Suchergebnisse

This article concerns some characteristics of the so-called third stage of the annihilation of Polish Jewry during World War II, after sending most of them to the killing centers. That phase consisted of individual—not mass—murder that took place "among Poles" and before their eyes, frequently with their participation, when Jewish refugees attempted to hide from persecutors or blended into the anonymous crowds of the larger cities (on the so-called Aryan side) or hid in hardly accessible rural areas poorly controlled by the German police. Most hiding Jews were hunted down and murdered by special Kommandos of the German gendarmerie in the first weeks following deportations in a given area. Unprepared for hiding for an extended period, they found hide-outs and trusted their financial means to Polish friends. In my opinion, in 80 to 90 percent of the cases, Poles rescued Jews for money or other material gain, and when the funds (or other valuables) were exhausted, the attitude to those rescued changed radically. The purpose of this article is to present an outline of how a certain structure functioned—the "Night Guard" (peasant or rural, part of the occupation-era administrative and coercive apparatus), which can be found in wartime historical sources and in the immediate postwar investigation and trial files based on the August Decree of 1944 (on account-settling with the past regarding collaboration with the German occupier) as well as in testimonies of Jewish survivors. The guards were obliged to hunt hidden Jews, and the score of their activity was very high.

This volume is made up of essays first presented as papers at the conference held in May 2015 at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. It is divided into two sections. The first deals with museological questions—the voices of the curators, comments on the POLIN museum exhibitions and projects, and discussions on Jewish museums and education. The second examines the current state of the historiography of the Jews on the Polish lands from the first Jewish settlement to the present day.

Making use of the leading scholars in the field from Poland, Eastern and Western Europe, North America, and Israel, the volume provides a definitive overview of the history and culture of one of the most important communities in the long history of the Jewish people.