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The object of this paper is an attempt to describe the complex identity of the Yiddish language itself and its users. Poland and the Polish language have played a significant role in both these aspects. Part one is a sociolinguistic overview of the history of crystallisation of Yiddish in the historical territory of Poland as the autonomous language of the national culture of Central and Eastern European Jews. Its fate after the Holocaust of European Jews is also described here. Part two is dedicated to problems with the genetic classification of Yiddish due to the language-forming processes accompanying its development. Yiddish is classified among mixed languages, since it came into existence as a result of Hebrew-Slavic-Germanic language contacts. Therefore, this part pays special attention to the explanation of the mixed nature of this language system and the role of Polish as an important contact language influencing the final shape of the contemporary Yiddish language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The initiator of the establishment of Yiddish broadcasts in postwar Poland was Jonas Turkow. The first program in Yiddish was broadcasted by the Polish Radio (Polskie Radio) from the city of Lublin on January 6, 1945. For the first time in Poland's history Yiddish could be heard on the airwaves. It was also the first attempt to revive Yiddish and, most importantly, it came from a state institution before any Jewish organizations and institutions came to existence after World War II. After Jonas Turkow had left Poland, this activity was taken over by the Department of Culture and Propaganda in the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKŻP) in Warsaw. Between 1950 and 1958 the broadcasts were aired by the Jewish Section of the Polish Radio External Service and they could be heard only abroad. In January 1958, the Jewish Section of the Polish Radio was closed down by the decision of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadcasts aired by the Polish Radio in the Yiddish language in the 1950s were listened to all over the world. All the audience felt that for them, due to numerous reasons, the broadcasts were a matter of high value, and it is confirmed in letters sent to the station. It is also confirmed by negative reaction of the audience to the programme’s closure in 1958. The majority of letters was written in the Yiddish language, and in some cases other languages were used too – Russian, Polish, German. The letters contained many different personal traits, while reflecting the condition of preserved the Yiddish language, after the loss of homeland. The condition of Yiddish language that was used in the letters, for example informs about whether the author was subject to socialization in the original Jewish community (family home, school), whether they were present in the Jewish community, or whether they were affected by linguistic alienation in the country of their residence. Sometimes the audience would tackle the subject of their language deficiencies and point out to the forceful interruption of their Jewish education or the conditions in the country of their asylum.

The article presents selected translations of Yiddish literature into English, focusing on the influence of translator’s choices on forming the topography and realities of life in Poland before the Second World War. Elements related to material culture and multilingual quality of represented world are often eliminated or simplified. One of the main problems for translators, who usually do not know Polish, are Polish words and expressions, which are frequent in Yiddish literature written by authors of Polish extraction. Additional problems occur when Polish is used as intermediary between Yiddish and Polish. A reader who knows Eastern European realities receives an image of reality, which has been purposefully modified to facilitate reception in America, so that represented reality turns out to be more alien and exotic than in direct translation from Yiddish into Polish. This phenomenon occurs not only in fiction, but also in documentary texts, e.g. in the memorial books, which have been popular in Poland recently, and which are often translated from English intermediary texts. All this leads to important discrepancies and tensions between reality as it is imagined, remembered, and documented. Examples presented in the article come from texts by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shalom Asch, and the Zgierz memorial book.

Katzenelson's Song of the Murdered Jewish People is widely recognized as one of the most significant literary documents of the Shoah. Hence, its very limited reception after WW2 is at first glance baffling. We provide the necessary historical background to explain why Katzenelson's "Lament" was for several decades unwanted and why it still remains difficult to appropriate in translation. To show this in one particular context, we focus on the Polish translation by Jerzy Ficowski. We analyse selected examples of Ficowski's justly praised poetic achievement to point out the limitations of his declared goal: "My intention was to make the translation invisible, to allow the murdered poet say again the same - but this time, in Polish" (Ficowski 1982: 11). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]