Despite the catastrophe of the Holocaust, Jewish survivors in Poland managed to build a diverse network of institutions of social, political, cultural, religious and economic life in Poland. The conference looks at various aspects of revived Jewish life in Poland, comparing developments in other countries of the region during 1945–1955.
Copyrights
Zeew Szewach, pochodzący z Białegostoku, organizator nielegalnych wyjazdów Żydów z Polski do Palestyny, na gruzach łódzkiego getta w przeddzień święta Jom Kipur, 17 września 1945. fot. NN, Muzeum Bojowników Getta
Presentations include the functioning of various Jewish communities, patterns and directions of migration, issues of transnationalism and relations with Jewish communities outside Poland, the development of Jewish culture, literature and press, as well as postwar commemoration of Holocaust victims and the administration of justice to its perpetrators. The conference will also feature a roundtable discussion on the potential of oral history sources in research on contemporary history.
This conference and the exhibition "1945: Not the End, Not the Beginning," presented simultaneously at the POLIN Museum, mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Organizational information
- Date, venue: 15–17 June 2025 (Sunday–Tuesday), POLIN Museum
- Main entrance opening hours:
- June 15: 10:00 AM
- June 16: 8:30 AM
- June 17: 9:00 AM
- Recordings will be made available on demand by July 18, 2025
- Program in PDF. Download
- For more information, send us email
Program
15 June 2025, Sunday
3.30 pm Conference Opening
3.40–5.40 pm Panel 1: Old and New Spaces: Holocaust Survivors in Local Communities of East Central Europe
Chair: Anna Cichopek-Gajraj
- Edyta Gawron – Transit Cities with Jewish Infrastructure: Postwar Jewish Life in Kraków and Prague Compared.
- Monika Stępień – Welfare and Educational Activities of the Provincial Jewish Committee in Postwar Kraków.
- Eugenia Mihalcea – Repatriated: Jewish Survivors of Transnistria in Postwar Romania, 1944–1948.
- Anna Wylegała – Together and Apart Again but Just for a While: Jewish Survivors in Eastern Galician Shtetls, 1944–1946.
5.40–6.00 pm Coffee Break
6.00–7.30 pm Keynote Lecture: Marcos Silber – Migration, Bordering and Belonging Beyond Borders: Jewish Movement Between Poland and Israel, 1945–1957.
16 June 2025, Monday
9.00–10.30 am Panel 2: To Get Out: Jewish Migration Patterns through and from Poland.
Chair: Dariusz Stola
- Magdalena Semczyszyn – "To Leave. By Any Means Available" – What We Still Do Not Know About the Jewish Exodus from Poland within the Framework of Bricha, 1945–1947.
- Karolina Panz – Postwar Anti-Jewish Violence in Podhale: Smuggling Networks, Perpetrators, and Victims, 1945–1947.
- Serafima Velkovich – The Organized Escape to Freedom: A Case Study of the Chabad Lubavitch Community.
10.30–11.00 am Coffee Break
11.00 am–12.30 pm Panel 3: Polish Jews after the Holocaust as a Transnational Community.
Chair: Kamil Kijek
- Anna Sommer – Across Borders: Transnational Assistance and New Approaches to Understanding the Surviving Remnants of Polish Jewry.
- Anne-Christin Klotz – Survivor Landsmanshaftn as Utopian Safe Havens: Polish Jews and the Search for a New Heym after the Shoah.
- Frankee Lyons – The End of the Postwar Decade? Global Jewish Encounters at the Fifth World Festival of Youth and Students.
12.30–1.30 pm Lunch
1.30–3.30 pm Panel 4: Holocaust Memory and Justice in Early Postwar Poland.
Chair: Monika Heinemann
- Janek Gryta, Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska – Exhumations, Reburials and Commemorations: The Early Memory Work at Holocaust Sites in Southern Poland.
- Justyna Koszarska-Szulc – Seeking Justice: Polish and Jewish Narratives in Immediate Postwar Trials.
- Alicja Podbielska – "But This Righteous Anger of Ours Does Not Prevent Us From Appreciating Every Expression of Decency": Early Postwar Jewish Discourse on Poles’ Attitudes During the Holocaust.
3.30–4.00 pm Coffee Break
4.00–6.00 pm Panel 5: Holocaust Memory and Art in Early Postwar Central and East Central Europe.
Chair: Krzysztof Persak
- Maria Ferenc – Remembering Mordechai Anielewicz in the Aftermath of the War.
- Agata Pietrasik – Exhibitions as Agents of Disseminating and Shaping Memory of the Holocaust in Early Postwar Poland.
- Olga Ungar – Early Holocaust Memorials in Yugoslavia: Jewish Commemoration and Comparative Insights from Poland.
- Rachel Perry – Who Will Draw Our History? Holocaust Graphic Narratives by Women Artists, 1944–1949.
6.00–6.30 pm Coffee Break
6.30–8.00 pm Roundtable: Oral History in Research on Poland’s Twentieth-Century History – Experiences, Problems, Challenges.
Participants: Andrzej Czyżewski, Jakub Gałęziowski, Józef Markiewicz, Marek Szajda (moderator), Anna Wylegała
17 June 2025, Tuesday
9.30–11.30 am Panel 6: Between Continuation and Politics. Jewish Culture in Early Postwar Poland.
Chair: Ella Florsheim
- Karolina Koprowska – Mit Hofenung un Gloybn… Expressions of Hope in Postwar Yiddish Literature in Poland.
- Agata Dąbrowska – Reviving Jewish Tradition and Identity or Serving the Regime? Jewish Theatre in Communist Poland, 1945–1955.
- Agnieszka Podpora – Song in the City of Slaughter: Polish-Jewish Literary Translation Culture, 1945–1950.
- Rachelle Grossman – Dirty Slugs and Flimsy Paper: The Postwar Yiddish Page.
11.30 am–12.00 pm Coffee Break
12.00–2.00 pm Panel 7: Personal Entanglements and New Life after the Holocaust.
Chair: Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak
- Natalia Aleksiun – Elusive Relationships: Survivors and Their Rescuers in the Aftermath of the Holocaust.
- Yael Paulina Robinson Gottfeld – Between Two Worlds: Mixed Polish-Jewish Families and the Rebuilding of Jewish Life in Postwar Poland.
- Marta Duch-Dyngosz – "The Last Jews": Investigating Trajectories of Holocaust Survivors Who Returned and Remained in Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian Shtetls after 1944.
- Katarzyna Kwiatkowska-Moskalewicz – Life Without a Shadow? Post-Holocaust Adaptation Strategies of Jewish Communists in Poland.
2.00 pm Conference Closure
Organization committee
- Dr Anna Cichopek-Gajraj (Arizona State University Jewish Studies)
- Dr Monika Heinemann (Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow)
- Dr Ella Florsheim (Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center)
- Dr Kamil Kijek (Taube Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław)
- Dr Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak (The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute)
- Dr Krzysztof Persak (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Organizers
The conference is organized within the Global Education Outreach Program.
This program was made possible thanks to Taube Philanthropies, the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, Libitzky Family Foundation, and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland.
This project is supported by the German-Polish Science Foundation.
The conference is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Center for Jewish Studies, Arizona State University.
The conference takes place with the generous support of the Gutwirth Family Fund.
