The Jews in Poland and Russia. Vol. 3. 1914 to 2008

LTIn his three-volume history, author Antony Polonsky provides a comprehensive survey - socio-political, economic, and religious - of the Jewish communities of eastern Europe, from1350 to the present. Until the Second World War, this was the heartland of the Jewish world: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, while nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and many of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, their history there is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing and stereotypes that fail both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization which emerged there and to record what was lost. Jewish life, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Polonsky recreates this lost world - brutally cut down by the Holocaust and less brutally but still seriously damaged by the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture. Wherever possible, the unfolding of history is illustrated by contemporary Jewish writings to show how Jews felt and reacted to the complex and difficult situations in which they found themselves. This third volume deals with the 20th century. Starting from the First World War and the establishment of the Soviet Union, the book deals in turn with Poland, Lithuania, and the Soviet Union up to the Second World War. It then reviews Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War and examines the Soviet record and the Holocaust. The final chapters deal with the Jews in the Soviet Union and in Poland since 1945, concluding with an epilogue on the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia since the collapse of communism. (Volume I covers the period 1350 to 1881, while Volume II covers 1881 to 1914.).