EAJS Conference Grant Program in Jewish Studies
Report
From Shtetl to Post-Jewish Town
POLIN Museum
8-10 September 2024
The conference sought to foster a new discussion on shtetl, which was one of the principal arenas where Jewish life unfolded in Eastern Europe, bridging two periods in shtetl history – when it was a Jewish space and then, after the Second World War, a post-Jewish town. The conference’s goal was to follow the transformation of shtetls in the twentieth century and explore the emergence of post-Jewish towns from the perspective of various disciplines: history, anthropology, sociology, architecture, and memory studies. Thanks to the extensive call of papers and careful selection out of the over seventy proposals, the conference program included historians, sociologists, anthropologists, local heritage practitioners, and architects who presented their research. To fully understand the process of shtetls becoming post-Jewish towns, we added to the invited interdisciplinary group sessions presenting findings of local activists, creators of websites catering information on shtetls (such as Jewish Heritage Europe and Virtual Shtetl), and archaeologists who conducted research in shtetls. Moreover, in addition to emphasizing interdisciplinarity, the conference had a comparative dimension, with speakers presenting cases not only from the Polish territory but also from Belorussia, Ukraine, Romania, and former German territories – where the fate of the Jewish property and Jewish communities, in general, differed according to the geopolitical situation and demographics.
The conference was structured around seven academic panels, each delving into different aspects of the shtetl-to-post-Jewish town transition. The first panel brought together a diverse range of speakers, each an expert in their respective fields. Natalia Romik (Foundation de la Shoah), Antony Polonsky (POLIN Museum), and Dariusz Stola (ISP Polish Academy of Sciences) shared their insights on how the terms’ shtetl’ and ‘post-Jewish town’ are perceived in their areas of expertise: architecture and memory, modern Jewish history, and post-World War Two Polish history. This panel not only revealed the complexity and nuance of these terms but also provided a comprehensive Jewish and non-Jewish context for their use.
The second academic panel, chaired by Magdalena Waligórska (Humboldt University), explored the materiality of post-Jewish towns—various architectural elements or the lack of material commemoration of sites related to the killed Jewish population. As part of this panel, art historian Małgorzata Michalska-Nakonieczna (University College of Enterprise and Administration in Lublin) discussed various architectural Jewish elements in Lublin region, such as synagogues, cemeteries, ritual baths, and sukkot, while Jewish heritage practitioner Emil Majuk (Brama Grodzka in Lublin) explored who and why visit these places. Finally, historian Yechiel Weizman (Bar Ilan University) discussed the competing memory practices in the town of Rajgród.
The third academic panel run by Antony Polonsky concerned post-Jewish topographies, exploring how former Jewish presence in Eastern Europe figures in maps and city plans in particular. Aleksandra Szczepan (University of Potsdam) discussed the non-professional maps created in the early post-war years by Holocaust survivors to reconstruct their memories. Architect Joanna Kabrońska (Gdansk University of Technology) presented her use of mapping tools, such as QGIS, to map Jewish presence in the Kartuzy region in East Prussia, today Poland. Public historian Clare Fester (Yiddishkayt, Los Angeles) showed how the Yiddishkayt’s Helix Fellowship program participants use memorial book maps to map Jewish places in small towns in Eastern Europe they visit on their trips.
The following academic session was a roundtable gathering historians and cemetery practitioners: Monika Tarajko (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin), Krzysztof Bielawski (University of Warsaw/Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage) and Aleksandra Janus (Zapomniane Foundation). The roundtable, moderated by a historian of Jewish cemeteries, Yechiel Weizman, explored the condition of Jewish cemeteries, their physical and legal status, and the challenges with preserving these spaces in post-Jewish towns. Krzysztof Bielawski provided a more statistical and legal summary of the state of Jewish cemeteries in Poland today. Monika Tarajko discussed various cases of the relationship of local Polish communities and concerned individuals to spaces that used to be Jewish burial places. Finally, using archaeological and non-invasive methods, Aleksandra Janus demonstrated how Jewish burial places are clearly visible even though they are often not marked and unnoticeable to the local population.
The fifth academic panel, chaired by Jeffrey Veidlinger, included presentations about the process of becoming post-Jewish towns from the perspective of the population and not material culture. Ethnologist Tomasz Rakowski (University of Warsaw) explored the economy of the shtetl, and sociologist Anna Wylegała (Polish Academy of Sciences) discussed how the vanishing of Jewish professionals affected the economy of post-Jewish towns. To compare, Mikhail Mitsel (JDC Archives, NYC) presented a parallel story in Soviet Ukraine, showing how the process of the former shtetls becoming post-Jewish towns was much longer due to the persistent presence of the Jewish population in Soviet Ukraine.
The sixth academic panel, chaired by Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (Lund University, Sweden), explored shtetls’ afterlives in a transnational perspective. Hune Margulies (Goa and Mumbai Universities) explained how today’s Hasidic settlements in the United States resemble prewar shtetls. Kamil Kijek (University of Wroclaw) discussed how former residents of shtetls resettled after the war in Silesia (Poland) and reconstructed their shtetl-like communities in the new settings. David Assaf (Tel Aviv University) and Yael Darr (Tel Aviv University) provided another example of reconstructing shtetl communities outside of Poland – in Israel.
The seventh academic panel, chaired by Anna Wylegała, returned to the topic of materialities in shtetls and post-Jewish towns but focused on objects rather than architectural elements. Przemysław Kaniecki (POLIN Museum) and Marta Frączkiewicz (POLIN Museum) presented the objects labeled as Jewish and donated to the Museum by non-Jewish residents of postwar Poland. They also discussed the meanings of these objects and how their meaning changed once they reached the museum. Magdalena Waligórska explored the common dispossession of Jewish clothes during and after the Holocaust and discussed the communal reactions to this practice and the emotions accompanying it. Finally, Marta Duch-Dyngosz (Jagiellonian University, Cracow) discussed the early postwar process of dispossession of Jewish property, including homes and the belongings found in these homes.
In addition to these regular panels, the conference featured three short sessions that provided insights into the work of practitioners. Joanna Król-Komła (POLIN Museum) presented the museum’s long-term online project, Virtual Shtetl, which offers abundant information about pre-war Jewish communities in Polish territories and what is happening in these post-Jewish towns today. Ellen Ruth Gruber (Jewish Heritage Europe) talked about challenges with preserving Jewish heritage in Eastern Europe, in particular in war-torn Ukraine, where post-Jewish architectural elements, such as synagogues, progressively disappear. Szymon Lenarczyk (Na Wykopie Archeological Company) explored how the post-Jewishness of towns in Poland is reflected in archeology by presenting his archeological findings from Shtetl Opatów. Keynote by Jeffrey Veidlinger titled In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Jewish Memories of Small-Town Life in Post-1945 Ukraine provided insights into how different was the process of shtetls becoming post-Jewish towns in post-1945 Transnistria (a region in today’s Ukraine), where significant Jewish communities survived the war and Jews lived in small towns continuously until the twenty-first century.
In summary, the conference explored the transformation of shtetls in Eastern Europe into post-Jewish towns, focusing on their historical, cultural, and socio-economic evolution after the Second World War. Two key threads examined how these towns transitioned regarding materiality and memory. Scholars discussed the remnants of Jewish life, including architectural elements like synagogues and cemeteries, and the commemoration in some areas and lack thereof in others. Spatial aspects, specifically mapping and topographies, turned out to be another productive topic for the discussion, with insights into how Jewish presences are represented in historical and contemporary maps (produced by Jewish descendants, visitors, Holocaust survivors, and Polish authorities).
Another significant thread was the exploration of the socioeconomic impacts of the Jewish community’s absence in post-Jewish towns. Presentations compared different regions, specifically Poland and Soviet Ukraine, revealing how the departure or persistence of Jewish populations shaped differently local economies and societal structures. This thread revealed more human aspects of the shtetls becoming post-Jewish towns, showing the disappearance of Jews (who had been killed or deported and have not returned) had its imprint not only on the materialities of the post-Jewish towns but also on the daily lives of their residents. This multifaceted approach provided a comprehensive understanding of the transformation of shtetls, integrating perspectives from history, anthropology, sociology, and architecture.
The conference’s engagement with the public was twofold. On one hand, it was open to all, with the keynote lecture simultaneously translated into Polish and streamed on the museum’s YouTube channel. Additionally, a stall was set up at the conference to promote translated memorial books, an initiative led by a local historian and activist who received the prestigious POLIN award. First, Jewish communal leaders and activists of Jewish heritage have answered our invitations positively, with the chief rabbi of Poland, the head of the Jewish community of Warsaw, and the director of the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw attending the conference. One of the most important outcomes of the conference that we achieved was to familiarize Western European, Israeli, and North American scholars with the work done not only by scholars in Eastern Europe, where the post-Jewish towns are located, but also with local heritage practitioners’ activities in these towns and the extensive work done by Polish scholars in these localities. Gathered participants, and the audience had a chance to learn about the publication of translated memorial books, restorations of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, and commemoration initiatives of decimated Jewish communities.
The entire conference was streamed, and over five hundred people watched the streaming during the conference. The proceedings were recorded and will be available to the broader public around November 2024. The panels and short sessions will be available per request on the museum’s website, while the keynote lecture will be available on the museum’s YouTube channel for anyone interested without the need to request the recording.