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February 15, 2002/Adar 3 5762, Vol. 54, No. 22
'Aftermath' focuses on post-World War II Europe
LEN GUTMAN
Special to Jewish News
Some of the brightest minds on the subject of the Shoah gathered to consider its consequences.
"Aftermath: An International Conference on Europ- ean Jewry Immediately After the Shoah" was held Feb. 10-11 at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Hosted by the Jewish Studies Program at ASU, "Aftermath" included discussions by international experts on the subjects of European Jew- ry and the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.
Participants mulled over what life was like in Europe following the Holocaust. In that vein, they considered the sociological and political atmosphere that existed before the establishment of Israel.
Scholars from around the world compared notes on the subject and presented academic papers on post-Holocaust Europe.
"There was a common theme of people working on the same type of issue, but in different countries," said Jack Kugelmass, director of the Jewish Studies program at ASU. "So there's been tremendous resonance from one paper to another. For those who are working on Poland, for example, but don't know anything about the Netherlands ... it's very enlightening to hear and to have a comparative framework."
After the liberation, several hundred thousand Jews in Germany and other nearby countries were left without homes. Many of these Jews lived for years in so-called "Displaced People" camps (commonly called D.P. camps), where according to scholars and historians, they not only lived and worked, but formed much of the social and political foundation evidenced in Europe today.
Avi Patt, a Ph.D. student at New York University and one of the conference attendees, estimated there were nearly 60 D.P. camps in Germany, Italy and Austria following World War II that sheltered approximately 250,000 Jews. Patt said the impact of Zionism on the political landscape at the camps turned out to be one of the more significant discussion points.
"In many situations food rations and even access to work were limited to those in the D.P. camps who joined the Zionist movement," he said. "There was a tremendous amount of pressure to support Israel, even for those who had the means and desire to relocate to America or elsewhere."
Kugelmass said he generated the idea for the conference after reading "Poland, 1946," by John Vachon, a photojournalist assigned by the United Nations to visit Poland following the war and report on conditions there.
"I thought that the topic would lend itself to a conference because there was very little written about it, and when I started to talk to other people about the idea they got excited," Kugelmass said.
Papers presented included polemics on post-WWII life in Ukraine, Poland, France, The Netherlands, Romania and Hungary. Other topics included the reclamation of Yiddish culture, the Shoah and "The Merchant of Venice," a paper about Polish Jewish Children. In addition, professor Joel Gereboff, International Chair of Religious Studies at ASU, spoke on "The Shoah in American-Jewish Religious Periodicals."
The papers will be published later this year by Rutgers University Press, as will the content of several other recent conferences held at the ASU Department of Jewish Studies.
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