IPJS Conference - ‘Jewish Childhood in Eastern Europe’

Source: Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies - IPJS

Jewish Childhood in Eastern Europe

Conference launching vol. 36 of Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry

The conference to launch volume 36 of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry will be held on 22 February 2024. Organised by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and the Institute for Jewish Studies at University College London, in partnership with the Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews, Warsaw, and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, it will take the form of two online discussions at the Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews, Warsaw followed by a lecture and discussion at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London.

This volume, edited by Natalia Aleksiun, Harry Rich Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida, François Guesnet, Professor in Modern Jewish History in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London and Antony Polonsky, Chief Historian of the Global Educational Outreach Program at the Polin Museum is an examination of the history of children, childhood and child-rearing in Jewish Eastern Europe.

The contributors, drawn from Israel, Poland, western Europe and North America, have endeavoured throughout to let children and teenagers speak for themselves and, while aware of the limits of their freedom of action, to assess their degree of agency.

At the same time, close attention has been paid to ideas and ideals about Jewish children and Jewish childhood expressed by those with a degree of power over these children’s lives: not only their parents, but religious and communal leaders, educators and political activists invested in mobilizing the youth.

Programme

1 – 2:45 pm GMT

Panel One (online): Jewish childhood in the early 20th Century

Welcome: Michał Trębacz (Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews), François Guesnet (IPJS & UCL)

Chair: François Guesnet

• Yehoshua Ecker (University of Florida; Touro University, New York): Jewish childhood in the Galician countryside
• Jan Rybak (Central European University, Vienna): Austrian-Zionist relief efforts for Jewish children from Galicia
• Ula Madej-Krupitski (McGill University, Montréal): Holiday experiences of Jewish children in the interwar period

2.45-3.15 Break

3:15 – 5pm pm GMT

Panel Two (online): The Holocaust and Its Aftermath

Chair: Natalia Aleksiun

• Joanna Śliwa: Jewish Children Seeking Help from Catholic Institutions in Kraków during the Holocaust
• Anna Sternshis: Yiddish childrens’ songs about Transnistrian Ghettos
• Boaz Cohen: Rehabilitating Holocaust child victims in postwar Poland

INVITATION ONLY: 6 – 8 pm GMT

Panel Three (Embassy of Poland): Jewish Childhood in Eastern Europe/the Polish Lands, followed by a reception (invitation only)

Welcome: HE Piotr Wilczek, Ambassador, and Vivian Wineman (President, IPJS)

Chair: Antony Polonsky

• Natalia Aleksiun: Jewish childhood in Eastern Europe
• Christine Schmidt (Wiener Holocaust Library): Response

‘POLIN Vol. 36’ is published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation/Liverpool University Press. See

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