Abstract: Neighbors — Jan Gross’s stunning account of the brutal mass murder of the Jews of Jedwabne by their Polish neighbors — was met with international critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award in the United States. It has also been, from the moment of its publication, the occasion of intense controversy and painful reckoning. This book captures some of the most important voices in the ensuing debate, including those of residents of Jedwabne itself as well as those of journalists, intellectuals, politicians, Catholic clergy, and historians both within and well beyond Poland’s borders.
Antony Polonsky and Joanna Michlic introduce the debate, focusing particularly on how Neighbors rubbed against difficult old and new issues of Polish social memory and national identity. The editors then present a variety of Polish voices grappling with the role of the massacre and of Polish-Jewish relations in Polish history. They include samples of the various strategies used by Polish intellectuals and political elites as they have attempted to deal with their country’s dark past, to overcome the legacy of the Holocaust, and to respond to Gross’s book.
Abstract: This book offers an extensive introduction and 13 diverse essays on how World War II, the Holocaust, and their aftermath affected Jewish families and Jewish communities, with an especially close look at the roles played by women, youth, and children. Focusing on Eastern and Central Europe, themes explored include: how Jewish parents handled the Nazi threat; rescue and resistance within the Jewish family unit; the transformation of gender roles under duress; youth’s wartime and early postwar experiences; postwar reconstruction of the Jewish family; rehabilitation of Jewish children and youth; and the role of Zionism in shaping the present and future of young survivors.
Contents
• Foreword—Sylvia Barack Fishman
• Preface—Joanna Beata Michlic
• Jewish Families in Europe, 1939–Present: History, Representation, and Memory—An Introduction—Joanna Beata Michlic
• PART I: PARENTHOOD AND CHILDHOOD UNDER SIEGE, 1939–1945
• Parenthood in the Shadow of the Holocaust—Dalia Ofer
• Clandestine Activities and Concealed Presence: A Case Study of Children in the Kraków Ghetto—Joanna Sliwa
• Resistance in Everyday Life: Family Strategies, Role Reversals, and Role Sharing in the Holocaust—Lenore J. Weitzman
• The National Institute for the Israelite Deaf-Mute in Budapest, 1938–1948: A Case Study for the Rescue Strategy of Continuously Operating Jewish Communal Institutions—Kinga Frojimovics
• Moving Together, Moving Alone: The Story of Boys on a Transport from Auschwitz to Buchenwald—Kenneth Waltzer
• Life in Hiding and Beyond—Jennifer Marlow
• PART II: AFTER THE WAR: REBUILDING SHATTERED LIVES, RECOLLECTING WARTIME EXPERIENCES
• A Zionist Home: Jewish Youths and the Kibbutz Family after the Holocaust—Avinoam Patt
• What Does a Child Remember? Recollections of the War and the Early Postwar Period among Child Survivors from Poland—Joanna Beata Michlic
• Memory Imprints: Testimonies as Historical Sources—Rita Horváth
• “I Will Not Be Believed”: Benjamin Tenenbaum and the Representation of the Child Survivor—Boaz Cohen and Gabriel N. Finder
• Transcending Memory in Holocaust Survivors’ Families—Uta Larkey
• Holocaust Child Survivors, Sixty-Five Years after Liberation: From Mourning to Creativity—Eva Fogelman
• Afterword: In Defense of Eyewitness Testimonies: Reflections of a Writer and Child Survivor of the Holocaust—Henryk Grynberg
• List of Contributors
• Index
