1st Edition
Holocaust History, Holocaust Memory Jewish Poland and Polish Jews, During and After the Holocaust
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.
Part 1: Introduction and Overview
Introduction
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz and Lea Ganor
1. Jews in Twentieth Century Poland
Eli Tzur
Part 2: Studies of Wartime
2. The Capacity of the Tzadik in the Late 1930s in Poland According to the "Akedat Yitzchak" Book
Lior Alperovitch
3. “I'm Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”: Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) Meets Holocaust Refugees from the German-Occupied Part of Poland, 1939-1941
Yaacov Falkov
4. "Maybe the Afterlife Will Be Better"- Letters from Włodawa County During the Holocaust
Eliyahu Klein
5. Jews From Markowa: Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive
Kamil Kopera
6. Josef Bürger – the Executioner of the Jews in Łuków
Krzysztof Czubaszek
7. Jewish Initiatives of Rescue by Means of Labor and Jewish Self-Help in the Face of Aktion Reinhardt
Witold Mędykowski
8. February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto: The Writings of Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff
Weronika Romanik
Part 3: Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation
9. Holocaust Monuments in Poland: Forms, Meanings, and Messages
Batya Brutin
10. Passports From Switzerland: How History Becomes Politics
Agnieszka Haska
11. My Love Affair With Jewish History: From Small Town to Source of Identity
Grzegorz Krzywiec
12. In Search of the Victims’ Agenda: German Scholarship on Polish Jews During the Holocaust
Stephan Lehnstaedt
13. March 1968 - The Last Chapter in the History of Polish Jews - Reflection and Representation of the Events of March 1968 in Polish Films
Hanna Oren
14. Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec: The Zeyfman Brothers
Rivka Chaya Schiller
15. “Windows of Memory. The Jewish Community of Bochnia” – Exhibition Organised by the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia
Iwona Zawidzka
16. 21st Century Polish Literature and the Shoah: The Struggle for the Memory
Sławomir Jacek Żurek
Part 4: Family History, Family Memory
17. In Search of the Lost Tydors: An Exercise in Holocaust Documentation
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
18. "My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn't Leave Them": History and Personal Memory
Lea Ganor
19. Dis-location: Past - Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town
Ruth Wyel Geall
20. My Jewish Kraków
Michał Niezabitowski
21. Following My Roots: Building the Unknown Puzzle of My Family Roots in Poland
Inbal Raz
22. Can I Be a Good Historian?
Ewa Wiatr
Biography
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz is the director of the Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research and Professor of Modern Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She has written and edited numerous publications about gender, Holocaust, memory, commemoration, Israel, and descendants of Holocaust survivors.
Lea Ganor is the founder and Director of the Mashmaut Center in Kiryat Motzkin and Senior Scholar/Coordinator of the Poland Forum, Bar-Ilan University. Her research focuses on the IDF and the Holocaust. She received the Night Cross Order of Merit from the president of Poland for fostering Polish-Israeli dialogue.
