`We, Polish Jews`: The Troubled Identities and Legacy of Poet Julian Tuwim, 1894-1953

Julian Tuwim (1894-1953) wrote great poetry, and suffered much, for his determination to express both his Jewish and Polish identities in 20^th century Poland. His writings and life reveal much about the possibilities and impossibilities of Jewish life in Poland.

Writing in Polish, Tuwim expressed attachment and ambivalence to both identifies he embraced: Polish and Jewish. His times were tragically rich in subjects to write of: exile, anti-semitism, fascism, and Holocaust. Tuwim was a powerful voice of both Jewish and Polish sensibility.

Today, Tuwim is selectively remembered in Poland and virtually completely forgotten in the Jewish world. Tuwim`s writings and life choices continue to pose discomfort for both the Polish and Jewish worlds he claimed ashis own.