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© Brandeis University
NEJS 168b
Author: Dr. Antony Polonsky

HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE JEWS IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE SINCE 1914

Description of the Course.

This is the second part of a course, the first part of which (NEJS 168a) was taught in the Spring Semester of 1994. This described the emergence and consolidation of the Jewish community of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the early seventeenth century, this community had become the largest in the Jewish worldwith a population of between 150,000 and 300,000 in 1650 and 750.000 (out of a total population of around fourteen million) by 1764. In the years of its flourishing, it gave rise to a unique religious and secular culture in Hebrew and Yiddish and enjoyed and unprecedented degree of self-government. Even after the massacres which during the Cossack Uprising of the mid-seventeenth century and which saw the beginning of the decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which culminated in its partition at the end of the eighteenth century, the Jewish community continued to increase in size and was able to recover some of its vitality. It was in the eighteenth century that Hasidism was to emerge on these lands and obtain a mass following.

The partition of Poland led to the incorporation of the Jewish community into the Tsarist, Habsburg and Hohenzollern states, all of which attempted to transform the Jews, on the pattern of what was occurring in western Europe, into citizens (or in the case of the Tsarist monarchy, subjects) and to undermine Jewish collective existence. The effect of these policies was most far-reaching in the Prussian lands, where political integration was accompanied by acculturation and a degree of assimilation. The process was much less rapid in the Habsburg monarchy and was largely abandoned in the Tsarist monarchy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Under these circumstances, the dropping of a policy of integration and the growth of anti-semitism led to the emergence of autonomist Jewish ideologies, of which the most important was Zionism, which argued that the Jews were a nation, like the other emerging nations of East-Central Europe. Socialism also attracted the allegiance of many Jews, whether in a universalist form, which argued that the socialist millenium would create conditions in which Jew and Gentile would be subsumed in the creation of a new Socialist humanity, or in the form of specifically Jewish variants, which argued that only after the abolition of capitalism would the Jews be able to enjoy a degree of Jewish autonomy.

These ideologies had largely transformed the Jewish world in the Tsarist monarchy by 1914 and were making significant inroads in the Habsburg lands. The integrationists were now increasingly on the defensive, while traditional Jews began to have recourse to modern political methods to defend their interests. These developments were greatly accellerated by the impact of the First World War, which led to the collapse of the three Empires which had dominated East-Central Europe since the middle of the eighteenth century. For the Jews of the area, a bifurcated development now occurred. In Soviet Russia, and after 1922, the Soviet Union, a revolutionary socialist regime attempted to 'solve' the Jewish problem, both by radical means of integration and by, at times, fostering the emergence of a specifically socialist form of Jewish cultural life. In the newly independent states of East-Central Europe, conditions for Jewish autonomous development were much freer, but were adversely affected by the difficult economic conditions and by the growth of anti-semitism. In the first part of the course, we shall examine the character of the Soviet Jewish experiment and analyse the position of the Jews in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Lithuania. We will then investigate the impact of Nazi genocidal policies on the Jewish communities of the area, and seek also to understand the reaction of the other peoples of the area to this genocide. The Nazi mass murder led to the deaths of the greater part of the Jews of the area. Yet significant communities remained after 1945 in all the countries which are part of this course. The last part of the course will examine the fate of these communities in the half-century which followed the Second World War, which saw not only the extension of Soviet style communism over the whole area, but also its collapse, both in the satellite states and also in the Soviet Union itself. The course will conclude with a survey of the position of the Jews in East-Central Europe today. Even after the recent substantial emigration to Israel and the United States there are still significant numbers of Jews in the area and many of them are attempting to create the conditions for viable Jewish life. Only time will tell whether they can succeed.

Required Reading

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, London and New York, 1994.
  2. Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, Indiana University Press, 1983.
  3. Yisrael Gutman, Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of Poland Between Two World Jehuda Reinharz, Chone Shmeruk (eds.) Wars, University Press of New England, 1991.
  4. Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority, Cambridge, 1988.
  5. Nora Levin The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, 2 volumes, New York University Press, 1988.
  6. Antony Polonsky (ed.) From Shtetl to Socialism: Studies from Polin, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford, 1993.
  7. Xeroxed coursepack

Recommended Reading

  1. Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.
  2. Joseph Rothschild East-Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (revised edition), University of Washington Press, 1990.
  3. Joseph Rothschild Return to Diversity: A Political History of East-Central Europe since World War II, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989.
  4. Geoffrey Hosking The First Socialist Society. A History of the Soviet Union from Within, Harvard University Press, 1990.
  5. Paul Lendvai Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, Macdonald, London, 1971.
  6. Lionel Kochan (ed.) The Jews in Soviet Russia Since 1917, Institute for Jewish Affairs, London, 1978, 3rd edition).

All additional readings will be placed on reserve in the library.

Course Requirements

Books or articles marked with an asterisk (*) are essential reading. Other references are optional. Books marked with a dagger (†) are in the xeroxed coursepack.

 Introduction:

East-Central Europe in the Twentieth Century

  1. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 1-8.
  2. *†Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, pp. 1-25.
  3. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 1-38.
  4. Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority, pp. lx-xvii.

Week 1

War and Revolution 1914-1921

  1. †Mark Levene War, Jews and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf 1914-1919, Oxford, 1992, pp. 161-226.
  2. *†Antony Polonsky, Michael Riff 'Poles, Czechoslovaks and the "Jewish Question", 1914-1921: A Comparative Study, in Volker Berghahn, Martin Kitchen (eds), Germany in the Age of Total War: Essays in Honour of Francis Carsten, London, 1981, pp. 63-101.
  3. *†Eugene Black 'Lucien Wolf and the Making of Poland, Paris 1919', POLIN, 2, 1987, pp. 5-36. Also in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp.264-295.
  4. *†John D. Klier, Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in
  5. Shlomo Lambrozo (eds.) Russian History, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 291-313.
  6. †Taras Hunczak 'A Reappraisal of Semyon Petlura and Ukrainian-Jewish Relations, 1917-1921', Jewish Social Studies, 31, pp. 163-183.
  7. †Zosa Szajkowski 'Semyon Petlura and Ukrainian-Jewish Relations 1917-1921: A Rebuttal', Jewish Social Studies, 31, pp. 184-213.

Weeks 2,3

The Jews in Poland 1918-1939

  1. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 11-84.
  2. *†Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, pp. 26-43.
  3. *Yisrael Gutman, The Jews in Poland Between Two World Ezra Mendelsohn, Wars, Brandeis, 1990, especially articles by Jehuda Reinharz, Mendelsohn, pp. 1-19, Bacon, pp. 20-35,
  4. Chone Shmeruk (eds.) Gutman, pp. 97-108, Polonsky, 00. 109-25, Melzer, pp. 126-137, Shmeruk, pp. 285-311, Steinlauf, pp. 399-411, Prokopowna, pp. 412-434, Opalski, 434-449.
  5. *†Ezra Mendelsohn 'Interwar Poland: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews?' in Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk, Antony Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland, Oxford, 1986, pp. 130-139.
  6. Ezra Mendelsohn 'Jewish Historiography on Polish Jewry in the Interwar Period, POLIN, 8, pp. 3-13.
  7. †Antony Polonsky 'Roman Dmowski and Italian Fascism', in Roger Bullen, Hartmut Pogge von Strandtmann, Antony Polonsky (eds.), Ideas into Politics: Aspects of European History 1880-1950, London, 1984, pp. 130-146.
  8. †Szymon Rudnicki 'From "Numerus Clausus" to "Numerus Nullus"', POLIN, 2, pp. 246-268. Also in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 359-381.
  9. †Szymon Rudnicki 'Ritual Slaughter as a Political Issue', POLIN, 7, pp. 147-160.
  10. †Adam Penkalla (ed.) 'The "Przytyk Incidents" of March 1936 from Archival Documents', POLIN, 5, pp. 326-359.
  11. †Laurence Weinbaum 'Jabotinsky and the Poles', POLIN, 5, pp, 156-172.
  12. †Antony Polonsky 'The Bund in Polish Political Life, 1935- 1939', in Steven Zipperstein, Ada Rapoport- Albert (eds.), Essays in Modern Jewish History, London, 1988, pp. 542-577.
  13. †Chone Shmeruk 'Jews and Poles in Yiddish Literature in Poland between the Two World Wars', POLIN, 1, pp. 177-195.
  14. †Michael Steinlauf 'The Polish-Jewish Daily Press', POLIN, 2, pp. 219-245. Also in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 332-358.

 Weeks 4, 5

The Jews in Soviet Russia and the USSR 1917-1941

  1. *Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union, pp. 49-137.
  2. Nora Levin The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, New York University Press, 1988, volume 1, chapters 1-19.
  3. *Zvi Gitelman Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, Princeton, 1972, esp. pp. 321-442.
  4. †Charles A. Madison Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major Writers, New York, 1968, pp. 382-448.
  5. †Ben-Cion Pinchuk Shtetl Jews under Soviet Rule: Eastern Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust, Oxford, 1990, esp. pp. 1-40, 117-26.
  6. †Maurice Friedberg 'Jewish Contributions to Soviet Literature', in Lionel Kochan (ed.), The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917, London, 1978, 3rd edition, pp. 208-216.
  7. †Yehoshua Gilboa 'Hebrew Literature in the U.S.S.R., Ibid., pp. 216-231.
  8. †Chone Shmeruk 'Yiddish Literature in the U.S.S.R., Ibid., pp. 232-268.
  9. *Irving Howe, Ashes out of Hope: Fiction by Soviet-Eliezer Greenberg (eds.) Yiddish Writers, New York, 1977.
  10. Irving Howe, The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Ruth R. Wisse, Verse, New York, 1987. In particular, Khone Shmeruk (eds.) poems by Dovid Hofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko, Perets Markish, Moyshe Kulbak.
  11. *Irving Howe, A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry, New York, Eliezer Greenberg (eds.) 1969. Section 'Yiddish Poets in the Soviet Union', pp. 171-197.

Week 6

The Jews in Czechoslovakia and Hungary Between the Wars

  1. Czechoslovakia
  2. *†Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, pp. 107-26.
  3. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 131-70.
  4. Avigdor Dagan, The Jews of Czechoslovakia, 3 volumes, Gertrude Hirschler, Philadelphia, 1968, 1971, 1984, especially Lewis Weiner (eds.) vol. 1. pp. 155-266.
  5. Hungary
  6. *†Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, pp. 44-61.
  7. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 85-130.
  8. †Nathaniel Katzburg 'The Jewish Question in Hungary during the Interwar Period - Jewish Attitudes', in Bela Vago (ed.), Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, New York, 1974, pp. 112-124.
  9. Randolph Braham 'Hungarian Jewry: An Historical Retrospect', Journal of Central European Affairs XX, 1 (1960), pp. 3-23.

Week 7

The Jews in Romania and the Baltic States

  1. Romania
  2. *†Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, pp. 44-61.
  3. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 85-130.
  4. †Eugen Weber The Men of the Archangel', in Walter Laqueur, George Mosse (eds.), International Fascism, London, 1978, pp. 101-27.
  5. Israel Cohen The Jews in Rumania, London, 1938.
  6. The Baltic States
  7. *Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 95-106.
  8. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 212-254.
  9. †S. Gringauz 'Jewish National Autonomy in Lithuania, 1918-1925', Jewish Social Studies, 14, no. 3 (July 1952), pp. 225-246.
  10. †Dov Levin 'The Jews in the Soviet Lithuanian Establishment 1940-1941', Soviet Jewish Affairs, 10, no. 2, pp. 21-38.
  11. †Azriel Schochat The Beginnings of Anti-semitism in Independent Lithuania', Yad Vashem Studies, 2, pp. 7-48.

Weeks 8-9

The Holocaust in East-Central Europe: Selected Problems Polish-Jewish Relations during World War II

  1. Emanuel Ringelblum Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, Edited with footnotes by Joseph Kermish and Shmuel Krakowski, Evanston Il, 1992
  2. *†Jan Blonski The Poor Poles look at the Ghetto, POLIN, 2, pp. 320-336.
  3. *†Antony Polonsky Polish-Jewish Relations and the Holocaust, POLIN, 4, pp. 226-242.
  4. †Articles in The Jews in Poland by Gutman, Bartoszewski and Prekerowa, ,pp. 147-89.
  5. †Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War> A Discussion', POLIN, 2, pp. 337-358.
  6. †'Introduction' in Norman Davies and Antony Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR 1939-1946, London, 1991, pp. 1-91.
  7. †'An Early Account of Polish Jewry Under Nazi and Soviet Occupation', in The Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR 1939-1946, pp. 256-274.
  8. †Exchange between Blejwas and Krakowski in POLIN, 4, pp. 354-369.

The Soviets and the Holocaust

  1. *Lucjan Dobroszycki, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, New Jeffrey Gurock (eds.) York, 1993, particularly the articles by Mordecai Altshuler and Jan Tomasz Gross
  2. *Yehuda Bauer A History of the Holocaust, New York, 1982, pp. 295-6.
  3. Taras Hunczak 'Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Soviet and Nazi Occupations', in Yuri Boshyk, Ukraine during World War II: History and Aftermath, Edmonton, 1986, pp. 39-57.
  4. *Ben-Cion Pinchuk 'Sovietisation and the Jewish Response to Nazi Policies of Mass-Murder', in The Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR 1939- 1946, pp.124-138.
  5. *†Ben-Cion Pinchuk 'Was there a Soviet Policy for evacuating the Jews: the Case of the Annexed Territories', Slavic Review, Vol. 39, no. 1, 1980, pp.
  6. †Yaroslav Bilinsky 'Methodological Problems and Philosophical Issues in the Study of Jewish Ukrainian Relations During the Second World War', in Howard Aster, Peter Potichny (eds.), Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective, Edmonton, 1988.

Hungary and the Holocaust

  1. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe Between the World Wars, pp. 124-128.
  2. *Yehuda Bauer A History of the Holocaust, New York, 1982, pp. 312-29
  3. Randolph Braham The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, 2 volumes, New York, 1981.
  4. *Randolph Braham 'The Rightists, Horthy and the Germans: Factors Underlying the Destruction of Hungarian Jewry', in Bela Vago (ed.), Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918- 1945, pp. 137-156.
  5. Nathaniel Katzburg Hungary and the Jews 1920-1943, Ramat Gan, 1981, pp. 158-211.

Romania and the Holocaust

  1. *Yehuda Bauer A History of the Holocaust, New York, 1982, pp. 305-9.
  2. *T. Lavi 'The Background to the Rescue of Romanian Jewry during the Period of the Holocaust', in Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918-1945, pp. 177-86.
  3. *Dalia Ofer 'The Holocaust in Transnistria: A Special Case of Genocide', in Lucjan Dobroszycki, Jeffrey Gurock (eds.) The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, New York, 1993, pp. 133- 154.
  4. Bela Vago 'The Ambiguity of Collaborationism: The Center of the Jews in Romania (1942-1944)', in Yisrael Gutman, Cynthia Heft (eds.), Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe 1933-1945, Jerusalem, 1979. 

Week 10

Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1945

  1. *Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union, pp. 139-321.
  2. Nora Levin The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, volume 1, chs. 20-24, volume 2.
  3. †Abraham Brumberg 'Sovyetish Heimland and the Dilemmas of Jewish Life in the USSR', Soviet Jewish Affairs 1, 3(1972), pp. 27-41.

Week 11

  1. *Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 240-415 (This is also relevant for week 12)
  2. *†Michael Borwicz 'Polish-Relations 1944-1947', in The Jews in Poland, pp. 199-208.
  3. *†Lukasz Hirszowicz 'The Jewish Issue in Post-war Communist Politics', The Jews in Poland, pp. 199-208.
  4. †Krystyna Kersten 'The Contexts of the so-called Jewish Question in Poland after World War II', POLIN, 4, pp. 255-266.
  5. Paul Lendvai Antisemitism in Eastern Europe, London, 1971.
  6. *†Jan Blonlski Is there a Jewish School of Polish Literature@, POLIN, 1, pp. 196-211. Also in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp.471-486.
  7. †Laura Quercioli-Mincer A Voice from the Diaspora Julian Stryjkowski, POLIN, 5, pp. 272-287. Also in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp.487-501.
  8. †Zygmunt Bauman The Literary Afterlife of Polish Jewry, POLIN, 7, pp. 272-299.
  9. †Jerzy Wrolbel Henryk Grynberg calls Poland to Account, POLIN, 7, pp. 176-191.

Week 12

Jews Elsewhere in East-Central Europe since 1945

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 240-415.
  2. *Paul Lendvai Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, pp. 243-349.
  3. Charles Hoffman Gray Dawn: The Jews of Eastern Europe in the Post-communist Era, New York, 1992.
  4. †Yeshayahu Jelinek 'Slovaks and the Holocaust: An End to Reconciliation?' East European Jewish Affairs, volume 22, No. 1, pp. 5-22.
  5. †George Garai 'Symposium on Hungarian-Jewish Coexistence', East European Jewish Affairs, volume 22, No. 1, pp. 97-9.

Concluding Meeting: