Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its AftermathJoshua D. Zimmerman Few issues have divided Poles and Jews more deeply than the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War and the subsequent slaughter of almost ninety percent of Polish Jewry. Many Jewish historians have argued that, during the occupation, Poles at best displayed indifference to the fate of the Jews and at worst were willing accomplices of the Nazis. Many Polish scholars, however, deny any connection between the prewar culture of antisemitism and the wartime situation. They emphasized that Poles were also victims of the Nazis and, for the most part, tried their best to protect the Jews. This collection of essays, representing three generations of Polish and Jewish scholars, is the first attempt since the fall of Communism to reassess the existing historiography of Polish-Jewish relations just before, during, and after the Second World War. In the spirit of detached scholarly inquiry, these essays fearlessly challenge commonly held views on both sides of the debates. The authors are committed to analyzing issues fairly and to reaching a mutual understanding. Contributors cover six topics:
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Contents
Emigration versus Emigrationism Zionism in Poland and the Territorialist Projects of the Polish Authorities 19361939 | 15 |
Lwów 1918 The Transmutation of a Symbol and Its Legacy in the Holocaust | 28 |
The Widening Gap 19391941 | 41 |
Psychological Distance between Poles and Jews in NaziOccupied Warsaw | 43 |
Polish Jews under Soviet Occupation 19391941 Specific Strategies of Survival | 50 |
Facing Hitler and Stalin On the Subject of Jewish Collaboration in SovietOccupied Eastern Poland 19391941 | 57 |
Jews and Their Polish Neighbors The Case of Jedwabne in the Summer of 1941 | 65 |
Institutional Polish Responses to the Final Solution | 79 |
Metaphysical Nationality in the Warsaw Ghetto NonJews in the Wartime Writings of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro | 154 |
The Destruction of Polish Jewry and Polish Popular Opinion | 167 |
Ringerlblum Revisited PolishJewish Relations in Occupied Warsaw 19401945 | 169 |
Hiding and Passing on the Aryan Side A Gendered Comparison | 189 |
Some Issues in JewishPolish Relations during the Second World War | 208 |
Aftermath | 215 |
The Cracow Pogrom of August 1945 A Narrative Reconstruction | 217 |
The Impact of the Holocaust on Jewish Attitudes in Postwar Poland | 235 |
The Polish GovernmentinExile and the Final Solution What Conditioned Its Actions and Inactions? | 81 |
The Attitude of the Polish Underground to the Jewish Question during the Second World War | 93 |
Polish Catholics and the Jews during the Holocaust Heroism Timidity and Collaboration | 103 |
Poles through Jewish Eyes | 117 |
Poland and the Polish Nation as Reflected in the Jewish Underground Press | 119 |
Jewish and Polish Perceptions of the Shoah as Reflected in Wartime Diaries and Memoirs | 130 |
PolishJewish Relations in the Writings of Emmanuel Ringelblum | 138 |
Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland 19441947 | 243 |
Teaching about the Holocaust in Poland | 258 |
Collective Memory and Contemporary PolishJewish Relations | 267 |
The Impact of the Shoah on the Thinking of Contemporary Polish Jewry A Personal Account | 287 |
List of Contributors | 301 |
Index | 307 |