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Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Online ISBN:
9781400884926
Print ISBN:
9780691172576
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Book

Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Evgeny Finkel
Evgeny Finkel
George Washington University
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Published online:
24 May 2018
Published in print:
7 March 2017
Online ISBN:
9781400884926
Print ISBN:
9780691172576
Publisher:
Princeton University Press

Abstract

Focusing on the choices and actions of Jews during the Holocaust, this book examines the different patterns of behavior of civilians targeted by mass violence. Relying on rich archival material and hundreds of survivors' testimonies, the author presents a new framework for understanding the survival strategies in which Jews engaged: cooperation and collaboration, coping and compliance, evasion, and resistance. The book compares Jews' behavior in three Jewish ghettos—Minsk, Kraków, and Białystok—and shows that Jews' responses to Nazi genocide varied based on their experiences with prewar policies that either promoted or discouraged their integration into non-Jewish society. The book demonstrates that while possible survival strategies were the same for everyone, individuals' choices varied across and within communities. In more cohesive and robust Jewish communities, coping—confronting the danger and trying to survive without leaving—was more organized and successful, while collaboration with the Nazis and attempts to escape the ghetto were minimal. In more heterogeneous Jewish communities, collaboration with the Nazis was more pervasive, while coping was disorganized. In localities with a history of peaceful interethnic relations, evasion was more widespread than in places where interethnic relations were hostile. State repression before World War II, to which local communities were subject, determined the viability of anti-Nazi Jewish resistance. Exploring the critical influences shaping the decisions made by Jews in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe, the book sheds new light on the dynamics of collective violence and genocide.

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