Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Polin: Studies inPolish Jewry
- Contents
- Note on Place Names
- Note on Transliteration
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE SHTETL: MYTH AND REALITY
- PART II NEW VIEWS
- PART III DOCUMENTS
- PART IV THE SIXTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF EVENTS IN PRZYTYK: A DEBATE
- PART V REVIEWS
- OBITUARIES
- Rafael Scharf (1914–2003)
- Eugenia Shrut (1925–2003)
- George Szabad (1917–2002)
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
Rafael Scharf (1914–2003)
from OBITUARIES
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Polin: Studies inPolish Jewry
- Contents
- Note on Place Names
- Note on Transliteration
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE SHTETL: MYTH AND REALITY
- PART II NEW VIEWS
- PART III DOCUMENTS
- PART IV THE SIXTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF EVENTS IN PRZYTYK: A DEBATE
- PART V REVIEWS
- OBITUARIES
- Rafael Scharf (1914–2003)
- Eugenia Shrut (1925–2003)
- George Szabad (1917–2002)
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
KrakóW Autumn
At this time of year chestnuts fall from the trees in Kraków.
But no one any longer hangs them in a sukah.
Wawel stands as it always has. But at the dragon's cave
There are no Jewish children …
We gather like the chestnuts on the Planty of Kraków
We thread a chain of memory longer than slavery;
Our idyllic Kraków Jewish childhood,
Days of struggle and exaltation, days of youth and pranks,
Days of love, days of happiness, days of disaster, days of sadness.
Who knows as well as you, you Kraków streets,
What once pained us, what still pains us—
Our Jewish fate
At this season, the chestnut trees are wet from the rain in Kraków
It is already autumn on the Planty and winter in our hearts
Darkness falls. It is time to return. The gates are closing.
It is slipping away, my unforgettable Krakow,
That Kraków which is no more.
NATAN GROSSNO ONE did more to stop the ‘slipping away’ of that ‘unforgettable Kraków … which is no more’ than Rafael Scharf, a member of the editorial board of this yearbook, who died on 19 September 2003. His activity, both as a writer and as a public figure, was dedicated to the preservation of the memory of the multifaceted world of Polish Jewry whose annihilation was so nearly achieved by the Nazis, and to reflect on why the history of the ‘world's two saddest nations’, to use Antoni Słonimski's phrase, diverged so drastically and led to so much misunderstanding, bitterness, and hatred. Few people were better qualified to expound on these complex and perplexing themes.
Scharf was born into a relatively comfortable but still observant Jewish family in Kraków and attended the Hebrew high school there, which he described movingly in a number of his essays. In this way he obtained both a thorough general education and an abiding love of Polish literature, as well as a deep grounding in Jewish history, the Hebrew language, and modern Hebrew literature.
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- The Shtetl: Myth and Reality , pp. 453 - 459Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2004