Shtetl | Eva Hoffman | detailed, unbiased analysis of complex subject

Shtetl | Eva Hoffman | A Welcome Respite From the Usual Anti-Polish Bias

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Shtetl

	Shtetl Eva Hoffman PublicAffairs, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In Shtetl (Yiddish for "small town"), critically-acclaimed author Eva Hoffman brings the lost world of Eastern European Jews back to vivid life, depicting its complex institutions and vibrant culture, its beliefs, social distinctions, and customs. Through the small town of Bra?sk, she looks at the fascinating experiments in multicultural coexistence?still relevant to us today? attempted in the eight centuries of Polish-Jewish history, and describes the forces which influenced Christian villagers' decisions to conceal or betray their Jewish neighbors in the dark period of the Holocaust.

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detailed, unbiased analysis of complex subject

I give this book 5 stars. The author has rejected myths, generalizations, and prejudiced thinking to give a fascinating history of Polish Christians and Polish Jews. She is careful to give the viewpoints of both groups, beginning in the Middle Ages and continuing to the present. When she quotes a source, she reminds us that this is that person's opinion, not necessarily a universal truth. She cites to references in Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew. She does not condemn or defend either group, and realistically argues that neither was right or wrong; some people helped each other, some people harmed each other. She gives a detailed account of the history of Poland that is not widely available in this country. The author is both Polish and Jewish, and grew up in Poland. Her ability to abjectively at her subject is convincing and admirable.

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A Welcome Respite From the Usual Anti-Polish Bias

In stark contrast to Marzynski's film Shtetl, and even more so Yaffa Eliach's book, There Was Once a World, Eva Hoffman has a remarkably balanced view of the relationships between Polish Jews and Polish gentiles. She candidly informs the reader how prejudices worked both ways. Polish gentiles might look at Jews as crafty, while Jews would often display a condenscending attitude towards Christians. She also discusses the tensions created by the fact that only some Jews saw their loyalty being to Poland, whereas other Jews shifted their loyalties to whatever foreign power was ruling over Poland at the time. Of course, the Russians, following a divide at emperia policy, encouraged polarization between Polish Jews and Polish gentiles by their policies. And this became worse during WWII. Hoffman acknowledges the fact that many Jews who collaborated with the Soviet Communists against the Poles, and the inevitable anti-Semitic backlash this created. However, Hoffman is careful to point out that, contrary to the impressions created by many Holocaust films, Poles did not (with rare and individual exceptions) participate in the German Nazi-sponsored murder of Jews. In fact, the roundups of Jews in the Bransk ghetto were performed by Lithuanian and Ukrainian collaborator police forces, not Poles. And, when it comes to individual instances where Poles did betray hiding Jews to the Germans, Hoffman is also fair enough to the reader to point out the unfortunate fact that Jews also searched for and betrayed other Jews. Finally, she addresses the accusation that the mainstream Polish underground (AK) murdered Jews who hid in the forests. She notes that there were various criminally-oriented bands which roamed the countryside, and it is these, and NOT the AK, which may have been responsible for the murder of fugitive Jews, who, owing to their obvious vulnerability, were a perfect target for such crimes. However, Hoffman is apparently unaware of the fact that, according to a Soviet document, there were also "phony AK" commandos sent inside German-occupied Poland by the Soviet Union. The job of these commandos was to commit various crimes against the civilian population (including Jews) and then to create the impression that the AK was responsible for them, all as part of an overall strategy to discredit anti-Communist forces in the eyes of the population. However, all in all, despite this shortcoming, Hoffman is remarkably objective in her treatment of Polish-Jewish relations. It is sad that her work is the exception, and not the rule, in this regard.

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The truth is never simple

Shtetl is an excellent work of social history, although it is also a good outline of Polish history at the political level over the 8 centuries it covers. It is well written and an easy read.

The author has a clear agenda, which is to be more balanced in her treatment of Poles than Jewish writers have usuually been and to be more balanced in her treatment of Jews than Poles have been. The book digs deeply into the sources of Polish perceptions of Jews and vice versa. It gives a deep feel for what life was like in Jewish communities in Poland. The chapter on the period between World Wars I and II is particularly good for showing the political, cultural and economic vibrancy that had come even to the rural shtetls. It must be one of the most "objective" books written about the historical relationship between Jews and Poles. A sympathetic portrait of both peoples that celebrates their virtues and describes their shortcomings as perceived by the other.

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A Broad Overview of Shared Polish-Jewish History

Hoffman traces the experience of Jews in pre-modern Poland, partitioned Poland, the Second Republic, WWII, and the immediate postwar period. There is a wealth of information presented in this volume, and I generally focus on matters not elaborated by the previous reviews.

After the Partitions, and particularly as the 19th century wore on, Jewish and Polish political interests increasingly diverged. Consider the situation in Russian-ruled eastern Poland: "In fact, Jewish attitudes towards tsarist rule were mixed. In contrast with the Poles, Jewish communities basically accepted the legitimacy of the Russian government, even though they may have bridled against some of its policies." (p. 117). Hoffman sees the later Litvak Jewish immigrants as not so much a force of Russification, as a significant source of pro-Russian political orientation as well as radical-left sentiment (p. 137).

By the time of the resurrection of the Polish state in 1918, the Polish-Jewish gulf had grown large. Polish Jews wanted not only civil rights, but, in contrast to western European Jews, also minority rights (p. 164). Not surprisingly, this led to overt separatism. Hoffman writes: "In Bialystok, representatives of the Jewish community proposed that the city and surrounding region should become part of Lithuania rather than Poland, because this would put Jews in a better numerical position. The suggestion was met with outrage by Polish politicians." (p. 164). During the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, Jewish loyalties were ephemeral. Hoffman remarks: "According to the Yizkor Book, views were divided between those who sided unequivocally with the Polish cause, and others who felt that Bransk did not really belong to Poland, and therefore should not be required to supply soldiers to the Polish army." (p. 165)

Much has been said about prewar violence against Polish Jews, but little about internecine Jewish violence. Hoffman comments: "The factions quarreled, splintered, and accused each other of betrayal and Jewish anti-Semitism. Not infrequently, members of competing parties disrupted each other's meetings and got into bloody street brawls." (p. 179; see also pp. 180-181).

Most Bransk-area Jews were murdered by the Germans at Treblinka. Those Jews who managed to flee the ghettos not only faced the danger of betrayal by Poles, but also betrayal by other Jews (pp. 224-225). In fact, two of Hoffman's fugitive relatives perished as a result of a Jew who led the Germans to their hiding place (p. 6).

The small percentage of Jews saved owes to the rarity of Jews who escaped the ghettos. Furthermore, Hoffman remarks: "The Yizkor Book records several instances in which Jews refused help offered to them by Poles, because they did not want to abandon the others." (p. 223).

Hoffman recognizes the fact (p. 2) that the Germans' choice of occupied Poland as the site of the death camps had nothing to do with actual or presumed Polish attitudes towards Jews. She is also open-minded to the possibility that the Kielce Pogrom had been a Soviet-staged event (p. 249).

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Deeply moving and personal look

This book filled me with hope, despair, joy, sorrow and finally, at the end, a disquieting and lingering sadness. Though not always complete in itstelling of political events, I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in learning about his Polish Jewish past. A good first look.

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