Book Reviews

1997 ◽  
pp. 344-414
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Challenge ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
Second World ◽  
Zionist Organization ◽  
Lower Silesia

This chapter looks at 29 book reviews. The first set of books discusses hasidism in Poland; the history of the Jewish population in lower Silesia after the Second World War; the Jewish communities in eastern Poland and the USSR; Jewish emancipation in Poland; and the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. The second set of books examine the Holocaust experience and its consequences; the ethical challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima; the history of the Jews of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eleventh to eighteenth centuries; and Russia's first modern Jews. The third set of books assesses the Kishinev pogrom of 1903; the history of feldshers in general and Jewish feldshers in particular; the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf; the Berlin Jewish community; the aspects of Jewish art; magic, mysticism, and hasidism; and the Jewish presence in Polish literature. The fourth set of books explores the depictions of Jews by Polish artists, both Christian and Jewish; the history of co-operation between the Polish government and the New Zionist Organization; and the origins of Zionism.

scholarly journals To the question of the relationship between the brothers of Sheptytskyi and the Jews

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Ivan Matkovskyy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Deep Relationship ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

The history of relations of the Sheptytskyj family and the Jewish people reaches back to those remote times when the representatives of the Sheptytskyi lineage held high and honorable secular and clerical posts, and the Jews, either upon invitation of King Danylo of Halych or King Casimir the Great, began to build up their own world in Halychyna. Throughout the whole life of Metropolitan Sheptytskyi and Blessed Martyr Klymentii, a thread of cooperation with the Jews is traceable. It should be noted that heroic deeds of the Sheptytskyi Brothers to save Jews during the Second World War were not purely circumstantial: they were preceded by a long-standing deep relationship with representatives of Jewish culture. In addition, the sense of responsibility of the Spiritual Pastor, as advocated by the Brothers, extended to all people of different religions and genesis with no exception. The world-view principles of Metropolitan Sheptytskyi are important for us in order to understand what was going on in the then society in attitude to the Jews. Also, of importance is the influence of the Metropolitan on Kasymyr Sheptytskyi, later Fr. Klymentii, because the Archbishop was not only his Brother, but also a church authority and the leader. And if from under the Metropolitan Sheptytskyi’s pen letters and pastorals were published, they were directives, instructions, edifications and explanations for the faithful and the clergy, and not at all, the products of His own reflections or personal experiences, which Archbishop Andrey wanted to share with the faithful. On the grounds of the available archive materials, an effort to reconstruct the chief moments of those relations was undertaken, aiming among others, to illustrate the fact that the saving of Jews during the Holocaust was not incidental, nor with any underlying reasons behind, but a natural manifestation of a good Christian tradition of «Love thy Neighbor», to which the Sheptytskyj were faithful. Keywords: Andrey Sheptytskyi, the Blessed Hieromartyr Klymentii Sheptytskyi, Jews, the Holocaust, Galicia, Righteous Among the Nations.

Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Yiddish Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

For many centuries Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world: right up to the Second World War, the area was home to over 40 per cent of the world's Jews. Yet the history of their Jewish communities is not well known. This book recreates this lost world, beginning with Jewish economic, cultural and religious life, including the emergence of hasidism. By the late eighteenth century, other factors had come into play: with the onset of modernization there were government attempts to integrate and transform the Jews, and the stirrings of Enlightenment led to the growth of the Haskalah movement. The book looks at developments in each area in turn: the problems of emancipation, acculturation, and assimilation in Prussian and Austrian Poland; the politics of integration in the Kingdom of Poland; and the failure of forced integration in the tsarist empire. It shows how the deterioration in the position of the Jews between 1881 and 1914 encouraged a range of new movements as well as the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. It also examines Jewish urbanization and the rise of Jewish mass culture. The final part, starting from the First World War and the establishment of the Soviet Union, looks in turn at Poland, Lithuania, and the Soviet Union up to the Second World War. It reviews Polish–Jewish relations during the war and examines the Soviet record in relation to the Holocaust. The final chapters deal with the Jews in the Soviet Union and in Poland since 1945, concluding with an epilogue on the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia since the collapse of communism.

Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust

2000 ◽  
pp. 444-446
Author(s):  
Michael C. Steinlauf
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
The People ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Press ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Sufficient Distance ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Second World

(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); pp. xiv + 190 + 28 illus. The author of this book is well known among Polish historians. Since 1983 he has visited Poland several times and studied Polish–Jewish relations on site. In his new book he undertakes the difficult task of analysing the changing attitudes of Polish society towards the Holocaust, until 1995. He is probably the best person to write such a book. The Polish and Jewish historians who spent the Second World War in Poland or who are living now in Poland seem the best situated for gathering sources. They are, however, significantly affected by past and contemporary debates over the problems discussed in this book, and it would be difficult for them to free themselves from their own personal experiences. Yet most of the scholars living abroad are too far from the primary sources. Michael Steinlauf, who was born in France, speaks all the necessary languages (Polish and Yiddish, notably), has spent a long time in Poland, and has many Polish friends. He is free from the most significant personal biases and, at the same time, has the necessary knowledge of Polish literature, the press, and the people. He can, therefore, understand the problems and has sufficient distance from Poland and her current hot quarrels to view them with a properly critical eye....

Havi Dreifuss (Ben-Sasson), Relations between Jews and Poles during the Holocaust: The Jewish Perspective, trans. Ora Cummings. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2017. 304 pp.

2021 ◽  
pp. 264-266
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Valuable Addition ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Second World ◽  
Yad Vashem

This chapter examines Relations between Jews and Poles during the Holocaust (2017), an English translation of Havi Dreifuss' Hebrew-language doctoral dissertation (completed in 2005). This book is a unique scholarly examination of Polish–Jewish relations during the Holocaust from a perspective of Jewish views. It is not a history of Polish–Jewish relations per se but rather a history of changing Jewish perceptions of Poland and the Poles from the beginning to the end of the Second World War. Based largely on unpublished wartime diaries and writings preserved in Yad Vashem as well as some materials from other archives, it also contains wartime photographs and a sizable, 60-page appendix of documents. The appendix itself, a rich collection of previously unpublished wartime testimonies, makes Dreifuss' book a valuable addition to any Holocaust library.

scholarly journals Polska literatura najnowsza i Holokaust – edukacyjny potencjał fikcji?

2020 ◽  
pp. 372-388
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Czyżak
Keyword(s):  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The article contains considerations regarding memory of the Holocaust in Polish contemporary prose and analyses the arguments for and against fictitious representations of theShoah. The author discusses the changes in treating fiction which narrates the history of Jewish people during the Second World War – from works of fiction published after the war (e.g. Wielki Tydzień by Jerzy Andrzejewski) to popular thrillers written in the 21st century. The main part of this article is devoted to a novel Tworki written by Marek Bieńczyk in 1999, telling a story of young people – Poles and Jews – employed in a mental hospital during German occupation. The novel was at the centre stage of discussion about relationship between fiction and the Shoah theme, yet the author of the article argues that it may serve as an important stepping stone in exemplifying history. This literary vision of the Holocaust (defined as “pastoral thriller”) shows educational possibilities of fiction.

scholarly journals Return Visits: The European Background of Transcultural Life Writing

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. T10-T24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Hornung
Keyword(s):  
Life Writing ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Canadian Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Return Visits ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Second World

In this article I read autobiographies by East Europeans who immigrated to Canada in connection with the Second World War as examples of transcultural life writing. My focus on the representation of return visits of these loyal Canadian citizens to their country of origin after 1989 reveals the underlying intention of relating the experience of life in a multicultural democratic society to the emergence of a new political consciousness in Eastern Europe. In my analysis I distinguish four types of concerns which try to bridge the past of their childhood experiences with the formation of a transcultural life in the 21st century: 1. Anna Porter’s return visit to Hungary for family reunion and an encounter with history in The Storyteller; 2. Modris Eksteins’s political motivation in Walking Since Daybreak as a historian who revisits his birthplace in Latvia as well as the stages of his displacement in German refugee camps for research on the history of the war years; 3. Janice Kulyk Keefer’s private driving tour of the Ukraine and Poland and the discovery of new political realities in Honey and Ashes; 4. Lisa Appignanesi’s search for the traces of the Holocaust in her native Poland in Losing the Dead. These reconnections with an earlier life from the Canadian perspective in transcultural life writings can be likened to the recent discussions of the constitution of transnational societies in a cosmopolitan world.

The Hitler émigrés: the cultural impact on Britain of refugees from Nazism

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (197) ◽  
pp. 437-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Snowman
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Interest ◽  
Second World

Abstract This article reflects upon some of the issues arising from the author's work on the ‘Hitler émigrés’. It looks in particular at the reasons for the huge recent resurgence of scholarly (and popular) interest in the history of the Second World War, Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust; the relevance – or otherwise – of the Jewishness of many of the ‘Hitler émigrés’ to what they went on to achieve; and finally culture and identity among asylum-seekers and immigrants, then and now.

Regimes of Memory: the Case of the Netherlands

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-479
Author(s):  
Pieter Emmer
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Slave Resistance ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dutch Caribbean ◽  
Second World

The Netherlands is not known for its opposing regimes of memory. There are two exceptions to this rule: the history of the German Occupation during the Second World War and the Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. The relatively low numbers of survivors of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, as well as the volume and the profitability of the Dutch slave trade and slavery, and the importance of slave resistance in abolishing slavery in the Dutch Caribbean have produced conflicting views, especially between professional historians and the descendants of slaves living in the Netherlands.

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