PSA Reading & Discussion Outline

During the long-weekend PSA, group discussions are held to facilitate deeper engagement and learning. The discussion outline below contains applicable links to bold required pre-program readings as well as supplemental materials, which allows each diverse group to begin with common knowledge. 

Discussion 1: Introductory 

• Contemporary Poland
• The New York Times, Polish Museum Repairs a Tie to a Jewish Past
• The Economist, Jews in Poland: Warsaw's Wounds
  Tablet, Popular Images of Jews in Krakow: Folk Art or Stereotypical Caricatures?
• JTA, Oświęcim, the city of Auschwitz, wrestles with whether the past must be part of its future
• The Forward, Poles Create Images That Say, 'I Miss You, Jew'
• Tablet, Do Polish Kids Hate Jews?

• Contemporary Kazimierz, Kraków's Jewish quarter
• The Forward, Krakow's 'Jewish' Cafes
  
• The Economist, Poland's hateful graffiti
• Jewish Heritage Europe, Krakow Beit Midrash now turned into a Disco
• The Jewish Week, American-Style JCC Thriving in Krakow

• Lenses & perspectives
• Tablet, Re-Reading My March of the Living Journal
• Exhibit: Oskar Schindler's Factory, Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945

Discussion 2: Identity & the Polish Narrative

• Pre-war Jewish life in Poland
• Jews in Kazimierz, 1936:

• Oshpitzin, an AJC interactive map of pre-war Oświęcim

• Jewish identity
• The New Yorker, Ask a Jewish Person
• Polin, Repopulating Jewish Poland - in Wood
• Reconsidering victim v. perpetrator identity
• Yad Vashem, The Righteous Among The Nations - Poland
• The New York Times, Bystanders, Not So Innocent 
• The New York Times, The Men Who Pulled the Triggers 
• Auschwitz.org, Poles in Auschwitz
• Waking a Polish demon, a book review of Jan Gross' Fear
• A Glimmer of Light by Nechama Tec
  

Discussion 3: Whose story is it to tell?

• What is a museum? A memorial? What are the roles of these sites?
• The Economist, The power of history - New thinking and old wounds around the Auschwitz death camp
• Business Week, Former Nazi camp Majdanek drops .pl on website
• The New York Times, Poles and Jews Feud About Crosses at Auschwitz
• The New York Times, Preserving the Ghastly Inventory of Auschwitz

• What is the necessity of emotion to have a meaningful experience?
• Distance from Trauma
• Tourism Q&A

Discussion 4: Memory & Authenticity

• Why is Auschwitz the symbol of the Holocaust?
• The New York Times, Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching
• Yad Vashem, The New Permanent Exhibition in Block 27
• LA Times book review, Holocaust: A History
• The Drowned and the Saved: Primo Levi and Paul Steinberg in Dialogue
• Authenticity
• The New York Times, A Quest for Authenticity in a Gettysburg Re-Enactment
• Collective Memory

Discussion 5: Commemoration & Reconciliation

• Commemorating and memorializing though institutions and individuals
• Auschwitz Jewish Center programs & projects
• Museum of Jewish Heritage exhibit: A Town Known as Auschwitz: The Life & Death of a Jewish Community
• Museum of the History of Polish Jews site & video:

• JCC Krakow
• Galicia Jewish Museum

For basic information on Kraków:

• The New York Times, 36 Hours in Krakow, Poland
• Cracow Life