Communities on the move: reconsidering the history of East European Jews after the Holocaust from a landsmanshaftn perspective

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Notes on contributor

Anna Lipphardt is a junior professor for Cultural Anthropology at Universität Freiburg, Germany, where she also directs the research group Cultures of Mobility in Europe (COME). Her dissertation on the transnational history of the Jews of Vilna after the Holocaust received the Prix de la Fondation Auschwitz and the Klaus Mehnert Prize of the German Association of Eastern European Studies (DGO) and was published as VILNE. Die Juden aus Vilnius nach dem Holocaust - eine transnationale Beziehungsgeschichte by Schöningh in 2010. Her research interests include migration and mobility studies, urban anthropology, and East European Jewish history.

Notes

1. “Nito mer unzer Yerushalayim deLita … yo, Vilnyus ekzistirt veyter. Der geografisher nomen iz geblibn un vet blaybn varsheynlekh eybik, ober u n z e r Vilne iz shoyn mer nito. Unzer Vilne iz haynt na-venad. [ … ] Mir kenen haynt bagegenen an emetsn,Vilner ponim‘ nor in der fremd, nor in ,na-venad‘” (emphasis in original).

“[Editorial],” Vilner opklang. Byuletin fun Farband fun Vilner yidn in Poyln 1, no. 1 (1948): 1–2. I have used the organisation's own transliteration of its name. “Yerushalyim de Lita,” or “the Jerusalem of Lithuania,” is an honorary title that signifies the important spiritual role of the Jewish community of Vilna. Because of its multiethnic character, there are several toponyms for the city each inscribed with different political claims. In Yiddish, the city is called “Vilne.” In this article, “Vilnius” is used for the postwar context, while the English (and neutral) toponym “Vilna” is used for the pre-war context, when the city was under Russian, and later Polish, rule.

2. Vilner untervegs-kehile can roughly be translated as “Vilner community in transit” and refers to the Hebrew term kehilah, designating both a local Jewish community and its autonomous government, which in interwar Poland was elected in free elections. The term appears in several postwar publications written by Vilner Jews.

3. As it is impossible to provide an exhaustive overview of the scholarship here, for general introductions see, e.g., Pinson, “Jewish Life in Liberated Germany; Schwarz, The Redeemers; Bauer, The Initial Organization of the Holocaust Survivors in Bavaria; Bauer, Jewish Survivors in DP Camps and She'erith Hapletah; Gutman, She'erit Hapletah, 1944–1948; Gutman, She'erit Hapletah – the Problems, some Elucidation; Eitinger et al., The Psychological and Medical Effects of Concentration Camps and Related Persecutions on Survivors of the Holocaust; Jacobmeyer, “Polnische Juden in der Amerikanischen Besatzungszone;” Königseder and Wetzel, Lebensmut im Wartesaal; Berenbaum, Abraham and Peck, The Holocaust and History, 691–812; Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope.

4. See, e.g., Szaynok, “Ludność żydowska w Polsce;” Szaynok, “Jüdische Selbsthilfe in Polen;” Akleksiun, Dokad dalej?; Michlic, “Who Am I?”

5. Jockusch and Lewinsky. “Paradise Lost?”

6. I am concerned here first and foremost with the different conceptual structures and narrative modes of the scholarship focusing on the immediate postwar years. The following thus does not represent a comprehensive research review. Instead, the works cited in this section exemplify certain research approaches.

7. See Grossmann. Jews, Germans, and Allies.

8. For example, see Kingreen, “‘Oder Lampowitz, wie wir es hier sagen!’;” Rahe, “Die jüdische DP-Gemeinde in Celle.”

9. See, for example, Yablonka, Aḥim zarim; Helmreich. Against All Odds. For two early studies, see Sichel. From Refugee to Citizen; Lappin. The Redeemed Children.

10. See, for example, Wyman, DPs; Cohen. In War's Wake.

11. Most prominently Bauer. Flight and Rescue.

12. See for example, Jockusch. Collect and Record!, in particular chapter 5.

13. It should be mentioned here that the traditional site for anthropological fieldwork used to be “in the village.”

14. Marcus. “Ethnography in/of the World System.”

15. As mentioned above, the field of trauma studies analyses the traumatic experience of individual survivors, mostly in the dichotomous way of now (the time of narration, e.g., within a therapeutic context or a testimony) and then (the time the traumatic events occurred). And while autobiographical writings often recount the long-term effects of traumatic experiences chronologically, there is so far little scholarship that traces the reverberations of trauma in a communal setting across space and time.

16. My dissertation, from which this article has been developed, covers the period from the liberation of Vilnius in July 1944 until 2004. For more, see Lipphardt, VILNE.

17. For overviews, see Çağlar, “Hometown Associations, the Rescaling of State Spatiality and Migrant Grassroots Transnationalism;” Orozco and Garcia-Zanello, “Hometown Associations.”

18. On earlier waves of migration and the role of landsmanshaft, see Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York; Kliger, Jewish Hometown Associations and Family Circles in New York; and Hödl, Vom Shtetl an die Lower East Side. Galizische Juden in New York. One of the few scholars who has explored landsmanshaftn after 1945 is Hannah Kliger (see “The Continuity of Community Landsmanshaftn in New York and Tel Aviv” and “Tsvishn tsvey veltn”).

19. On the highly fluctuating numbers of Jews staying in Vilnius during the months after the liberation, see Arad, Ghetto in Flames, 470; Levin. “July 1944;” Kaczerginski. Tsvishn hamer un serp, 32, 40, 84; Suzkewer, “Das Ghetto von Wilna,” 457.

20. See Levin, “July 1944,” 361.

21. See Kaczerginski. Tsvishn hamer un serp; Leyzer Engelshtern. Mit di vegn fun der sheyres-hapleyte; Fishman, Embers Plucked from the Fire.

22. See, e.g., Engelshtern, Mit di vegn fun der sheyres-hapleyte.

23. Due to the sketchy source material, it is impossible to determine how many Vilners left legally for Poland in the framework of the repatriation agreement and how many left through unofficial channels. Probably it was mostly Zionist activists who choose the second option to dodge close surveillance from the authorities; see Ycikas, “Lithuanian–Jewish Relations in the Shadow of the Holocaust;” Arad, 110. When I conducted interviews with Vilner survivors in New York between 2001 and 2005, a number of people I had been introduced to as Vilners turned out not to be from the city, having lived in Lithuania or the Soviet Union during the interwar period. Coming to Vilnius only after the liberation, they managed to leave with forged identity cards. Even 60 years after the fact, none of my respondents wanted to talk about this in detail, possibly because of lingering fears about their resident status in consequence of having provided false information for their immigration into the US.

24. For a detailed account of the rescue efforts see S Kaczerginski, Tsvishn hamer un serp; see also Fishman. Embers Plucked from the Fire.

25. Despite its tremendous importance for Polish-Jewish history and Jewish migration history, the first comprehensive study on Lodz in the immediate postwar years wasn't published before 2010; it combined historical research with personal recollections of the author. See Redlich, Life in Transit.

26. For accounts of the Lodz period by individual Vilners see, e.g., Wapner-Lewin, Mayn flikht tsu dertseyln, 78–99; Mazur Margules. Memories, Memories, 109–16; Bak, Painted in Words, 362–420.

27. The local sub-sections of the Vilner Farband at the time included Rybaki, Jawor, Warschau, Bielawa, Legnica, Żary, Walbrzych, Białystok, Suwałki, Włocławek, Jelenia Gora, Lęborg, Wrozław, Swidnica, Zaguzshe, Bystrzyce, Ziembice, and Dembice.

28. Following the mass migrations from 1880 onwards, Vilner hometown associations were established in many countries. In New York alone, 31 Vilner organisations were founded between 1881 and 1930. Others existed in, for example, Argentina, France, Palestine, and Canada. For more on pre-war Jewish emigration from Vilna and ongoing contacts between the migrants and their home community, see Lipphardt, VILNE, 88–98, Lipphardt, “Vilne, Vilne unzer heymshtot.”

29. Ran, “Di tetikeyt fun farband fun Vilner yidn,” 71.

30. “Farband fun yidn fun Vilne un umgegnt. Oystsugn fun shtatut,” Bleter vegn Vilne, 69–70; comp. “Shtatut. Ziomkostwo Żydów Wilnian w Polsce/Farband fun Vilner yidn in Poyln,” Lodz, June 1946, Archive Bet Lohamei Hagetaot, Israel, File 2980.

31. For an analysis of the postwar demographic data see Lipphardt, VILNE, 133–7.

32. See “Farband fun yidn fun Vilne un umgegnt,” 69–70. For a more detailed analysis of the transnational memorialisation activities carried out by the Vilners, see Lipphardt, “Forgotten Memory.”

33. The same activists also took part in the work of the Central Jewish Historical Commission (Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna, or CŻKH), established in autumn 1944 in Lublin and transferred to Lodz in 1945. Among its founders was Abba Kovner, commander of the Jewish resistance movement of the Vilna Ghetto and later partisan commander. Shortly after the liberation, Kovner became a key figure in the Brichah, through which he managed to smuggle valuable Jewish archival materials from Vilnius. His partisan comrades, the Yiddish poets Avrom Suzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginsky, who had been instrumental in re-establishing the Jewish community back in Vilnius, were the driving force behind the Vilner collection and research efforts in Lodz, together with historians Marc Dvorzecky and Meir Balberyszsky and journalist Leyzer Ran. During their time in Lodz, all of them were active members of the CŻKH and also worked on individual book projects. Apart from Balberyszsky's study, which was published by the CŻKH in 1946, the other manuscripts did not pass censorship in Poland and were published shortly afterwards in Paris, New York, and Buenos Aires; for details see, e.g., Kaczerginski, Tsvishn hamer un serp; Ran. Ash fun Yerushalayim deLite.

34. Since its inception in Lodz until 2005, when Nusach Vilne, the Vilner landsmanshaft in New York dissolved, the Vilner Haskore has been observed, with slight variations, in the same order and style around the world; for details see Lipphardt, VILNE, 132–3, 363–8.

35. Such as the Vilner opklang (Łodz, 1948) and Bleter vegn Vilne.

36. It should be noted that this was the way of sharing responsibilities between Vilner Zionist and Yiddishist activists with respect to the Vilner communal sphere and during this specific period of time. In other contexts, the same activists directed their attention differently: Yiddishists such as Shmerke Katshergisky or Avrom Sutskever were, for example, at the same time among the most vocal proponents for the future of Yiddish culture and education within the general Yiddish cultural movement. Vilner Zionists such as Marc Dvorzhestsky were active (along with Suzkever and Kaczerginsky) in the CŻKH in post-war Lodz, working on documentation and historical accounts of the Holocaust period. Abba Kovner also briefly joined the CŻKH, but as one of the founders of the Brichah movement, during this period he was mainly occupied with smuggling survivors out of Eastern Europe to Palestine, and simultaneously involved in Nakam, the underground initiative aiming to take revenge on German Nazi criminals of war. Only at a later stage of his life did he become involved in memorial projects, many of which he initiated or co-created, including several Holocaust museums and documentation centres within the Kibbuz movement, the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, and a multi-volume anthology of Yiddish folk songs, published in the 1980s; for details see Lipphardt, VILNE; Lipphardt, “Forgotten Memory.”

37. See Vilner Pinkas, Jerusalem, 1968–71; Nusach Vilne Buletin, New York, 1954–91/2; Vilne – Yerushalayim deLita, 400 yor geshikhte fun der yidisher Vilne (catalogue), Bet Lohamei Hagetaot, September 1972; Maasef Vilna/Vilner zamlbukh, ed. by. Irgun Yotse Vilnah ve-Hasvivah, Tel Aviv 1974; Leyzer Ran, ed. Yerushalayim deLite. Ilustrirt un dokumentirt, 3 vol., Vilno Album Committee/Vilner farlag: New York 1974; Shmuel Rozshansky, ed., Vilne in der yidisher literatur. Fragmenten fun forsharbeten tsu der karakteristik, Zikhroynes, bilder, series Musterverk fun der yidisher literatur, vol. 84, Literatur-gezelshaft baym YIVO in Argentine: Buenos Aires 1980.

38. A considerable number of my interviewees never passed through Germany, taking instead alternative routes through Southeastern Europe.

39. It is illuminating to compare the deportation and postwar routes of the Vilners with those of survivors from other areas in Eastern Europe. In contrast to Vilnius, there were several large-scale deportations from the Kaunas ghetto (located some 90 kilometres from Vilnius) to concentration camps in central Poland, some even to Dachau. With the death marches, a considerable number of Jews from Kaunas reached German territory shortly before the liberation and were thus in place when it came to establishing a new communal framework for Jews liberated in Germany. Early on, they also established hometown associations on German territory. Several Jews from Kaunas held prominent positions within the overall DP leadership, whereas none of the key Vilner figures became part of it.

40. See “Caitwajlike Reszime fun Wilner in Dajczland” [1947], Archive Bet Lohahei Hagetaot, File No. 2899.

41. Again there are no exact numbers. My estimates are drawn from Vilner HTA publications, the Meed Holocaust Survivor Registry, and interviews with Vilners conducted in Lithuania, Israel, and the US.

42. For the post-war history of the Bund see, e.g., David Slucki, The International Jewish Labor Bund after 1945; Frank Wolff, Neue Welten.

43. This was, for example, the case with Lily Mazur Margules, who had originally prepared to make Aliyah but eventually decided to take up the invitation to live with her uncle, who had settled in Buenos Aires before the war; see Mazur Margules. Memories, Memories, 113–34.

44. When in 1956 hundreds of Vilner Jews were finally able to emigrate from the eastern parts of the Soviet Union (whither they had been deported by the Soviet authorities before the German attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941), they initially left for Poland. The majority of them eventually settled in Israel, the only country at that time that allowed unrestricted immigration. The Vilner landsmanshaft in Israel, the Irgun Yotse Vilnah ve-Hasvivah, which by then was well established, provided crucial financial and organisational support for the newcomers. Among them where many people who had been active in the city's pre-war Yiddish cultural institutions and now longed to reconnect to Yiddish cultural life, as correspondence and contributions to the Vilner organs of publication indicate. Even at this stage, when the State of Israel was firmly established, the eventual decisions for the final emigration destination were thus not clear cut along ideological lines; for more details see Lipphardt, VILNE, 196–201.

45. See Nusach Vilne Buletin, published in New York, 1954–92.

46. Ran, “Ponar fun yidishn zikorn.”

47. While national Holocaust memorial ceremonies have attracted a lot of scholarly attention, the phenomenon of communal yortsayt or hazkore services for the destroyed Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and their relevance for the individual's mourning process have not been researched systematically to date. The importance of these ceremonies to the survivors and their descendants is apparent from the many announcements one can find, e.g., in the notification section of the Jewish Forward/Forverts until the 1990s. Even in 2001–5, when conducting fieldwork on the Vilner community in New York, I frequently noticed memorial services of other landsmanshaftn that took place at YIVO, the Workmen's Circle, or other Jewish institutions. Often, these memorial services were the only activity an organisation would continue to carry out. For an account of landsmanshaftn memorial services during the DP period, see Ethel Ostry Kleinstein, After the Holocaust. My Work with the U.N.R.R.A. [S.l. : s.n., 1978], 41–4 (cited in Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 193); for a list of yortsayt dates for Jewish Communities of Lithuania see Cohen and Issroff, The Holocaust in Lithuania, vol. 1, 48–52. The strong emotional effect of the communal haskore for the Jews of Mariampole is detailed in Burnett, “Work of the Mariampoler Aid Society after the Holocaust.” For an analysis of the impact of the Holocaust and the ensuing emigration on burial rituals, individual mourning, and communal memorial services among the Vilners, as they evolved between 1944 and 2004, see Lipphardt, VILNE, 343–84.

48. For Jewish Vilna, this was nothing new; the community relied on a pronounced tradition of local historiography and ethnography “against the odds” from the pre-war period, which continued during the ghetto years.

49. The most useful introductions to the genre are Boyarin and Kugelmass. From a Ruined Garden and Horowitz, Memorial Books of Eastern European Jewry. The most extensive digitised collection of memorial books is located in the New York Public Library: http://yizkor.nypl.org/. Other important collections are located at YIVO in New York and at Yad Vashem in Israel. The Yizkor Book Database of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York (http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/database.html) provides a growing number of English translations for memorial books.

50. The Landsmanshaftn Collection at YIVO is the largest Jewish HTA archive and encompasses mainly organisational records from the New York Metropolitan Area. The majority of the HTA collections included are from the pre-war period. A number of records from leftist HTAs established after 1945 can be found in the Bund collection, also housed in YIVO. For an introduction, see Krauss, “Landsmanshaftn Research.” It should be noted that scholars interested in the social history of HTAs can benefit greatly from exchange and collaboration with genealogists, and vice versa. The Jewish Geneological Society has specific regional chapters and special interest groups (SIGs) for genealogists who collaborate on the identification of relevant source material.

51. This is not limited to the recollections of Jewish migrants who left Eastern Europe after the Holocaust, but represents a prominent feature in the recollections of migrants in general.

52. An exception are the recordings of interviews conducted with Holocaust survivors in DP camps and orphanages in Germany, Switzerland, and France in the summer of 1946 by David Boder, a psychologist based in Chicago. The interviews were conducted at a time when the term “Holocaust” did not yet exist, the catastrophe's scope was not yet clear, and the survivors were still trying to grasp what they just endured. They were still trying to find their relatives, and the State of Israel had not yet been established. The interviews therefore allow a unique glimpse into their perspectives and expectations in the immediate postwar period. For more, see the sound files and documentation of the Boder project at http://voices.iit.edu/ and Boder, I Did Not Interview the Dead; see also Rosen, The Wonder of Their Voices.

53. The idea of “methodological nationalism” in migration studies was first developed by anthropologists Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller in “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond.”