AP/JWST 3386 3.00

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict: Jews and non-Jews in Eastern Europe, 1914-1945

Beginning with a survey of life in the new states that emerged in East Central Europe after WWI (e.g. Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania) in the 1920s and 30s, this course ends with an exploration of the fate of Jews and their neighbours under Nazi and Soviet occupations during World War II. It focuses on developments within Jewish and non-Jewish societies as well as relations between Jews and non-Jews in the region throughout this period, which culminated in the deaths of millions and the near complete obliteration of a centuries-old Jewish presence there.

The period between the two world wars was one of paralleled cultural and political vibrancy in Jewish life. It saw the intensification of competing trends within Jewish society – among them, the clash between religious devotion and secularism, the development of rival nationalist and socialist movements, the striving for integration into the dominant non-Jewish culture alongside the growth of an autonomous modern cultural sphere functioning in Jewish and non-Jewish languages – against a backdrop of economic and political crises, the rise of fascism and new forms of antisemitism, and explosive tensions between national groups populating the region.