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My professional detachment causes upset

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Leszek Kołakowski
Aleksander Smolar Political scientist
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Similarly, I never questioned Leszek Kołakowski, to whom I was much closer. He was a teacher and a close friend in later years. His attitude towards Polish-Jewish relations was always intensely emotional and he questioned the most painful aspects of these divisions. He had different memories, he lived in Poland at its best. In his home his family helped Jews on a big scale – he was a young boy. You could see by his reactions that this was a very emotional issue for him yet I never had the courage to ask him – although I would later visit him often in Oxford and talk with him about a great variety of things – I never asked him although that question interested me hugely: why? Why was a person who could speak about so many painful issues with such detachment unable to speak with the same detachment and be purely analytical about this? Why was he so intensely emotionally involved?

Podobnie jak nie zadałem pytania człowiekowi, który był mi znacznie bliższy – Leszek Kołakowski – który był nauczycielem, i później bliskim mi przyjacielem. On miał szalenie emocjonalny zawsze stosunek do tego, kiedy się mówiło o sprawie polsko-żydowskiej i kwestionował, że tak powiem, te najbardziej bolesne strony tych rozdziałów. To znaczy on miał inne wspomnienia, on żył w tej najlepszej Polsce. W jego domu masowo się pomagało Żydom i on był młodym chłopakiem. W każdym razie widać było, że on to... że on to szalenie przeżywa emocjonalnie – po reakcjach jego było widać, ale nigdy nie miałem odwagi, mimo to, że często go później odwiedzałem w Oksfordzie, często z nim rozmawiałem o bardzo różnych tematach – nigdy mu tego pytania. Nie zadałem, chociaż bardzo mnie ono interesowało: dlaczego? Dlaczego człowiek, który potrafił z takim dystansem o bardzo wielu rzeczach mówić, również bolesnych, tutaj to była rzecz, o której on nie potrafił mówić w jakimś sensie z dystansem, czysto analitycznie, tylko szalenie był emocjonalnie zaangażowany.

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: Leszek Kołakowski

Duration: 1 minute, 12 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2017

Date story went live: 20 December 2018