What responsibility do the Poles share for the mass murder of the Jews, which took place largely on Polish soil? In a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust Polonsky gathers together the most important arguments in this debate.

This is an account of the evolution of Poland from conditions of subjection to its reconstruction in 1918, development in the years between the two World Wars, and reorganisation after 1945. It begins at a time when Poland was still suffering from the legacy of the eighteenth-century Partitions and burdened with problems of sizeable ethnic minorities, inadequate agrarian reforms and sluggish industrial development sustained by foreign capital. It traces the history through to independence and then to the transformation of the country in the last thirty years. Although many of the problems of...

By the end of the 17th century probably three quarters of world Jewry dwelt within the borders of the Polish republic, which became not only a haven from persecution but the centre of a flourishing Jewish culture. This culture survived the decline and partition of the Polish state and in the 19th century became the seedbed for the intellectual movements that were to transform the Jewish world - zionism, secularism, socialism and neo-orthodoxy. With the development of mass emigration from the late 19th century onwards, the influence of Jews from the former Polish Republic was carried to...

Devoted to collecting the finest Jewish writing from around the world, the Jewish Writing in the Contemporary World series consists of anthologies, by country, that are designed to present to the English-speaking world authors and works deserving international consideration. As a series, the books permit a broad examination of the international crosscurrents in Jewish thought and culture.Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland brings together the works of a broad range of modern Jewish writers, most of whom remained in Poland after the Second World War. Although the Nazi genocide...

This is the first collection of essays devoted to the study of Jewish women's experiences in eastern Europe. It attempts to go beyond mere description of what women experienced and to explore how gender constructed distinct experiences and identities, seeking thereby to recover lost voices and place them into a broader analytical framework. It is an important first step in the rethinking of east European Jewish history with the aid of new insights gleaned from the research on gender.

This volume is devoted to the part Jews played in the history of Lodz between 1820 and 1939. Specifically, it focuses on the place of the Jews in the industrial elite of this multi-ethnic textile town, and on its role as a centre of the modern movement and of Jewish artistic and literary creativity. It is the result of a collaborative venture with the Historical Institute of the University of Lodz.

In this volume of Polin, scholars from the fields of history, sociology, politics, anthropology, linguistics, literature, and folklore explore central themes in Jewish and European history.

Articles on Jewish Warsaw over the centuries.

The theme of this rich and highly focused volume is Polish perceptions of Jews and Jewish perceptions of Poles from the Middle Ages to the present. Essays by Leszek Kolakowski and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski set the parameters of the debate. Contributors analyse sources ranging from Yiddish folk-songs to Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish literature to Polish plays, and the discussions range over the entire period. Norman Davies writes on ethnic diversity in twentieth-century Poland, and other essays deal with related political aspects. There is also an important exchange between Stanislaus Blejwas and...