Results of a survey of Jews living in Warsaw, Łódź, and Dzierżoniów conducted in 1947-50 as part of a doctoral dissertation, not published until now. Of the 20,000 questionnaires distributed only 817 were returned, but they represent a wide range of the Polish Jewish population. Ch. 8 (pp. 125-143) deals with the effects of antisemitism on assimilated Jews. Many respondents felt that antisemitism was endemic to Poland, and expressed a desire to emigrate to Palestine. Some hoped to assimilate under a socialist regime while others felt there was no future for Jews there. They accused the Poles of a share in responsibility for the Holocaust and of widespread approval of its results. During the war and after, some Jews tried to conceal their origins but conversion was rare.

No detailed description available for "Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939".

This volume is both a study of the history of Polish Jews and Jewish Poland before, during, and immediately after the Holocaust and a collection of personal explorations focusing on the historians who write about these subjects. While the first three parts of the book focus on "text," the broad nature of Polish Jewish history surrounding the Holocaust, the last section focuses on subtext, the personal and professional experiences of scholars who have devoted years to researching and writing about Polish Jewry. The beginning sections present a variety of case studies on wartime and postwar Polish Jews, drawing on new research and local history. The final part is a reflection on family memory, where scholars discuss their connections to Holocaust history and its impact on their current lives and research. Viewed together, the combination sheds light on both history and historians: the challenges of dealing with the history of an unparalleled cataclysm, and the personal questions and dilemmas that its study raises for many of the historians engaged in it. Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory is a unique resource that will appeal to students and scholars studying the Second World War, Jewish and Polish history, and family history.

This volume is made up of essays first presented as papers at the conference held in May 2015 at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. It is divided into two sections. The first deals with museological questions--the voices of the curators, comments on the POLIN museum exhibitions and projects, and discussions on Jewish museums and education. The second examines the current state of the historiography of the Jews on the Polish lands from the first Jewish settlement to the present day. Making use of the leading scholars in the field from Poland, Eastern and Western Europe, North America, and Israel, the volume provides a definitive overview of the history and culture of one of the most important communities in the long history of the Jewish people.

Wartime devastation, postwar emigration waves, and the establishment of a Communist government transformed Jewish society in Poland after the Holocaust. Although small organized Jewish religious and cultural communities operated in Poland throughout the postwar period, the majority of families remaining after the early postwar years were Polonized, and a significant portion were formally unaffiliated with Jewish communal institutions. The dissertation explores the processes by which Jewish families rebuilt communities in post-war Poland and the degree to which these individuals became integrated into Polish society. The study analyzes, on one hand, the extent of cultural and social integration in each postwar generation, focusing on family life, cultural identification and social affiliations; and on the other hand, the ways in which living patterns, social circles and school attendance connected Jewish families even when partial or total abandonment of Jewish identity was evident.

The poignant story of Holocaust survivors who returned to their hometown in Poland and tried to pick up the pieces of a shattered world. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the lives of Polish Jews were marked by violence and emigration. But some of those who had survived the Nazi genocide returned to their hometowns and tried to start their lives anew. Lukasz Krzyzanowski recounts the story of this largely forgotten group of Holocaust survivors. Focusing on Radom, an industrial city about sixty miles south of Warsaw, he tells the story of what happened throughout provincial Poland as returnees faced new struggles along with massive political, social, and legal change. Non-Jewish locals mostly viewed the survivors with contempt and hostility. Many Jews left immediately, escaping anti-Semitic violence inflicted by new communist authorities and ordinary Poles. Those who stayed created a small, isolated community. Amid the devastation of Poland, recurring violence, and bureaucratic hurdles, they tried to start over. They attempted to rebuild local Jewish life, recover their homes and workplaces, and reclaim property appropriated by non-Jewish Poles or the state. At times they turned on their own. Krzyzanowski recounts stories of Jewish gangs bent on depriving returnees of their prewar possessions and of survivors shunned for their wartime conduct. The experiences of returning Jews provide important insights into the dynamics of post-genocide recovery. Drawing on a rare collection of documents—including the postwar Radom Jewish Committee records, which were discovered by the secret police in 1974—Ghost Citizens is the moving story of Holocaust survivors and their struggle to restore their lives in a place that was no longer home.