ABSTRACT

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 I|18 pages

Introduction and Overview

chapter 1|12 pages

Jews in 20th-Century Poland

part II|71 pages

Studies of Wartime

chapter 3|10 pages

“I'm Being Punished Despite My Complete Innocence!”

Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) Meets Holocaust Refugees from the German-Occupied Part of Poland, 1939–1941

chapter 5|10 pages

Jews from Markowa

Life, War, and the Struggle to Survive

chapter 8|10 pages

February 1943 in the Białystok Ghetto

The Writings of Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff 1

part III|87 pages

Postwar Jewish Life, Historiography, Commemoration, and Representation

chapter 9|16 pages

Holocaust Monuments in Poland

Forms, Meanings, and Messages

chapter 10|11 pages

Passports from Switzerland

How History Becomes Politics

chapter 11|6 pages

My Love Affair with Jewish History

From Small Town to Source of Identity

chapter 12|10 pages

In Search of the Victims' Agenda

German Scholarship on Polish Jews During the Holocaust

chapter 14|9 pages

Two Jewish Traitors from Ostrowiec

The Zeyfman Brothers

chapter 16|12 pages

21st-Century Polish Literature and the Shoah

The Struggle for the Memory

part IV|57 pages

Family History, Family Memory

chapter 17|11 pages

In Search of the Lost Tydors

An Exercise in Holocaust Documentation

chapter 18|9 pages

“My Parents Left Poland, but Poland Didn't Leave Them”

History and Personal Memory

chapter 19|6 pages

Dis-location

Past – Present – Future in a Changing Silesian Town

chapter 20|10 pages

My Jewish Kraków

chapter 21|9 pages

Following My Roots

Building the Unknown Puzzle of My Family Roots in Poland

chapter 22|10 pages

Can I Be a Good Historian?