Ironically, even when the Yiddish films of the late 1930s that made reference to the iconic visions of Kazimierz and the Vistua River suggested that there was no place for Jewish existence there, they were mostly well received by the mass Yiddish press. Yidl was depicted as “a completely Jewish film.” ⁷⁸ One reviewer praised the principal professionals behind the film, Tom and Nowina-Przybylski. The author singled out Tom, the well-known Polish cabaret artist, for creating a screenplay where “the action is genuinely Jewish.” The reviewer also praised Nowina-Przybylski, a well-known non-Jewish director of Polish films, for obtaining such a “Jewish” result: “[I]t is astonishing how he, a Christian, directed such a genuine Jewish film.” ⁷⁹

Like the Yiddish press, which was astonished that a Christian could create such a “Jewish” film, the conservative Czas presented a similar attitude. Czas asked mockingly, “What made the owners of a film restaurant [the producers] hire Polish cooks [the director] for a kosher meal [a Yiddish film]?” ⁸⁰ As far as the newspaper was concerned, a non-Jew directing a film in Yiddish was an oxymoron. It is my contention that both newspapers represented a powerful public voice that rejected the option of creating a “third space.”

The Polish nationalist press, not surprisingly, ignored the films. Thus, for instance, when providing information about films screened in Warsaw in late 1936, ABC divided the cinema repertoire into “recommended” and “other.” Understandably for this right wing paper, Yidl was placed in the second category. ⁸¹ Several months later, the daily changed the categories from “recommended” screened films to “Christian films,” eliminating in this way any reference to Yiddish films. ⁸² Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy carried out a similar strategy. It did not mention cinema houses owned by Jews, whether or not they showed Yiddish films, but only “Christian companies.” ⁸³ Ignoring the Yiddish film industry and its agenda comported perfectly with their project to boycott the Jews.

Dziennik Poznański, a National Democratic daily, wanted not only to eliminate the very production of Yiddish films in Poland but also to reject the “third space” milieu that created them. The daily claimed that the Yiddish films “are not patriotic:” they “have no clear motherland.” ⁸⁴ It thus attacked the milieu evident in both cultural spheres as misrepresenting and damaging Polish national culture: “The spectator [abroad] will reach the conclusion that the zhargon is a Polish national language! It is impossible to distinguish between Znachor and Dybuk, both filmed in Poland, and in addition tampered with by the same Mister Waszyński.” ⁸⁵ The newspaper called upon the Polish censors to take measures to limit the production of Yiddish films in Poland.

On the other hand, the state authorities who supervised the film industry applauded the attitude the Yiddish films expressed. Józef Relidziński, head of the central film desk in Poland’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, told Poland’s film producers and directors in March 1939, “The Yiddish films produced in Poland present the Jewish reality in an appropriate light, and it is desirable that Polish films should also represent such reality in a more or less positive way.” The films presented poverty, but they were photogenic; they showed misery, but they did so folkloristically. ⁸⁶ The latent protest they embodied could be noted only by skilled eyes aware of the inner cultural codes in which they spoke. Thus in the end they neither endangered the current state of affairs nor protested the hegemonic manner of dealing with a cruel reality.

In the growing antisemitic atmosphere of the late 1930s, people who merged Slavic and Jewish elements, who exemplified through their lives the integration of the two worlds, and, most significantly, who made films in each of the two languages, used the motif of Kazimierz and the Vistula to project onto the silver screen their vision and their project. Whereas during the 1920s they saw that project as viable and celebrated it, in the second half of the 1930s they used it to depict a somber future of distress. Like many others of this milieu, they did not manage to present any feasible alternative that could challenge this deplorable situation. It seems to me, therefore, that the filmmakers internalized the idea that the problems of Jewish existence in Poland could be solved only by radical means, either through social change (as in the banned Mir kumen on) or by emigration. They no longer hoped for a liberal solution that would satisfy the needs of both groups, Poles and Jews. And because emigration was not possible, and social revolutionary change was even less realistic, it makes sense that only despair remained for them.

Such depictions of a distressed society with no solution but death, dreams of an impossible emigration, or other expressions of futility, illustrated on screen a situation that other dark political forces were trying to turn into reality. Thus, cinema inadvertently contributed to making that situation appear viable.

*This paper was made possible thanks to the generous support of research funds provided by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Haifa.

An earlier version of this article was published in Gal-ed: On the History and Culture of Polish Jewry XXIII (2012): 37–57.

78. A. Lerman, “Der yidisher klang film ‘Yidl mint fidl,’” Unzer Ekspres, October 6, 1936.↩
79. Ibid.↩
80. Czas, October 4, 1936, quoted in Gross, Toldot ha-kolno’a, 67.↩
81. ABC, October 28, 1936 (no. 309), 5.↩
82. See, for instance, ABC, 1937 (no. 309), 5; ABC, March 1, 1939 (no. 60), 8; ABC, March 24, 1939 (no. 83), 8; ABC, April 7,1939 (no. 97), 16. ↩
83. See, for instance, Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy: tygodnik polityczno-informacyjny, September 1, 1937, 7; Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy, September 26, 1937, 10. I thank Kamil Kijek for the material on ABC, Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy, and many other Warsaw Polish-language dailies.↩
84. “Przeciw filmom żargonowym pod sztandarem polskim,” 9. I thank Hanna Kozzińska-Witt for this reference.↩
85. Ibid.↩
86. Quoted in “Konferencja w Ministerstwie Spraw Wewnętrznych w sprawie tematyki filmów krajowej produkcji,” Film, March 1, 1939, 1; “Komunikat prasowy związku dziennikarzy i publicystów filmowych,” Wiadomości Filmowe, March 1, 1939, 3. ↩