EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2021/22
Report
UAJS Conference 2022
Jews of East-Central Europe after the Catastrophe: Multiplicity of Experiences, 1945–1956
Author of Report: Serhiy Hirik
A two-day international conference organised and hosted by the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, in cooperation with the Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe, sponsored by the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies (Lviv, March 27–28, 2023)
Applicants:
Dr. Serhiy Hirik, Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, Ukraine;
Prof. Frank Grüner, University of Bielefeld, Germany;
Prof. Andrea Pető, Central European University, Vienna, Austria.
Organisers:
Dr. Serhiy Hirik, Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, Ukraine;
Dr. Vitaly Chernoivanenko, Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, Ukraine.
Event Rationale
The conference was of significant importance both for the scholarly community and wider society. The history of East-European Jews after the Second World War frequently is overshadowed by their tragic fate during the Holocaust. Marginalization of the Jewish organised life in East bloc states after the war in mass was much more complex phenomena than only a direct consequence of the Shoah.
During the first decade after the Second World War the East-Central European Jews have experienced a series of dramatic events. For instance, an organised Jewish life in cultural, social, religious, and political spheres was partly revived in Poland in the late 1940s. The local non-Jewish population, however, was not satisfied by this process and especially by Jews’ attempts to return their property. Antisemitic accidents “from below” were not uncommon (the widely known pogrom Kielce pogrom was the bloodiest such episode, but not the only one), so the short revival of Jewish life was shortly interrupted. During next two years two third of holocaust survivors have left Poland, mostly for Eretz Israel. The Jewish political life also ceased, since Zionist activists made Aliyah and members of Jewish non-Zionist parties liquidated their political groups (e.g., many Bundists under pressure from the ruling party became its members in 1948-1949, as a result in 1949 Bund was dissolved). Despite this, the Polish Jews preserved their own representative body (the Central Committee of Polish Jews) until 1950. This organization was significantly independent from the state power. The liquidation of this body in 1950 and the creation of fully controlled by state Jewish Social and Cultural Society in Poland was an expression of final decline of Jewish life.
Similar process had place in the USSR, i.e. the antisemitic actions “from below” (e.g. pogrom in Kyiv in 1945, the last Jewish pogrom in Ukraine) and actions “from above”, i.e. the antisemitic campaign of the late 1940-s and early 1950-s: the liquidation of the Jewish Antifascist Committee in 1948, the liquidation of the Cabinet of Jewish Culture Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in 1949 (the last such academic institution in the Soviet Union), liquidation of Jewish theaters (1949), and physical liquidation of Jewish cultural elite in 1952.
Short-time revival of Jewish life and its interruption caused by antisemitic actions both “from below” and “from above” as well as by Jewish emigration also took place in other East bloc states. Sure, this process had much smaller scale in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany than in Poland and the USSR due to much smaller number of Jews who survived the Holocaust. But it makes the cases of these countries even more interesting.
The purpose of the conference was to organise a discussion on the less known aspects of the post-war history of East and Central European Jews, i.e. the fate of Jewish women, attempts to develop the Jewish culture and academic life, efforts to restore Jewish social and political organizations, the attitude of the USSR and Soviet satellite states’ security services toward organised Jewish life, etc.
The goals were achieved. We managed to organise a fruitful discussion between researchers from eight countries (France, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, UK, USA, Ukraine) who research various topics on the history of East-European Jews in the postwar decade.
An overview of the sections and papers presented during the event and the most significant and productive threads in the papers and discussions
The conference was hosted at the Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe in Lviv. It convened a group of researchers from France, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, UK, USA, Ukraine (both in-person and online).
The security issues were among the highest priorities for the organisers and their partners. Therefore, this wartime event was held in the Center’s basement (exhibition hall before the Russian full-scale invasion), which served as a shelter for the participants in case of missile and drone attacks.
The conference was opened with the opening words by Dr. Vitaly Chernoivanenko, president of the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, and Maryana Mazurak, deputy director of the Center for Urban History. Vitaly Chernoivanenko also has read greetings from the EAJS president Prof. Elisabeth Hollender.
After the opening words Prof. Tamás Stark (Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary) has given a first keynote lecture “The Fate of Holocaust Survivors in Hungary and Romania.” This lecture was given in person. The following discussion was focused on the possible conflicts between the collective memory of the Holocaust survivors in Hungary and Romania and the official politics of memory in these countries, the grassroots commemoration activities in postwar Hungary, the fate of those Hungarian Jews who were at DP camps after the war and did not return to Hungary.
The first panel (moderated by Vitaly Chernoivanenko, Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, UAJS President; two speakers of this panel participated online and one did it in person) was opened with a paper Sex, Gratitude, and White Lies: Jewish and Non-Jewish Relationships in the Aftermath of the Holocaust presented by Prof. Natalia Aleksiun (University of Florida, USA). She explored the complex relationships between Jewish men and women and their non-Jewish rescuers and helpers with a particular focus on such relationships in Eastern Galicia. The next presentation was given by Prof. Carol Mann (Université Paris 8, France). Its topic was Idealism Betrayed: Communist Jewish Women Facing Post-War Antisemitism in the Eastern Bloc. She examined the problems facing militant Jewish communist women after the war in the Eastern Bloc basing on several cases from Czechoslovakia, East Germany, USSR, Romania, and Poland. The following discussion focused on connection between the Jewishness of Jewish militant women and their militant behavior and the origin of the militant behavior of those Jewish women. The last presentation, Rape and Justice: Female Holocaust Survivors in War Crimes Trials in Soviet Ukraine, was given by Dr. Marta Havryshko (Basel University, Switzerland). She focused on attempts of Jewish women from Soviet Ukraine who survived the Holocaust to seek justice and put on trial the perpetrators of sexual violence against them. The following discussion was related to sentences for sexual crimes against Jewish women (there was not any separate sentence for such crime, all such crimes were examined along with other crimes perpetrated by the same persons), the way the victims of sexual violence were interrogated.
The second panel (moderated by Carol Mann, Université Paris 8) was opened with a presentation by Prof. Brian Horowitz (Tulane University, New Orleans, USA) Saul Borovoi’s Return to Odessa from Central-Asian Evacuation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He described the fate of famous Ukrainian-Jewish historian Saul Borovoi after the Second World War and his role in documenting the Holocaust in Odessa region. The following discussion was related to factors that helped Saul Borovoi to survive the Stalin’s antisemitic campaign in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the reasons why Borovoi did not return to the topics in Jewish history and culture when it became possible, and to his possible contacts with his relatives in Israel. The second talk was given by Dr. Jan Miklas-Frankowski (University of Gdańsk, Poland). Its topic was Life of Polish Jews after the catastrophe in Mordechai Tsanin’s “Of Stones and Ruins.” It was devoted to the articles by Jewish journalist Mordechai Tsanin (a correspondent of the New York newspaper “Forverts”) who described the situation in postwar Poland, especially the image of the destroyed Jewish world and the repression of its memory process and. at the same time, the process of restoring Jewish life in Warsaw, Łodź, Kielce, Tarnów, and other Polish cities. The following discussion was related to the similarities between Jewish reportages from postwar Poland and the Polish reportages (reportage was a very popular genre in the Polish literature both before and after the war). The last talk was given by Prof. Eliyana Adler (Pennsylvania State University, USA). Its topic was “I have come back to the place of suffering”: Narratives of Return in Post-War Polish Jewish Memorial Books. It was devoted to memoirs of Jews who survived the Holocaust and returned to Poland after the Second World War (majority of such testimonies were published much later, when their authors left Poland). The authors of such texts described their experience of returning their homes that were not longer their homes. The following discussion was focused on the nature of such memoirs as a genre and their place among other genres of Jewish literary tradition.
The second day of the conference was opened with a second keynote lecture, Negotiating ‘Soviet Jewishness’ after the Holocaust: Remembrance, Reconstruction, and De-/Normalization in Times of Hope and Uncertainty. It was given by Prof. Frank Grüner of the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He focused on the understanding Jewishness in the postwar USSR, the formation of a “Jewish community of fate and interest” in the Soviet Union, the fate of the Soviet Jews in the years of Soviet antisemitic campaigns and after Stalin. The following discussion was focused on the reasons why some leaders of the Jewish Antifascist Committee proposed to create the Jewish republic in Crimea, the features of the non-Ashkenazi Jews’ fate in the postwar Soviet Union.
The third panel was moderated by Prof. Tamás Stark (Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences). This panel was completely online. The first presentation, Smuggled to Freedom? Orthodox Jewish Rescue Networks in Communist Hungary (1949–1956) by Dr. Attila Novák of the National University for Public Service in Budapest. Unfortunately, Dr. Novák was not able to attend the conference, so he sent the text of his presentation. It was read to participants and guests by another participant — Dr. András Szécsényi from the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security in Budapest. This presentation explored the network of Orthodox Jewry in Budapest that was incorporated into the Budapest Jewish Community (and MIOK – National Representation of Hungarian Israelites) as a section in the early 1950s. The second talk, Fantasy on the Future: Representation of Post-War Hungary in the Diary of Margit Holländer, was given by Dr. Heléna Huhák of the Research Centre for the Humanities at the Excellent Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest, Hungary). It was devoted to the image of postwar Hungary constructed in a diary of one of the Holocaust survivor. The following discussion was focused on the situations in which the author of the cited diary met Soviet POW (in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp) and representatives of other nationalities (in a DP camp after the war), the reflections of the diary’s author on the typhus epidemic in Bergen-Belsen directly after its liberation, the reflection of the process of magyarization of the Hungarion Jews in the cited diary. The last paper was given by Dr. András Szécsényi from the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security. Its topic was Lost in Europe. Experiences of Hungarian Jewish Survivors of Bergen-Belsen after the Liberation (1945–1947). In his talk, the speaker explored how the members of the liberated inmates lived in “half freedom” in German DP camps and in Swedish sanatoria right after the liberation and in the first post-war year. presentation was based mainly on the survivors’ ego-documents (testimonies, interviews and diaries) and the National Committee for Attending Deportees’ [DEGOB] protocols, also using the press and archival sources. The following discussion was focused on the cases of marriages and having children in DP camps, social and cultural life in DP camps.
The fourth panel was moderated by Vitaly Chernoivanenko. One of its paper was given in person and two were given online. The topic of the first presentation was Ukrainian Architects in the Context of the Post-War Antisemitic Campaign. It was given by Serhiy Hirik (State Research Institution “Encyclopedia Press” and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine). Researcher described the features of the antisemitic policy against architects of Jewish origin in Soviet Ukraine in the late 1940s in comparison with such policy against representatives of other professional groups. The following discussion related to the series of organised meetings of various artistic and professional communities in 1949, the factors that influenced on relatively soft policy against architects of Jewish origin. The second presentation, The Activity of ‘the Joint’ in Mukachevo in 1944–1945 and the Soviet Attitude Toward It in 1953, was given by Mikhail Mitsel (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, USA). It was related to the only case of the Joint Distribution Committee’s activity in postwar Ukraine — in Soviet controlled Mukachevo before the ultimate annexation of the Transcarpathian region by the USSR. The following discussion was focused on the process of russification of those local Jews who did not leave the region and their possible contacts with Soviet Jewish intelligentsia in other regions of Soviet Ukraine. The last paper, Honor Court: Jews in Poland Take Stock after the Holocaust, was given by Prof. Gabriel Finder (University of Virginia, USA). In his talk, Prof. Finder described the history of communal honor courts in Poland, especially the honor court of the Central Committee of Jews of Poland.
The conference was concluded by the Young Researchers’ Seminar. Its moderator was Serhiy Hirik. The first paper was presented by Tetiana Shyshkina from Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany. Its topic was Judaica in the Newspapers “Litaratura i Mastatstvo” (BSSR), “Literatura i Mystetstvo”, “Literaturna Hazeta”, and “Radianske Mystetstvo” (UkrSSR). She focused the problems raised by the authors of publications on Jewish art and literature in the abovementioned newspapers. The following discussion was focused on the identification of the person who collected the cuts from those newspapers and the total number of such publications. The next paper was given Uliana Kyrchiv of the Ukrainian Catholic University on Lviv. Its topic was Galician Jew Between Warsaw and Paris: Dynamics of Piotr Rawicz’s Relations with the PRL. The following discussion was related to the correspondence between the Ukrainian émigré historian Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky and Piotr Rawicz. The last talk was given by Krystian Propola (University of Rzeszów, Poland). Its topic was Cultivating the Memory of the Fate of Soviet Jews During World War II in the First Post-War Years in Light of Contemporary Russian-Language Jewish Media. The following discussion was related to the criteria of defining any precise media as Jewish.
Changes to the Original Programme
There were several changes to the original programme. Prof. Tamás Stark (Budapest, Hungary) has changed the topic of his keynote lecture. He has given a talk “The Fate of Holocaust Survivors in Hungary and Romania.” Also the moderator of the first panel was changed (it was moderated by Vitaly Chernoivanenko since Prof. Frank Grüner was not able to moderate this panel). One of the speakers of the third panel (Dr. Attila Novák) was not able to participate. He has sent his paper and it was read by another participant (Dr. András Szécsényi). One of the planned speakers of the Young Researchers’ Seminar (Alicja Podbielska) did not participate in the conference.
Event programme (Sections and Papers)
https://uajs.org.ua/sites/default/files/Program-UAJS_Jews-of-East-Central_2023_0.pdf
A statement about planned outcomes (projects, future workshops, collaborations) and outputs (publications)
Planned Outcomes
The conference contributed to the development of relationships between researchers from European countries (France, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, UK, USA, Ukraine) who works on the topics on the history of the post-war Jewish life in East-Central Europe. The fruitful discussions during the conference also contributed to the research on less known aspects of Jewish history in Central and Eastern Europe.
Outputs
The detailed descriptions of the event will be published in the “Chronicles” sections of the journals Judaica Ukrainica (by Dr. Carol Mann) and Eastern European Holocaust Studies (by Prof. Tamás Stark). Some participants have given their papers for publication in the forthcoming volume of Judaica Ukrainica.
All the presentations were filmed and will be published on the UAJS YouTube Channel.
Publicity:
UAJS website:
https://uajs.org.ua/en/news/registration-uajs-conferences-march-27-30-2023-now-open
https://uajs.org.ua/uk/news/reestraciya-gostey-na-naukovi-konferencii-uayu-lviv-27-30-bereznya-2023
https://uajs.org.ua/uk/node/698
https://uajs.org.ua/en/node/698
Center for Urban History of East Central Europe website:
https://www.lvivcenter.org/en/updates/jews-after-catastrophe-2/
https://www.lvivcenter.org/updates/jews-after-catastrophe/
Research Center for the Humanities at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences:
https://tti.abtk.hu/160-esemenyek/konferencia/5208-konferencia-az-ovohelyen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6344904562199508&type=3
YouTube: All the presentations were filmed. They will be soon published on the UAJS YouTube channel.
Participants’ feedbacks:
Carol Mann, Ph.D, Research Associate, Université de Paris 8:
Regarding the conference held in Lviv 27-28 March 2023 entitled Jews of East-Central Europe after the Catastrophe: Multiplicity of Experiences, 1945–1956, I wish to congratulate Vitaly Chernoivanenko and Serhiy Hirik for having organised such an interesting and successful conference under such difficult circumstances.
I found the whole venture extremely brave and coherent with what Judaism (for me) has always stood for: study, scholarship and intellectual development even in the most impossible situations.
Whilst drones and missiles were raining on the country, the organisers managed to get together a group of papers on a vital topic, post-war Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe. The variety of presentations and their sheer quality was impressive. It was also important to give the floor for a whole session to young scholars.
Admittedly, because of the war conditions and the fear, few people turned up in person. I was fortunate enough to be one of them. So the majority of contributions were on line, in Covid-conditions in a basement-cum-shelter
The Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies is truly an important basis for research and reflection and one can only hope that it will continue to develop further in more peaceful times- what we saw in the middle of a war was already impressive.