Jodlinski Leszek, Empty chairs: stories of the Jews of Silesia, Krakow; Gliwice: AZORY Publishing House, 2020, pp. 215, [1], illustrations (including color), dimensions 17 x 24 cm. Author's signature. Publisher's hardcover. Minor soiling of the cover.
The book consists of two parts. The first is a collection of historical texts on the history of the Jews of Upper Silesia written between 2005 -2018 and published both in academic studies (including Bernheim's Petition, Samuel Hirsch's Gift) and which were originally the texts of extended newspaper articles published in the Katowice supplements of Gazeta Wyborcza ("Roztomajty", "Magazyn Katowice"). These texts have been thoroughly reviewed, updated, re-edited. Many new facts and photographic material not previously published. The stories take up the fates of both well-known figures in history (e.g. Dr. L. Guttmann, Silesian tropes of the MS St. Louis voyage, Franz Bernheim) , and is a presentation of the history of Jewish families living before World War II in G. Silesia. The second part is a collection of essays, newspaper articles (also in part originally published in the press) devoted to the heritage of the Jews of G. Silesia and the assessment of their presence in the mythogenic history of the region. A publication on the borderline of history (Part I) and non-fiction (Part II).
The book is 216 pages long and contains 67 photographs, including a completely unknown documentation of the interiors of the Seidenhaus Weichmann, whose author was Robert Kraft, who was previously unrelated to this project.