Cane

Jerzy Diałowicki, who donated the memorabilia of his family to the POLIN Museum, was born in January 1941 in the city of Kustamej in Kazakhstan. As a child growing up in a family of Polish exiles, he was initially unaware of his separateness as a Jew. Spending time among children of different nationalities, he only understood that his parents and grandparents had come from Poland. When, at the age of 4, during a childhood quarrel a friend with whom he had a crush (a Russian girl, a girl named Lubka) called him Eврей (Russian: a Jew), he began to wonder about his origins. Hearing a word that Lubka, who was three years older, had used to offend him, and which he himself heard for the first time, he immediately ran to his mother and asked what it actually meant. The donor emphasizes that even after the explanation he heard to his mother, as a little boy he was not able to relate Jewry to himself at all. The cited history can be seen as a testimony to the strong assimilation of many Polish Jewish families. However, it is primarily an image of the fact that the perception of one's own identity may be complex and diverse, as well as dependent on external factors. It may prove difficult and overwhelming for a small child, who is raised in exile, surrounded by people of different origins, to understand that he is not only a Pole, but also a Jew. For it is devoid of reference, detached from the community with which it could identify.

Marta Frączkiewicz