Cinematic Motifs as a Seismograph: Kazimierz, the Vistula and Yiddish Filmmakers in Interwar Poland

In Yiddish films from interwar Poland, Kazimierz was depicted as the emblematic Polish shtetl. Viewers saw two towns portrayed on the screen simultaneously—the real Kazimierz with its landmarks, and the symbolic one representing the legend of King Kazimierz and Esterke. The town was both photographed in a natural setting on location and artificially recreated in the studio. Kazimierz was perceived via the senses as a concrete reality, but its fleeting image of light in the darkness also evoked abstract ideas. In other words, the town was recreated on the screen in three different perceptional dimensions: material, symbolic, and functional.

Motifs and symbolic images are usually employed as vehicles to transfer ideas. Decoding these symbols and interpreting their transformations may help us understand changing situations not easily represented verbally. This article analyzes the role that the symbolic images of Kazimierz and the Vistula River played in interwar Yiddish cinema as a means for examining the interplay between the representation and the ones who represented it, between the images and the social circle that created them. By analyzing the iconic moving images of Kazimierz and the Vistula River in Yiddish film, we can trace the socio-political and sociocultural expectations of the filmmakers regarding the Jews’ place in Polish society. This article will follow the changing interpretation of these two symbols in Yiddish films in Poland from the interwar period and will investigate how formal public spheres reacted to their interpretation. My main argument is that whereas during the 1920s the motif of Kazimierz helped to celebrate Jewish integration and modernization, the messages changed during the late 1930s, as the filmmakers showed in a very delicate way their own rejection of the message behind the myth. They used the Vistula and the myth embodied in the small town of Kazimierz as a vivid (or morbid) symbol in order to present their vision regarding Polish-Jewish integration. The symbolic use of Kazimierz probably helped them to bypass censorship, which could be expected to look unfavorably on the messages they conveyed.

In order to present these points, the article is divided into three parts. The first section deals with the milieu that created the films; the second and third explicate the representation of Kazimierz during the 1920s and 1930s, respectively.

In 1939, the poet Andrzej Wolica mentioned a specific “psychological climate” that characterized the little town.⁵ At the same time, Karol Siciński, the well-known Polish architect, declared that in Kazimierz, “Slavdom shakes hands with the ghetto.”⁶ Echoing the myth of King Kazimierz and Esterke, Siciński interpreted the space as a place where Polishness and Jewishness merged singularly in a way that gave the town a grand, charming, and unpretentious touch.⁷ Kazimierz was an ideal place of reference for writers and artists who themselves merged Slavic and Jewish elements and who worked in what might be termed a social “third space.”⁸ Occupants of that space embodied the polysemic character of the interwar Polish Jewry; they created art on the border between the two cultures and belonged simultaneously to both.⁹ Most Yiddish filmmakers came from that group.¹⁰ They worked in both Yiddish and Polish and depicted on-screen worlds in both languages.¹¹ From a socioeconomic standpoint, these filmmakers belonged to Warsaw’s Jewish middle class, which had undergone a process of acculturation or transculturation over a period of several decades.¹² Some of these figures of Yiddish cinema moved back and forth between the two worlds of Yiddish and Polish filmmaking. For instance, during the 1920s, Leo Forbert produced about ten films, half of them “Jewish,” as it were.¹³ Henryk Szaro’s body of work was similar to Forbert’s in this regard. There were those who tended to work more in Yiddish, like Aleksander Marten (director of On a heym in Yiddish and O czym marzą kobiety in Polish). Others, like Michał Waszyński, the director of Der dibuk, one of the best-known Yiddish films, made only occasional incursions into Yiddish filmmaking.¹⁴ Waszyński worked with Anatol Stern, a famous poet and leading futurist, whose work in Yiddish film was sporadic as well.¹⁵ The filmmakers’ attitude toward their own works in both languages was balanced. Waszyński, for example, was especially proud of his Yiddish film, Der dibuk.¹⁶ However, he considered both that film and his Polish-language Znachor to be his best work.¹⁷ Stern mentioned in the same breath writing the screenplays for both of those films.¹⁸ Jan Nowina-Przybylski, a Christian film director, was quoted as saying that of all his films, he was most pleased with two, his Yiddish Yidl mitn fidl (shot on location in Kazimierz, 1936) and Manewry miłosne (1935), in Polish.¹⁹ Both of these films were based on screenplays by Konrad Tom, whose work in Yiddish cinema was outstanding. (He was part of the teams of Yidl mitn fidl and Mamele [1938]), as were his Jewish characters in Polish films; for example, consider Moniek, alias Mieszek Oszczep-Sardinenfisz, in Sto metrów miłości [1932]).

Because we are speaking about filmmakers who worked in the “third space” of the encounter between Polish and Jewish cultures, I would like to explore their representation of a space that has served as an icon of that encounter—Kazimierz on the Vistula. After all, these filmmakers had visited Kazimierz and were quite familiar both with the symbolic legacy of the town and its river and with its reality.²⁰

During the 1920s, Leo Forbert was the main filmmaker who used images of Kazimierz and the Vistula to represent his vision of Jewish inclusion in the Polish state-building project. He presented such images in a period when patriotic films extolling the heroic Polish struggle for independence blossomed.²² Forbert tried to incorporate a Jewish voice into these Polish silent films in order to create a specifically Jewish nuance.

Reviewing the film, Anatol Stern praised the “exalted symbolism of the subject, which in spite of highlighting the exoticism of the Jewish ghetto, remains pan-national and universal.”²⁵ In essence, Stern represented de-Judaization as universalism, which he regarded as a step forward on the road to Jewish integration into Polish society.

In general, the Polish press received the film favorably.²⁶ They applauded the representation of Jewish folkloric motifs, mystic legends, and superstitions, which provided a figurative range of colors in this black-and-white film.²⁷ Jeden z 36 was widely considered to be the best film made in Poland in that year—a view that gave rise to the seemingly ironic situation in which, as one critic put it, “the best Polish film was... a Jewish one.”²⁸ Yet, in spite of the film’s attempt to suggest a common Polish-Jewish vision, and in spite of its positive reception, Jeden z 36 did not succeed in creating a perception of a single community embracing Poles and Jews together. Indeed, while the Polish press considered Jeden z 36 a Jewish film no matter how de-Judaized it was, the Yiddish press saw it as a Polish one. Critics writing in Yiddish did not accept the disappearance of the traditional Jew (the death of the lamed-vovnik) or the Christianization of the Jewish tradition. Even the most non-political of Yiddish periodicals, like the popular Ilustrirter magazin, spoke about “so-called ‘Jewish films’” that “do not have much in common with Jewish culture and the Jewish spirit.”²⁹ As a result, Forbert and Szaro’s film remained in the third space. Nevertheless, Jeden z 36 succeeded economically, suggesting that perhaps there was indeed room for the third space to find expression.

The Polish daily press presented a range of reactions. The socialist Przedświt regarded the film positively: “The action of the film develops in an orthodox milieu, which on the one hand was imbued with talmudism and sanctimonious hypocrisy and on the other with tolerance toward religious questions, thanks to the encounter with Polish culture... and the tradition of the heroic legendary Jewish colonel of the Polish army, the Jew Berek Joselewicz.”³⁸ The newspaper thus praised in a patronizing way the power of Polish culture to elevate traditional Jewish society. In this way, Jewish integration was presented as possible. The Piłsudskist weekly Głos prawdy similarly accepted the film’s patriotic premises.

Both of Forbert’s films analyzed above addressed Jewish patriotism. They used the Vistula River or the city of Kazimierz as a place of memory to call to mind the myth of Polish-Jewish brotherhood.⁵² Such films apologetically represented Jewish patriotism and loyalty to the Polish cause. Perhaps they indicated that those responsible for them had internalized Polish nationalistic rhetoric with its demand for Jews to prove their loyalty. Indeed, the films transferred the memory of the past to the present because the past seemed so relevant for the daily life of a social group living in the third space. And it was clear that group needed to manipulate the memory of the revolt. Thus the filmmakers resurrected the myth of the Polish-Jewish brotherhood, emphasizing the social elements bridging between cultures and societies, a theme so vital in creating in the social third space.

Nonetheless, collective memory is always selective, as Maurice Halbwachs, who first gave the term currency, has stated. The films presented a particular narrative of integration and assimilation, but not one in which Jews disappeared as such altogether. In this way, these films demonstrated Anatol Stern’s notion about Kazimierz: “Everyone finds there what he is looking for. It is like in a dream.”⁵³ But in this case, the filmmakers eventually alienated themselves from most of their public, Jews and non-Jews alike. During the mid-1920s, there was still some receptivity to their program, but the cool public reception of In poylishe velder toward the end of the decade points, perhaps, to a polarizing process marked by heightened ethnic antagonism. Thus, like their makers, the films remained in the third space. 

When presenting his principles of filmmaking, Green argued that there is a need for “a considerable scale of folklore and ethnography” in Yiddish films. In a press conference devoted to the film, he and others emphasized the use of “Jewish popular motifs.”⁵⁹ Green, the producer, and the non-Jewish (Polish Catholic) director of the Yiddish film, Jan Nowina-Przybylski, made use of the motif of Kazimierz so enrooted in the Jewish-Polish folklore.⁶⁰ It seems to me that the use of the motif of Kazimierz enabled them to present their critical point of view regarding the Jewish situation in Poland. An analysis of still and moving images from the picture reveals a subtle disappointment and despair that could not be presented directly because of severe censorship constraints.

Yidl mitn fidl begins with a panoramic view of Kazimierz. A long shot from the Hill of the Three Crosses shows the ruins of the king’s castle; it is followed by a sweeping view of the city and its well-known buildings and city market in a manner that, as Avraham Novershtern has pointed out, evokes the myth of Esterke.⁶¹ By awakening historical memories associated with Kazimierz, the directors led viewers to expect a story about the Jewish presence in Poland—more specifically, about the success of Jewish integration into the Polish polity. Then come shots of the marketplace on market day while a melodic, longing music recalls the traditional market square and the Jews’ place in pre-modern Polish society. Then, the noise of the contemporary marketplace in full activity intermingles with the changing, less melodic, music. A cacophony of less pleasant sounds rises, reflecting contemporary Jewish existence. These early scenes offer a sharp portrayal of the market from different points of view, depicting it as a dynamic place of encounter and interchange. Like in Scholem Asch’s representation of Kazimierz in his 1904 novella, A shtetl, the images show Jews almost exclusively, while relegating non-Jews to the background in the role of peasants coming to the town on the market day.⁶² The non-Jews function as a picturesque symbol or, in a later scene, as a hostile rude figure who expels the protagonist, Yidl (literally, the little Jew), and his fellows from the courtyard.

After earning two złoty and buying a herring and a roll for her father, the film’s main protagonist, a poor girl, runs through Kazimierz’s narrow streets to her home, only to discover that she and her father have been dislodged. The difficulties she experiences in making a living offer a glimpse into the misery and constraints of Jewish existence in Poland. Symbolically, being dislodged from Kazimierz, a place that evokes the Jewish myth of inclusion, is like the exclusion of Jews from contemporary Polish life that appeared to be the aim of the Polish government. Trying to console her father, the protagonist notes that “Adam and Eve were also thrown out of Paradise, and we wouldn’t call this a paradise”—a statement that invites a contrast with the myth of Polonia paradisus Judaeorum. Hence, as if with a smile, the filmmakers did not present “social injustice” as “loud propaganda.” Their work deflects the wrath of the censors. By awakening myths of a positive Polish Jewish past, the film manages to highlight the failure to accommodate a Jewish presence in the Polish state.

Although, like in Yidl, Kazmierz is used to symbolize Poland, in On a Heym it is not Esterke who conjures up past coexistence but the Vistula River and the well-rooted forest, in a fashion more akin to In poylishe velder. The action begins with images of a small town. The iconic Kazimierz images are not presented in the film, and the little town looks as any other small town. A narrator introduces the story as a fairytale: “It was a small town in one country where living people, neither rich nor poor ... earned a living from the fields and from the river.” Ostensibly the place is everywhere; so the spectator understands that it is “Poland.” Slowly the images turn to the Vistula River, presented here as every Polish river. The narrator tells about the city’s (Jewish) fishermen, “strong as oaks, rooted in the soil,” evoking the images of In poylishe velder. Yet soon the peaceful images change: the sky becomes gray and the clouds bring a storm. The narrator explains the image of the flooded small town that now appears on the screen: “Suddenly a storm arises and the old town is shocked. The Rifkin family suffers more than others. The storm has stolen its child.” Indeed, the oldest son of the Rifkins, a Jewish family of fishermen rooted as deeply in the Vistula as an old oak in the Polish forest, is drowned.

Like the Yiddish press, which was astonished that a Christian could create such a “Jewish” film, the conservative Czas presented a similar attitude. Czas asked mockingly, “What made the owners of a film restaurant [the producers] hire Polish cooks [the director] for a kosher meal [a Yiddish film]?”⁸⁰ As far as the newspaper was concerned, a non-Jew directing a film in Yiddish was an oxymoron. It is my contention that both newspapers represented a powerful public voice that rejected the option of creating a “third space.”

The Polish nationalist press, not surprisingly, ignored the films. Thus, for instance, when providing information about films screened in Warsaw in late 1936, ABC divided the cinema repertoire into “recommended” and “other.” Understandably for this right wing paper, Yidl was placed in the second category.⁸¹ Several months later, the daily changed the categories from “recommended” screened films to “Christian films,” eliminating in this way any reference to Yiddish films.⁸² Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy carried out a similar strategy. It did not mention cinema houses owned by Jews, whether or not they showed Yiddish films, but only “Christian companies.”⁸³ Ignoring the Yiddish film industry and its agenda comported perfectly with their project to boycott the Jews.

In the growing antisemitic atmosphere of the late 1930s, people who merged Slavic and Jewish elements, who exemplified through their lives the integration of the two worlds, and, most significantly, who made films in each of the two languages, used the motif of Kazimierz and the Vistula to project onto the silver screen their vision and their project. Whereas during the 1920s they saw that project as viable and celebrated it, in the second half of the 1930s they used it to depict a somber future of distress. Like many others of this milieu, they did not manage to present any feasible alternative that could challenge this deplorable situation. It seems to me, therefore, that the filmmakers internalized the idea that the problems of Jewish existence in Poland could be solved only by radical means, either through social change (as in the banned Mir kumen on) or by emigration. They no longer hoped for a liberal solution that would satisfy the needs of both groups, Poles and Jews. And because emigration was not possible, and social revolutionary change was even less realistic, it makes sense that only despair remained for them.

Such depictions of a distressed society with no solution but death, dreams of an impossible emigration, or other expressions of futility, illustrated on screen a situation that other dark political forces were trying to turn into reality. Thus, cinema inadvertently contributed to making that situation appear viable.