The Imagined World: Jews in Contemporary Polish Crime Stories

In the last years there has been an outburst of Polish popular novel written by authors of middle generation. Among this kind of literature one of the widely read genre is a crime story whose plot is settled in the interwar Poland. It means that authors had to take into consideration population structure specificity during that time.

I am interested in what type of cliche or stereotypes Polish authors use while creating the image of the Jewish world in the pre-war Poland. What type of cliche they use while creating their Jewish protagonists. Although popular literature is usually based on simplified schemes, literary vision of the Jewish minority is sometimes quite worrying. The most popular cliches are: la belle Juive, criminal underworld and prostitution.

The plot of the analyzed novels is set in the biggest Polish cities before the WWII were percentage of Jews among other citizens oscilated around 30. Writers who wants to create reality of that time have to present different circles of Jews but usually they concentrate only on orthodox and assimilated types. Their knowledge about pre-war time usually come from scientific books but sometimes their unconscious beliefs or even prejudices are hidden between lines. I am interested in what knowledge about Jews writers spread among the readers and what beliefs are deeply roored in their minds. The messages the authors convey sometimes appear in the text in completely unexpected way.