Monograph
Before 1939, relations between the Polish state and its non-Polish citizens were characterized by... more Before 1939, relations between the Polish state and its non-Polish citizens were characterized by partly sharp disputes. However, there were also attempts to resolve the conflicts by mutual agreement. These took place outside the parliamentary arena and were usually initiated by actors from the second tier.
Stephan Stach's study is the first to examine the development of an institutional environment in which academics, ministerial officials, members of parliament and journalists developed concepts for the integration of national minorities into the Polish state. Using the example of the Jewish and Ukrainian minorities in Poland, processes are examined that created political trust between the conflicting parties.
Die Beziehungen zwischen dem polnischen Staat und seinen nichtpolnischen Bürgern waren vor 1939 von teils scharfen Auseinandersetzungen geprägt. Doch es gab auch Versuche, die Konflikte in beiderseitigem Einverständnis zu lösen. Diese fanden jenseits der parlamentarischen Bühne statt und wurden in der Regel von Akteuren aus der zweiten Reihe angestoßen.
Stephan Stachs Studie untersucht erstmals die Herausbildung eines institutionellen Umfelds, in dem Wissenschaftler, Ministerialbeamte, Abgeordnete und Journalisten Konzepte zur Einbindung nationaler Minderheiten in den polnischen Staat entwickelten. Am Beispiel der jüdischen und ukrainischen Minderheiten in Polen werden Prozesse beleuchtet, die politisches Vertrauen zwischen den Konfliktparteien schufen.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Edited Books & Journal Issues
Central European University Press, 2022
Reined into the service of the Cold War confrontation, antifascist ideology overshadowed the narr... more Reined into the service of the Cold War confrontation, antifascist ideology overshadowed the narrative about the Holocaust in the communist states of Eastern Europe. This led to the Western notion that in the Soviet Bloc there was a systematic suppression of the memory of the mass murder of European Jews. Going beyond disputing the mistaken opposition between “communist falsification” of history and the “repressed authentic” interpretation of the Jewish catastrophe, this work presents and analyzes the ways as the Holocaust was conceptualized in the Soviet-ruled parts of Europe.
The authors provide various interpretations of the relationship between antifascism and Holocaust memory in the communist countries, arguing that the predominance of an antifascist agenda and the acknowledgment of the Jewish catastrophe were far from mutually exclusive. The interactions included acts of negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Detailed case studies describe how both individuals and institutions were able to use antifascism as a framework to test and widen the boundaries for discussion of the Nazi genocide. The studies build on the new historiography of communism, focusing on everyday life and individual agency, revealing the formation of a great variety of concrete, local memory practices.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This book is about the interconnections of religion and law in East Central European legal cultur... more This book is about the interconnections of religion and law in East Central European legal culture – or more precisely cultures. It delves into the role of religion in legal thought, in political constitutions, legal practice and performance, as well as in understandings of justice from the 16th century to 1939. At the core of the study are the Polish, Lithuanian, Belorusian and Ukrainian lands that were continuously inhabited by multiple religious communities and settlers of various religious belongings.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Did history return to the countries of East Central Europe after 1989? Has the historical memory ... more Did history return to the countries of East Central Europe after 1989? Has the historical memory of these countries been frozen before 1989? Without a doubt the ruling socialist and communist parties exploited, suppressed and falsified history, especially the history of World War II. So far, however, little attention has been drawn to the fact that dissidents in these counties found their own way to come terms with history. They created a variety of own «Counter-Histories», which opposed the communist narrative. Discussing the Holocaust, the expulsion of the Germans or the non-communist resistance against Nazism, they touched sensitive or tabooed issues, which appeared on the agenda also after 1989. This volume traces these debates - partly for the first time - and analyses them as part of a dissident historical culture.
Gab es nach 1989 eine «Rückkehr der Geschichte» in die Länder Ostmitteleuropas? War das historische Gedächtnis dort zuvor «eingefroren»? Zweifellos instrumentalisierten, unterdrückten und verfälschten die herrschenden Parteien die Geschichte, insbesondere jene des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Bisher wenig beachtet blieb jedoch, dass Dissidenten in diesen Ländern die Geschichte auf ihre eigene Weise aufarbeiteten. Sie entwarfen eine Vielzahl von «Gegengeschichten», die dem vorherrschenden, kommunistischen Narrativ zuwiderliefen. Mit dem Holocaust, der Vertreibung der Deutschen oder dem nichtkommunistischen Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus wurden heikle oder tabuisierte Themen diskutiert, die auch nach 1989 auf der Tagesordnung standen. In diesem Band werden solche Debatten – teilweise zum ersten Mal – nachgezeichnet und als Teil einer oppositionellen Geschichtskultur analysiert.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung 62/2 2013
This special Issue of Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung is dedicated to the relation betwe... more This special Issue of Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung is dedicated to the relation between state institutions and the national minorities in Poland 1918-1939. In seven case studies it examines the role institutions, such as the army or or the police, played in nationalizing processes and other conflicts between national minorities and the state.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Articles & Book Chapters
Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism : Remembering the Holocaust in State-Socialist Eastern Europe, 2022
In this article, I analyze how antifascist ideology and political propaganda interfered with an e... more In this article, I analyze how antifascist ideology and political propaganda interfered with an emerging Holocaust memory in the GDR of the late 1950s and 1960s. I place three books that the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw published in cooperation with East German publishers at the center of this analysis: The diary collection Im Feuer vergangen (Gone with the Fire), Ber Mark’s Der Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto (The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) and the document compilation Faschismus—Getto—Massenmord (Fascism—ghetto—mass murder). Rather than the content of these books, I analyze how they were introduced to East German readers; received in the media; perceived in society; and used for educational projects, documentaries, and further artistic reflection on the Holocaust. I will show that the perception of these books, which publishers labeled as “antifascist literature” and reviews in East German Press presented as part of campaigns against Nazi criminals in West Germany, ultimately exceeded superficial propagandistic purpose.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Jewish Lives under Communism. New Perspectives, eds. Kamil Kijek, Katerina Capková, New Brunswick, N.J., , 2022
This volume provides new, groundbreaking views of Jewish life in various countries of the pro-Sov... more This volume provides new, groundbreaking views of Jewish life in various countries of the pro-Soviet bloc from the end of the Second World War until the collapse of Communism in late 1989. The authors, twelve leading historians and anthropologists from Europe, Israel and the United States, look at the experience of Jews under Communism by digging beyond formal state policy and instead examining the ways in which Jews creatively seized opportunities to develop and express their identities, religious and secular, even under great duress. The volume shifts the focus from Jews being objects of Communist state policy (and from anti-Jewish prejudices in Communist societies) to the agency of Jews and their creativity in Communist Europe after the Holocaust. The examination of Jewish history from a transnational vantage point challenges a dominant strand in history writing today, by showing instead the wide variety of Jewish experiences in law, traditions and institutional frameworks as conceived from one Communist country to another and even within a single country, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. By focusing on networks across east-central Europe and beyond and on the forms of identity open to Jews in this important period, the volume begins a crucial rethinking of social and cultural life under Communist regimes.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
National Identities, 2021
Historical works on Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar period mostly concern conflict his... more Historical works on Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar period mostly concern conflict history. The Polish-Ukrainian Bulletin, the subject of this article, was published from 1932 with the intention of contributing to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. In Poland, under the authoritarian regime of Józef Piłsudski, the journal created a space for a relatively free debate on common questions and helped to build mutual trust across national divisions. Around the journal, networks of Polish and Ukrainian political and social activists emerged. These networks played a crucial role in the conclusion of the Polish-Ukrainian Normalization Agreement of 1935.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Hans-Christian Jasch/ Stephan Lehnstaedt (eds.): Crimes Uncovered. The First Generation of Holocaust Researechers , 2019
A considerable number of first-generation Holocaust researchers were Polish Jews: Philip Friedman... more A considerable number of first-generation Holocaust researchers were Polish Jews: Philip Friedman, Isaiah Trunk, Józef Kermisz, Nachman Blumental, Rachel Auerbach, Michał Borwicz, Joseph Wulf, Szymon Datner, Artur Eisenbach, Tatjana Berenstein and Bernard Mark, to name just a few. Most of them left Poland in the late 1940s and early 1950s and resettled in the United States, France, Israel or West Berlin. Others continued their work in Poland. They all made important contributions to the documentation and research of the German mass murder of European Jews and many to the legal processing of this too. What connects them is the institution at they began their work, known then as Churbn-forshung1: the Central Jewish Historical Commission (CJHC) in Poland, from which the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) was formed in October 1947. The chapter describes the origin of and the scientific
work and documentation carried out by the Commission and Institute, as well as its contribution to the prosecution and punishment of Nazi perpetrators against the background of the political situation in communist post-war Poland, particularly the Jewish community there.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Münchner Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur, 2018
This article examines the emergence of the ongoing debate on Polish aid for persecuted Jews durin... more This article examines the emergence of the ongoing debate on Polish aid for persecuted Jews during the Holocaust. While today it is mainly the nationalist Catholic right that tries to distract from other aspects of Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War, this discursive reference to the "Polish righteous" originated in the 1960s. As I show in the article, it was primarily Jewish institutions and former aid activists who spoke publicly on this issue. In the course of the 1960s, nationalist circles in the Polish United Workers Party, however, took over the debate and gave it an increasingly anti-Semitic undertone.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Czech Journal of Contemporary History, 2018
The article investigates how the Holocaust was distorted and exploited in Cold War debates on the... more The article investigates how the Holocaust was distorted and exploited in Cold War debates on the example of genesis and reception of the book Ghetto Warschau. Tagebücher aus dem Chaos [Warsaw Ghetto: Diaries from Chaos]. The book is a translation of the essay Stosunki polsko-żydowskie w czasie drugiej wojny światowej [Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War], written by the Jewish historian and creator of the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto Emanuel Ringelblum while hiding from the German Occupiers in Warsaw in 1944. Ringelblum addressed his essay to the Polish reader discussing the relation of Christian Poles and Polish Jews under German occupation based on his own experience and the material he had collected. It was originally published in several portions in the Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute, an early Holocaust Research Center based in Warsaw. The German translation was based on this publication and published in summer 1967 in a Stuttgart-based publishing house. However, the new title, introduced by its German editors, suggested it was Ringelblum’s diary. Above that the blurb and many footnotes highlighted the role of Poles as perpetrators in
the Holocaust, while minimizing that of Germans. As the article shows, the book was prepared by the Göttinger Arbeitskreis ostdeutscher Wissenschaftler [Göttingen
Working Group of Eastern German Scholars], a Think Tank with close ties to the German expellee community, campaigning for a revision of the Polish western border.
Göttinger Arbeitskries used the book and earlier on excerpts of Ringelblum’s text for a smear-campaign in the West-German expellee press. Through the biased
presentation and distorted context of the work these former Ostforschers sought to portrait Poles as eternal anti-Semites and the factual perpetrators of the mass
murder of Polish and European Jews following their anti-Polish agenda. Polish nationalist within the ruling Polish United Workers Party in turn exploited the book and the campaign based on it, which coincided with the anti-Semitic campaign in Poland. Though the Institute was not involved in the publication of the German book, the Polish national communists accused it of supporting German revisionism and “Zionists” abroad in their slander of Poland.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego / Kwartalnik Historii Żydów:. Wybór artykułów z lat 1950-2017 , 2017
The Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute (Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (BŻ... more The Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute (Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (BŻIH) was first published in Warsaw in 1950 and originally envisioned as an information bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny – ŻIH). In 1951 it was transformed into a scholarly biannual and later into a quarterly. Since the late 1950s it became the main publishing body of ŻIH and one of the key journals of research on Polish-Jewish history, a status it holds to this day, although under a new name − Kwartalnik Historii Żydów.
This text elaborates on the circumstances surrounding the establishment of BŻIH, its development and transformation into a scholarly journal. It also present an analysis of the authors’ and editors’ conditions of work in the first years of the periodical’s existence. Finally, I discuss its Polish and international perception and its impact on research. Chronologically speaking, this text devotes particular attention to the period between 1950 to the late 1970s, which was key for the growth and formation of the journal. BŻIH was the main publishing body of an institution that was deeply rooted in research focused on the genocide of the Jews (at the time, a field that was still new and not entirely recognised). Therefore, I concentrate on this particular subject, even though the journal published numerous important texts related to other areas of Polish-Jewish history as well.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, 2017
The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw was probably the only research institution in the Sovie... more The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw was probably the only research institution in the Soviet Bloc and one of very few that undertook research on the Shoah during the 1950s. This article analyses the institute’s research and working conditions against the background of the general political regime under Stalinism in Poland. It argues that despite sometimes heavy-handed political biases in its publications,
the institute made an important contribution to research on the Shoah. Its work also came to the attention of Jewish centres outside the Soviet Bloc, though it was seen through the prism of the Cold War.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Soudobé dějiny, 2016
The article deals with commemoration ceremonies on Holocaust Memorial Days organised by Polish an... more The article deals with commemoration ceremonies on Holocaust Memorial Days organised by Polish and East German dissidents, which were both: an attempt to reclaim an own interpretation of history against the State-Socialist master narratives by an emerging civil society and part of the political struggle of the opposition movements with the Socialist governments. These events constitute an often overlooked but important contribution to public Holocaust memory in these countries.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
REMEMBRANCE AND SOLIDARITY - Studies in 20th Century European History, 2016
The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw was the largest research institution in the Soviet Bloc... more The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw was the largest research institution in the Soviet Bloc and one of very few that undertook research on the Shoah during the 1950s. This article analyses the institute's research and working conditions against the background of the general political regime under Stalinism in Poland. It argues that despite sometimes heavy-handed political biases in its publications, the institute made an important contribution to research on the Shoah. Its work also came to the attention of Jewish centres outside the Soviet Bloc, though it was seen through the prism of the Cold War.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The chapter discusses the function of the Institute for Nationality Research in Warsaw as a Think... more The chapter discusses the function of the Institute for Nationality Research in Warsaw as a Think Tank in Minority Politics in Poland (1921-1939). The Institute was established by scholars, diplomats and politicans searching peaceful solutions for the ethnic conflicts in Poland after World War I. After Józef Pilsudski's coup d'etat in 1926 the Institiute became and influential think tank and discussion platform, where Polish politicians, diplomats, scholars and experts could meet and discuss with their peers from the national minorities.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów / Jewish History Quarterly , 2016
From 1927 until 1937, Aleksander Hafftka was head of the Jewish Division in the Nationalities Dep... more From 1927 until 1937, Aleksander Hafftka was head of the Jewish Division in the Nationalities Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland. In this capacity, Hafftla was in charge for the surveillance of political developments in the Jewish community, legal projects that affected Jews and maintaining contacts with Jewish social and political eleites. Hafftka also often represented the Polish government vis-à-vis the Jewish community. At hte same time, he was a part of this very community himself and engaged in its social life. In this article, I briefly sketch Hafftka's career in interwar Poland and his attempts to reconcile the interests of the Polish state and its Jewish inhabitatants. I also focus on the political background of his dissmissal during the nationalist swing of the Polish government in 1937.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The chapter deals with commemoration ceremonies on Holocaust Memorial Days organised by Polish an... more The chapter deals with commemoration ceremonies on Holocaust Memorial Days organised by Polish and East German dissidents, which were both: an attempt to reclaim an own interpretation of history against the State-Socialist master narratives by an emerging civil society and part of the political struggle of the opposition movements with the Socialist governments. These events constitute an often overlooked but important contribution to public Holocaust memory in these countries.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung 62/2 2013
This introduction to the special issue of Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung "Nationalizati... more This introduction to the special issue of Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung "Nationalization and Pragmatism. State Institutions and Minorities in Poland 1918-1939" re-evaluates the Polish minority policy of the interwar period from the perspective of state institutions. It summarizes this sphere of Polish politics and critically reviews the research literature and formulates conclusions from the single chapters of the volume.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
in: R. Leiserowitz, S. Lehnstaedt, J. Nalewajko-Kulikov, G. Krzywiec (eds.): Lesestunde. Lekcja Czytania, 2013
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Monograph
Stephan Stach's study is the first to examine the development of an institutional environment in which academics, ministerial officials, members of parliament and journalists developed concepts for the integration of national minorities into the Polish state. Using the example of the Jewish and Ukrainian minorities in Poland, processes are examined that created political trust between the conflicting parties.
Die Beziehungen zwischen dem polnischen Staat und seinen nichtpolnischen Bürgern waren vor 1939 von teils scharfen Auseinandersetzungen geprägt. Doch es gab auch Versuche, die Konflikte in beiderseitigem Einverständnis zu lösen. Diese fanden jenseits der parlamentarischen Bühne statt und wurden in der Regel von Akteuren aus der zweiten Reihe angestoßen.
Stephan Stachs Studie untersucht erstmals die Herausbildung eines institutionellen Umfelds, in dem Wissenschaftler, Ministerialbeamte, Abgeordnete und Journalisten Konzepte zur Einbindung nationaler Minderheiten in den polnischen Staat entwickelten. Am Beispiel der jüdischen und ukrainischen Minderheiten in Polen werden Prozesse beleuchtet, die politisches Vertrauen zwischen den Konfliktparteien schufen.
Edited Books & Journal Issues
The authors provide various interpretations of the relationship between antifascism and Holocaust memory in the communist countries, arguing that the predominance of an antifascist agenda and the acknowledgment of the Jewish catastrophe were far from mutually exclusive. The interactions included acts of negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Detailed case studies describe how both individuals and institutions were able to use antifascism as a framework to test and widen the boundaries for discussion of the Nazi genocide. The studies build on the new historiography of communism, focusing on everyday life and individual agency, revealing the formation of a great variety of concrete, local memory practices.
Gab es nach 1989 eine «Rückkehr der Geschichte» in die Länder Ostmitteleuropas? War das historische Gedächtnis dort zuvor «eingefroren»? Zweifellos instrumentalisierten, unterdrückten und verfälschten die herrschenden Parteien die Geschichte, insbesondere jene des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Bisher wenig beachtet blieb jedoch, dass Dissidenten in diesen Ländern die Geschichte auf ihre eigene Weise aufarbeiteten. Sie entwarfen eine Vielzahl von «Gegengeschichten», die dem vorherrschenden, kommunistischen Narrativ zuwiderliefen. Mit dem Holocaust, der Vertreibung der Deutschen oder dem nichtkommunistischen Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus wurden heikle oder tabuisierte Themen diskutiert, die auch nach 1989 auf der Tagesordnung standen. In diesem Band werden solche Debatten – teilweise zum ersten Mal – nachgezeichnet und als Teil einer oppositionellen Geschichtskultur analysiert.
Articles & Book Chapters
work and documentation carried out by the Commission and Institute, as well as its contribution to the prosecution and punishment of Nazi perpetrators against the background of the political situation in communist post-war Poland, particularly the Jewish community there.
the Holocaust, while minimizing that of Germans. As the article shows, the book was prepared by the Göttinger Arbeitskreis ostdeutscher Wissenschaftler [Göttingen
Working Group of Eastern German Scholars], a Think Tank with close ties to the German expellee community, campaigning for a revision of the Polish western border.
Göttinger Arbeitskries used the book and earlier on excerpts of Ringelblum’s text for a smear-campaign in the West-German expellee press. Through the biased
presentation and distorted context of the work these former Ostforschers sought to portrait Poles as eternal anti-Semites and the factual perpetrators of the mass
murder of Polish and European Jews following their anti-Polish agenda. Polish nationalist within the ruling Polish United Workers Party in turn exploited the book and the campaign based on it, which coincided with the anti-Semitic campaign in Poland. Though the Institute was not involved in the publication of the German book, the Polish national communists accused it of supporting German revisionism and “Zionists” abroad in their slander of Poland.
This text elaborates on the circumstances surrounding the establishment of BŻIH, its development and transformation into a scholarly journal. It also present an analysis of the authors’ and editors’ conditions of work in the first years of the periodical’s existence. Finally, I discuss its Polish and international perception and its impact on research. Chronologically speaking, this text devotes particular attention to the period between 1950 to the late 1970s, which was key for the growth and formation of the journal. BŻIH was the main publishing body of an institution that was deeply rooted in research focused on the genocide of the Jews (at the time, a field that was still new and not entirely recognised). Therefore, I concentrate on this particular subject, even though the journal published numerous important texts related to other areas of Polish-Jewish history as well.
the institute made an important contribution to research on the Shoah. Its work also came to the attention of Jewish centres outside the Soviet Bloc, though it was seen through the prism of the Cold War.
Stephan Stach's study is the first to examine the development of an institutional environment in which academics, ministerial officials, members of parliament and journalists developed concepts for the integration of national minorities into the Polish state. Using the example of the Jewish and Ukrainian minorities in Poland, processes are examined that created political trust between the conflicting parties.
Die Beziehungen zwischen dem polnischen Staat und seinen nichtpolnischen Bürgern waren vor 1939 von teils scharfen Auseinandersetzungen geprägt. Doch es gab auch Versuche, die Konflikte in beiderseitigem Einverständnis zu lösen. Diese fanden jenseits der parlamentarischen Bühne statt und wurden in der Regel von Akteuren aus der zweiten Reihe angestoßen.
Stephan Stachs Studie untersucht erstmals die Herausbildung eines institutionellen Umfelds, in dem Wissenschaftler, Ministerialbeamte, Abgeordnete und Journalisten Konzepte zur Einbindung nationaler Minderheiten in den polnischen Staat entwickelten. Am Beispiel der jüdischen und ukrainischen Minderheiten in Polen werden Prozesse beleuchtet, die politisches Vertrauen zwischen den Konfliktparteien schufen.
The authors provide various interpretations of the relationship between antifascism and Holocaust memory in the communist countries, arguing that the predominance of an antifascist agenda and the acknowledgment of the Jewish catastrophe were far from mutually exclusive. The interactions included acts of negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Detailed case studies describe how both individuals and institutions were able to use antifascism as a framework to test and widen the boundaries for discussion of the Nazi genocide. The studies build on the new historiography of communism, focusing on everyday life and individual agency, revealing the formation of a great variety of concrete, local memory practices.
Gab es nach 1989 eine «Rückkehr der Geschichte» in die Länder Ostmitteleuropas? War das historische Gedächtnis dort zuvor «eingefroren»? Zweifellos instrumentalisierten, unterdrückten und verfälschten die herrschenden Parteien die Geschichte, insbesondere jene des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Bisher wenig beachtet blieb jedoch, dass Dissidenten in diesen Ländern die Geschichte auf ihre eigene Weise aufarbeiteten. Sie entwarfen eine Vielzahl von «Gegengeschichten», die dem vorherrschenden, kommunistischen Narrativ zuwiderliefen. Mit dem Holocaust, der Vertreibung der Deutschen oder dem nichtkommunistischen Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus wurden heikle oder tabuisierte Themen diskutiert, die auch nach 1989 auf der Tagesordnung standen. In diesem Band werden solche Debatten – teilweise zum ersten Mal – nachgezeichnet und als Teil einer oppositionellen Geschichtskultur analysiert.
work and documentation carried out by the Commission and Institute, as well as its contribution to the prosecution and punishment of Nazi perpetrators against the background of the political situation in communist post-war Poland, particularly the Jewish community there.
the Holocaust, while minimizing that of Germans. As the article shows, the book was prepared by the Göttinger Arbeitskreis ostdeutscher Wissenschaftler [Göttingen
Working Group of Eastern German Scholars], a Think Tank with close ties to the German expellee community, campaigning for a revision of the Polish western border.
Göttinger Arbeitskries used the book and earlier on excerpts of Ringelblum’s text for a smear-campaign in the West-German expellee press. Through the biased
presentation and distorted context of the work these former Ostforschers sought to portrait Poles as eternal anti-Semites and the factual perpetrators of the mass
murder of Polish and European Jews following their anti-Polish agenda. Polish nationalist within the ruling Polish United Workers Party in turn exploited the book and the campaign based on it, which coincided with the anti-Semitic campaign in Poland. Though the Institute was not involved in the publication of the German book, the Polish national communists accused it of supporting German revisionism and “Zionists” abroad in their slander of Poland.
This text elaborates on the circumstances surrounding the establishment of BŻIH, its development and transformation into a scholarly journal. It also present an analysis of the authors’ and editors’ conditions of work in the first years of the periodical’s existence. Finally, I discuss its Polish and international perception and its impact on research. Chronologically speaking, this text devotes particular attention to the period between 1950 to the late 1970s, which was key for the growth and formation of the journal. BŻIH was the main publishing body of an institution that was deeply rooted in research focused on the genocide of the Jews (at the time, a field that was still new and not entirely recognised). Therefore, I concentrate on this particular subject, even though the journal published numerous important texts related to other areas of Polish-Jewish history as well.
the institute made an important contribution to research on the Shoah. Its work also came to the attention of Jewish centres outside the Soviet Bloc, though it was seen through the prism of the Cold War.
While both events were commemorated with state sponsored ceremonies and interpreted in communist terms, dissidents and oppositional groups began to hold their own commemorations in the 1980s. This dissident Remembrance resulted from their perception that the official memory and interpretation of these events was hypocritical and needed to be counterbalanced. However, also the dissident remembrance was not free of political influence."
Après la Révolution pacifique de l’automne 1989, le premier parlement est-allemand démocratiquement élu a reconnu les crimes allemands de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. En geste de réparation, il a accordé l’asile aux Juifs de l’Union soviétique. 200.000 personnes ont répondu jusqu’à aujourd’hui à cette invitation."
Nach der friedlichen Revolution vom Herbst '89 bekannte sich das erste demokratisch gewählte DDR-Parlament zu den deutschen Verbrechen im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Als Geste der Wiedergutmachung gewährte sie sowjetischen Juden Asyl. Dieser Einladung folgten bis heute 200.000 Menschen. "
The Cold War influenced how people, societies and states dealt with and understood the Holocaust and its aftereffects. Yet historiography tends to neglect the role the block confrontation played in shaping scholarship, trials, and memory in Western Europe, the US and Israel. At the same time ideological and political manipulations of collective memory are highlighted and at times overestimated in treatments of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Rarely can we see discussions of Holocaust memory that look at both East and West. Foregrounding the essential role of the Cold War, this international workshop asks how it affected research, legal proceedings and collective and individual memories. Recently, historians have challenged the assumption that research on the Holocaust begun only with the Eichmann trial in 1961, and have highlighted the role mostly Jewish scholars and lay people played in documenting the murder of European Jews immediately after the liberation, or even before. This new perspective has made historians reconsider Eastern European Holocaust Memory, showing how people acting outside the state's framework succeeded in making room for at least limited discussions of the Holocaust.
Personal histories, family fortunes, and forming political identities will be analyzed using a biographical method. Thus, they will help answer the question of what drove Polish Jews to join leftist organizations.
Union to the US, from Hungary to France, this conference will provide opportunities to re-evaluate the commonalities, differences and entanglements between Eastern and Western memory of the Holocaust.
The experience of the Jews under the Communist régimes of east-central and eastern Europe has been a hotly debated topic of historiography since the 1950s. Until the 1980s, Cold War propaganda exerted a powerful influence on most interpretations presented in articles and books published on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. Moreover, most works focused both on the relationship between the régime and the Jews living under it and on the role of the Jews in the Communist/Socialist movements and the political events connected with the rise of antisemitism and emigration.
The following topics are of particular importance for us:
1. The legal positions of the Jews of the Communist/Socialist countries of Europe and the institutional opportunities for the Jews there (including religious, cultural, educational, and charitable institutions).
2. The ways of preserving and developing ‘Jewishness’ under the Communist regimes, within and outside the official organizations, in private and in public.
3. Family and gender aspects of Jewish life under Communism.
4. Networks across the ‘Iron Curtain’ and across the state borders in the ‘Soviet bloc’.
5. Yiddish culture and education under the Communist régimes.