The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939–41, and the Stereotype of the Anti-Polish and Pro-Soviet Jew
The article analyzes two opposing trends that have emerged in Polish postcommunist historiography with regard to the cliché of the procommunist and pro-Soviet and anti-Polish Jew. It traces the origins of this cliché and its development in Polish political thought during the interwar period and its persistence during and after World War II. At the center of the analysis is the application of this cliché in the debate about the Jedwabne massacre on July 10, 1941, by four (ethno)nationalist historians: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Bogdan Musiał, Tomasz Strzembosz, and Marek Wierzbicki. The article also focuses on the attempts at challenging the cliché in contemporary historiography by Jan T. Gross, Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Dariusz Libionka, and Andrzej Żbikowski.
Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath (review)
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. Joshua D. Zimmerman is an assistant professor of East European Jewish History at Yeshiva University, where he holds the Eli and Diana Zborowski Chair in Holocaust Studies. He is the author of the forthcoming title Poles, Jews and the Politics of Nationality: The Jewish Labor Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Czarist Russia, 1892-1914.
Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary
This is a comparative study of the role of Jewish question in the politics of the German and Austrian socialist parties before 1914. The response of the leading Marxist labour movements to Jewish emancipation, the rise of political anti-Semitism, and the emergence of Zionism, are among the subjects analyzed by the author.