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Intellectual and political freedom of expression

RELATED STORIES

My Polish and Jewish identities
Aleksander Smolar Political scientist
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[Q] Jewish summer youth camp, so you were 16,17,18 years old...

Yes.

[Q] …when you were going to these…

Yes, it was more or less around that time. But you could also say that I had one life that was entirely Polish and that was school, later university and then my other life which was these contacts preserved in the Jewish world, not preserved but constructed rather because this period of attending Jewish school was short. I was only there for the first three years of primary school. Well, there was my home where there were a couple… well, two boys who were my friends and were a bit younger than I was. But later, there were the summer youth camps and Club Babel which were partly connected with one another. They were the same people. But also there were already very strong tendencies among them towards leaving and to distancing themselves from Poland and identifying with the Jewish world. This never affected me, I mean I always identified very strongly with Poland even when I was participating in… that was really very nice, very pleasant, these people were usually on a very high intellectual level. There were… we played, in fact, both of us played bridge, it was simply… it was a real club with a rich variety of activities.

[Q] Kolonie żydowskie, znaczy miałeś 16, 17, 18 lat...

Tak.

[Q] ... kiedy jeździłeś na te...

Tak, to było... to było mniej więcej w tym samym czasie. Tak że miałem, można powiedzieć, jedno życie, które było czysto polskie i to była szkoła, później uczelnia, i z drugiej strony te kontakty zachowane w świecie żydowskim – nie zachowane, budowane właściwie, bo miałem krótki okres tej szkoły żydowskiej. To były trzy pierwsze klasy szkoły podstawowej. No, był mój dom, gdzie było parę, no, dwóch chłopców, moich kolegów troszkę młodszych ode mnie. Ale przede wszystkim później to były te kolonie i Klub „Babel”, związane ze sobą częściowo. To były te same osoby. Ale przy tym tam były już bardzo silne tendencje wyjazdowe i dystansowania się do Polski, utożsamiania się ze światem żydowskim. To mnie w ogóle nigdy nie dotyczyło, to znaczy u mnie była bardzo silna identyfikacja z Polską, nawet wtedy, kiedy uczestniczyłem – to było bardzo przyjemne, bardzo miłe, wysoki poziom intelektualny przeważnie był tych ludzi. Tam graliśmy... zresztą myśmy obaj grali w brydża, tam był po prostu... to był prawdziwy klub z bogatym życiem.

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation.

Listeners: Vitek Tracz

Vitek Tracz is a London-based entrepreneur who has been involved in science publishing, pharmaceutical information and mobile phone-based navigation.

Tags: Poland

Duration: 1 minute, 27 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2017

Date story went live: 20 December 2018