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The article focuses on the specificity of memoir competitions in pedeutology. The most important assumptions and ideas of competitions in pedeutology, as well as the use of the biographical method in describing the functioning of teachers in Poland over the last hundred years are described. Six memoir competitions, together with the described and developed scientific categories, were analysed in order to reveal common points of research which makes it possible to portray the teaching profession through the prism of the selected categories, as well as to show the most frequently undertaken studies on the teaching profession. Additionally, some research categories which are undertaken sporadically are presented, as well as categories which are absent but desirable due to the dynamics of changes, are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By Washington, Kent (Middletown, DE, Self-published, 2022) 238 pp. Washington sticks to his fascinating basketball story without delving much into the politics of the Cold War or the problems of the Polish Communist government in the run-up to martial law in 1981. Although he won numerous awards for playing basketball, including Polish basketball's Player of the Year, Washington always gave credit to others. [Extracted from the article]

Focusing on the stories by Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn (1880–1950), the leader of the Chabad Hasidic movement, this article explains the significance of nostalgia for the survival of Hasidic communities following the First and Second World Wars. By examining the social and performative function of these stories, it shows how Schneersohn’s nostalgic depictions of his lost ancestral home in Lubavitch translated into ideas, collective memories, tangible practices, and brick-andmortar institutions that helped him forge a new Chabad community in interwar Poland and safeguard its survival in 1940s America. The article also argues that the deployment of nostalgia in Schneersohn’s stories testifies to the realignment of the medium of the Hasidic story with contemporary trends in modern Jewish literature and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic scholarship on the Cracow Bais Yaakov teachers' seminary in interwar Poland, and on the Bais Yaakov movement in general, has relied to a large extent on internal sources, such as promotional literature, the Bais Yaakov journal, semihistorical accounts by interested parties, and memoirs written after the Holocaust. The reason for that was the dearth of other sources. The present article provides an analysis of excerpts from a hitherto unnoticed diary written by Bracha Levin, a Polish Lithuanian student at the Cracow Bais Yaakov teachers' seminary in the years 1929–1930. The diary records personal sentiments and observations about the seminary that were not intended for external view or public recognition, and thus is of immense importance for historical research. The wealth of information contained in it reflects the experience of other young seminary students like her: teenage girls struggling with religious faith, desiring freedom, love, and intimacy, attending the seminary for the purpose of acquiring professional training, and grappling with school expectations on the one hand and the challenges of modernity on the other. On the whole, the diary's critical attitude toward the seminary reflects the views and educational background of students coming from the Lithuanian regions annexed to Poland after World War I, and emphasizes the gap between those students and students coming from Polish Hasidic homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scientific and Educational Department of the Jesuit Fathers in Khyriv (Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy OO. Jezuitów w Chyrowie) existed for 53 years (1886–1939). Over 6,000 students studied in this elite male school. The alumni of the secondary school belonged to the elite of Polish society. There were among them people from different walks of life. The Chyrów school must have been a special place for its students, because they preserved its memory for dozens of years. Some of them immortalised their reminiscences in their memoirs. Basing on the preserved source materials, I will try to reconstruct the memory of the school, its past – ambience and climate, as well as relations between students and between students and teachers. The preserved documents may allow us to unveil other less formal sides of the school life about which there is no evidence in the official sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Julius Margolin's life and memoirs. Margolin was born in Pinsk, survived the Sovietization of Poland, and then spent five years in Soviet gulags. He witnessed the cruel history and functioning of the Soviet regime. The analysis is made on the basis of Margolin's work Journey to the Land of the Ze-Ka, in which he wanted to show to the world the truth about the Soviet totalitarian system. In that way he intended to fight for freedom of millions of people and for human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the memoirs "Marynia Don't Cry," by Apolonja Kojder and "Born and Raised Under the Straw Roof: A True Legacy of the Human Spirit," by Mary Drzewiecki is presented. It outlines the gender politics experienced by Polish-Canadian women in Poland and the immigration of Polish women in Canada. Also examined are the writing structure of the memoirs, the style of the authors to combined family history, biography, and autobiography, and the use of subversive literary strategies.

The article examines the adoption of the image of a sinking ship to introduce the memoir "In the Courtyards of Death" by Eliezer Gruenbaum published in "Scrolls of Fire." It says that Gruenbaum uses the first person plural, we, in the second paragraph of the memoir to refer to the Holocaust victims of Auschwitz in Poland. It explains how Gruenbaum achieved his desire to become affiliated with his readers by narrating the solitude of being a kapo. In the authors' view, the power that animates his memoir represents the commitment of Gruenbaum to activism.

The article presents an exploration into the autobiographical memoirs of the Jewish merchant Dov Ber Birkensthal and their historical value. Details are given relating how the events of a violent incident in 1759 in the village of Bolechów, Poland are described within his writings and analysis is offered contextualizing and confirming the historicity of the incident in question. Details are given regarding both the events depicted in the texts as well as the historical methodology and implications of their content.

This article discusses the publishing of a best-selling memoirs by former communist leaders of Poland. In a once book-starved Warsaw, a new and aggressively commercial private publishing industry has learned how to get books out fast. former communist leaders have adapted to this particular capitalist enterprise is both intriguing and galling to their countrymen. Currently reaping royalties from best-selling memoirs are Edward Gierek, Communist Party leader in the 1970s. former premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski. Rakowski's picture of the Soviets seems equally likely to conjure up a "Godfather" image (National Review, June 24, 1991).