The Heart of the City That Once Was

A gear with three arrows placed at the very top of a banner. A banner which “is ready, flapping with rage, reddening with blood”, as S. Ansky wrote in the lyrics of the Bundist anthem. The arrows symbolise revenge against fascism, nationalism, and war. And although many other organisations and parties have come to use the symbol and develop their own interpretations of it, it was single-handedly the General Jewish Labour Bund which spread its popularity in Poland as well as Lithuania and Russia. It was featured on posters, leaflets, pennons, and in documents. The end cap in the photo is more recent; it comes from the post-war period, when the Bund, despite the promise to rise “from blood and tears”, was decimated by the Holocaust. The slow rebirth of the workers’ movement brought with itself the necessity to make many political choices. Some activists who survived the war were looking for ways to find their place in the new reality. When I first saw this particular end cap, lonely, separated from the pole and the banner, I focussed on the mysterious note attached to the gear with a piece of string. What does it say? Was it attached to the item by someone dealing with its storage or by the people who produced it? In any case, again – what does it say? I wondered whether it could be an excerpt from The Oath, the Bundist anthem, or perhaps the name of the banner to which the end cap was attached. At some point, however, I started to imagine a letter from the living to those that are no more. A final conversation of sorts, a symbolic gesture carrying a promise of keeping the tradition forged in the 19th century. Letters crafted with masterful calligraphy – or quite the opposite, a couple of words scribbled with a copying pencil. After all, struggle takes precedence over everything else, there is no time for frills. However, the symbolic act of grabbing a pole is a gesture of victory in spite of all. 

The three arrows, for their part, have since become one of the most widespread symbols of the antifascist movement. 

In our digital repository, the object can be viewed in the highest quality.

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Supported by Norway and EEA Grants from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and the national budget #EEAGrants #Funduszenorweskie #EOG #EEANorwayGrants