Polen und Juden in Niederschlesien nach 1945

The Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow has published »In fremden Häusern« as part of its »hefez« series. 

After the Second World War, Poland experienced a radical transformation of its regime, a dramatic change of its borders and a large-scale resettlement of its population. Against the backdrop of these events resulting from international agreements, Anna Holzer-Kawalko tells the ambivalent story of Polish and Polish-Jewish resettlers in the formerly German territories now transferred to Poland and their experiences with the loss and appropriation of material and cultural property. The chronology of events in connection with the new settlers’ handling of the heritage they found in their new »home« offers a new perspective on the emergence of postwar Polish society.

The Dubnow Institute’s series »hefez. Studies on Jewish History and Material Culture« addresses artefacts in which a Jewish presence is made manifest. The individual volumes constitute microstudies focusing on libraries, archives, collections, estates, as well as pictorial, architectural, and textual testimonies that embody larger cultural contexts. Hailing primarily from the twentieth century, these artefacts reflect the flowering and decline of Jewish cultural centers from Vilnius and Warsaw through to North America and Palestine. The German-language volumes also appear in parallel editions in Hebrew.