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On
the Edge of Destruction
Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars
Second edition
Celia S. Heller |
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On
the Edge of Destruction, focusing on the Jews
of Poland between the two World Wars, illuminates a critical time in the
recent Jewish past that has received surprisingly little attention. The
Holocaust virtually destroyed the Jews of Poland, once a community of more
than three million, constituting ten percent of the population, and the
oldest continuous Jewish community in a European country. This book looks
at the rich and complex nature of that community and the tremendous pressures
under which it lived before the tragic end.
The first half of the book deals with the objective
situation of Poland's Jews and the complex historical development of the
community. In Part II, the focus is almost exclusively on the actions and
the reactions of the Jews to their situation as a despised and oppressed
minority. A new epilogue to the second edition brings the complex and tragic
story of the post-war Jewish remnant in Poland both under communism and
democratization. |
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"Wherever
possible, we read the words of individuals; they speak out in diaries and
letters, newspapers, through the pictures, often snapshots, of their lives
between 1918 and 1939. Prof. Heller seeks to bridge the gap between the
mythologized and sentimentalized past and . . . actual experience of Polish
Jewish life."—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times |
