Response

The history of the persecution and mass murder of the European Jewry is meanwhile thoroughly researched and academically institutionalised, not least in the ‘Holocaust studies.’ By contrast, comparatively little is known about the lives of those who survived the genocide and stayed in Europe after 1945. Survivors not only struggled with feelings of guilt (of having survived), despair and hate (directed against the murderers), they also rebuilt Jewish life on the ruins of the destruction of World War II. The aim of our panel is to look beyond the so-called “myth of silence” (Hasia R. Diner, 2009) and to bring the lives of these Jews in the spotlight and to examine their narratives and pathways to a post-war existence in Europe. In our panel, three close-up studies will be presented, that focus on the Jewish communities and Jewish-gentile relations in three Western-European cities (Amsterdam, Florence, Frankfurt a. Main) during the first fifteen years after the war. The panellists explore if and how Jewish community-life was re-established and the pre-war diversity and fragmentation of Jewish associations, religious affiliations and ideological preferences moulded Jewish post-World War II life plans; they also discuss to what extent the social and emotional tissue between Jews and gentiles was restored in this period. This comparative set-up of our panel enables us to discern local peculiarities and wider, European patterns and, by doing so, to advance our knowledge of post-war Jewish life in Europe.