages . From 1949 to 1966 he headed the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Live and act

Borders after the First World War and after the Second World War
German and Soviet spheres of interest in the German-Soviet border and friendship treaty 1939

Bernard Mark was born in 1908 in Łomża to a Jewish family. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Warsaw University from 1927-1931. From 1928 he was a member of the Communist Party of Poland and published in the left Jewish press. He published in Polish and in Yiddish. In 1932 he graduated from Warsaw University with a law degree. 1934-1935 he was editor of the communist newspaper Der Frajnd ( The Friend ). From 1942 to 1943 he worked in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Kuibyshev and Moscow . Before the Second World War he wrote a two-volume Geszichte fun di socjale bawegungen in Pojln (History of Social Movements in Poland) in Yiddish . During the Second World War he lived in the Soviet Union . He took part in the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAK / JAFK) and the Związek Patriotów Polskich ( ZPP ; Union of Polish Patriots), to which communists living in exile in the Soviet Union had come together. He later returned to Poland. From 1949 until his death in 1966 he was director of the Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny) in Warsaw and was among other things editor (editor) of its Biuletyn (bulletin) and editor of its magazine Bleter far geschichte (sheets on history) . In 1954 he was appointed associate professor .

In the black book on the Holocaust and the crimes of the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union , his description "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" was reproduced in a shortened version. This is an abridged translation of his essay Powstanie w Ghetcie Warszawskiem (The Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto), which was published in 1944 in Moscow in the USSR in Polish .

He wrote an introduction to the Stroop report published by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and made the notes.

He is also the author of works on the history of the Polish Jews , on the Jewish writers who perished in ghettos and camps and their works and other socio-historical works.

Bernard Mark was the first historian to highlight the participation of the Jewish Military Union in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising . The main themes of his works are the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust and military issues. His historical views correspond to the official communist view of history .

In 1956, the French historian Henri Michel criticized his work The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising for an excessive emphasis on the participation of Communists in anti-Nazi resistance in Poland and for the lack of reference to the Soviet-German agreement to partition Poland . On the occasion of the new edition of the book in 1959, Bernard Mark confirmed that the first edition contained too much propaganda and that it was changed in the new edition. The Polish historian Jerzy Tomaszewski is said to have remarked that these changes were merely cosmetic in nature.

In 1957, Mark visited Israel and taught at the Second World Congress of Jewish Studies . He strengthened the links between the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and the research institutions in Israel, e.g. B. the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People ( CAHJP ) in Jerusalem .

In 1937 he married Estera Goldhas, a teacher and communist activist who worked in the Jewish Historical Institute.

After Bernard Mark's death, his inheritance went to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Bernard Mark is buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw .

Works (selection)

about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto :

Polish

  • Powstanie w getcie warszawskim - Na tle ruchu oporu w polsce Geneza i Przebieg . Żydowski Instytut Historyczny. Warszawa, 1954

Yiddish

  • The oyfstand in Varshever geto (The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising)
  • The oyfshtand in varshever geto. New rev. ed. Idish Bukh, Warsaw, 1963 Varshe [Warsaw]; Yidish Bukh, 1963 In Yiddish. On verso of title page: Powstanie w Getcie Warszawskim.
    • Schwarzbuch , German: "also in Moscow (published by" Der Emes ") the first and supplemented edition in Yiddish appeared in 1947"

German

  • The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising . Berlin: Dietz, 1957

French

  • L 'Insurrection du ghetto de Varsovie. Paris: Éd. sociales, 1955

Further

  • Documents and materials vegn Oyfshtand in Varshever Geto (documents and materials on the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto) (1953)
  • Di Yidishe Tragedye in der Poylisher Literatur (The Jewish Tragedy in Polish Literature) (1950)
  • Di Umgekumene Shrayber fun di Getos un Lagern un Zeyere Verk (The writers who perished in ghettos and camps and their works) (1954)
  • The Oyfshtand in Byalistoker Geto (The Uprising in the Byalystoker Ghetto ) (1952)
  • Di Geshikhte fun Yidn in Poyln (bizn sof fun XV JH) (The history of the Jews in Poland (until the end of the 15th century) Warshe 1957.
  • History fun di socjale movements in Pojln. Dzieje ruchów społecznych w Polsce. Wilno Wydawnictwo "Tomor", 1932 (?) And 1939
  • The extermination and the resistance of the Polish Jews during the period 1939-1944. Warsaw, Jewish Historical Institute, 1955 ( front page photo )
  • Ruch oporu w getcie białostockim. Samoobrona - Zagłada - Powstanie. [The resistance movement in the Bialystok ghetto. Self-defense - annihilation - uprising] Warszawa, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 1952
  • Eisenbach, A. \ Mark, B. [Ed.] Hitlerowska Polityka Eksterminacji Żydów: W Latach 1939-1945 Jako Jeden z Przejawów Niemieckiego Imperializmu. [The Nazi policy of exterminating the Jews. The years 1939-1945 as manifestations of German imperialism] Wydawnictwo "Idisz Buch", Warszawa, 1955, 2 volumes (Yiddish)
  • Stroop, Jürgen - Prof. B. Mark, introduction and notes by: The Report of Jürgen Stroop : Concerning the Uprising in the Ghetto of Warsaw and the Liquidation of the Jewish Residential Area. Warsaw Jewish Historical Institute 1958 pamiec.pl - Translated from the original - in the collection of the Central Commission for Searching Nazi Crimes in Poland - by D. Dabrowska with the assistance of "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression" ( worldcat.org ), Washington 1946 .
  • Witt, Hubert (transferred and selected by): Der Fiedler vom Ghetto. Yiddish poetry from Poland. From Yiddish. With an introduction "Poetry of a Murdered People" by Bernard Mark. Reclam's Universal Library , Volume 195. Leipzig , Verlag Philipp Reclam jun., 1966

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ On the institute's 'monopoly position' with regard to Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland, cf. Andrzej Żbikowski: "The memory of the Holocaust in Poland", p. 119.
  2. ↑ Biuletyn ZIH
  3. ^ The black book on the criminal mass extermination of the Jews by the fascist German conquerors in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union and in the fascist extermination camps of Poland during the war of 1941–1945 . Ilja Ehrenburg , Wassili Grossman (ed.). German translation of the complete version, edited by Arno Lustiger : Rowohlt, Reinbek 1994. ISBN 3-498-01655-5 .
  4. ↑ Das Schwarzbuch , German, “The Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto”, pp. 955–978.
  5. ↑ cf. Das Schwarzbuch , German, p. 955. - A more extensive German-language monograph with the title Der Aufstand im Warsaw Ghetto was published in Berlin in 1957 by Dietz-Verlag .
  6. ↑ Book review of the French edition of his work on the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto: "Bernard Mark, L'Insurrection du ghetto de Varsovie" by Michel Henri, in: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilizations , 1956, Volume 11, Numéro 4, pp. 565-566 ( online )
  7. ↑ CAHJP ; Hebrew הארכיון המרכזי לתולדות העם היהודי; engl. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
  8. ^ Short biography for the inventory list on the website of the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw) - accessed on March 4, 2017.

literature

  • Arno Lustiger : Rotbuch: Stalin and the Jews. Berlin 1998 (TB 2nd A. 2002)
  • Jan Schwarz: Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust. 2015 ( partial online view )
  • Andrzej Żbikowski: "The memory of the Holocaust in Poland", in: Micha Brumlik and Karol Sauerland: Reinterpret, keep silent, remember: The late coming to terms with the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Frankfurt am Main 2010, pp. 115–124 ( partial online view )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mark, Bernard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mark, Bernard; Mark, Bernard Ber; Mark, Berl; Mark, Bernard Berl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish communist historian of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Łomża , Łomża Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1966
Place of death Warsaw , People's Republic of Poland