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Jews in Polish and German Lands: Encounters, Interactions, Inspirations

12 February 2025, 12:00 pm–4:00 pm

Polin 37 conference picture

An international conference launching Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 37 Organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies and the Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews in Warsaw in co-operation with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland and the Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex. With thanks to Sandra and Nathan Kahn for their support.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All | UCL staff | UCL students | UCL alumni

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Sara Benisaac

Location

Online via Zoom
via zoom
zoom
WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

This conference will consist of two online panels in the afternoon, and an evening face-to-face panel at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, 47 Portland Place, London W1B 1JH. 

YOUR REGISTRATION HERE IS FOR THE ONLINE SESSIONS ONLY. PLEASE EMAIL s.benisaac@ucl.ac.uk IF YOU WOULD LIKE A SEPARATE INVITATION TO THE EVENING IN-PERSON EVENT
The two online panels will be organized chronologically: 1) Polish, German, Jewish Cultural Encounters in War and Peace and 2) The Holocaust and its Aftermath (see programme below). The face-to-face panel will consist of a general introduction to the volume by its editors, followed by a keynote address and reception at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE VOLUME.  Historians have largely tended to regard Polish Jewish history and German Jewish history, from the Middle Ages to the present, as playing out solely within national boundaries, thereby ignoring the interactions that have shaped Jewish cultural life. Geographical proximity has meant that Jews from both countries have been linked through kinship ties as well as shared economic, cultural, and linguistic realities. The complexity of this relationship and its consequences have been only partially reflected in scholarship. This volume takes a different approach, shifting the focus away from the nationally distinct to investigate instead mutual influences and interactions. Moving beyond the traditional paradigms that characterize Polish Jewry as ‘authentic’ and German Jewry as ‘modernizing’, it challenges the sharp historiographic division between these two communities and opens up a nuanced understanding of modern European Jewish history. Contributors to the volume will present papers at the conference. 

REGISTER HERE FOR THE ONLINE PART OF THE CONFERENCE. It is free of charge and you are welcome to join all or any part of it.  Everyone who registers will be sent the zoom link before the event. Here is the programme (exact timings of presentations to be announced):

12 – 1:45 pm GMT

Welcome

Panel One: Polish, German, Jewish Cultural Encounters in War and Peace

Markus NESSELRODT (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt [Oder]): Encounters between Jews and Non-Jews in Prussian Warsaw (1796-1806)

Sonia GOLLANCE (UCL): Friedrich Schiller in the East European Jewish Imagination

Delphine BECHTEL (Sorbonne University,Paris): The Jews of Lemberg between the Viennese Kaffeehaus and the Polish Kawiarnia 

 2:00 – 3:45 pm GMT

Panel Two: The Holocaust and its Aftermath

Kataryzna PERSON (Warsaw Ghetto Museum): Between us and them there still stands a wall... German-speaking Jews resettled to the Warsaw ghetto in the spring of 1942

Joseph CRONIN (Leo Baeck Institute, London/ Birkbeck, University of London): Writing the History of Jews in Germany after 1945

Michael MENG (Clemson University, South Carolina): Celan and Gradowski’s Poetic Responses to the Holocaust

Kataryzna PERSON (Warsaw Ghetto Museum): Between us and them there still stands a wall... German-speaking Jews resettled to the Warsaw ghetto in the spring of 1942

6-8 pm GMT

Panel Three : Face to face at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland BY PRIVATE INVITATION ONLY, PLEASE WRITE TO s.benisaac@ucl.ac.uk

Introduction to the Volume by the editors, François GUESNET (UCL) , Antony POLONSKY (Brandeis), Katrin STEFFEN (University of Sussex)

KEYNOTE LECTURE:

Anne Christin KLOTZ (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Jewish Laughter and Jewish Tears: Fascism and Antisemitism in the Joke Pages of the Yiddish Press in 1930s Poland 

Drinks and refreshments

About the Speakers

Markus Nesselrodt

at European University Viadrina

Sonia Gollance

at University College London

Delphine Bechtel

at Sorbonne University

Kataryzna Person

at Warsaw Ghetto Museum

Joseph Cronin

at Leo Baeck Institute/ Birkbeck, University of London

Michael Meng

at Clemson University

François Guesnet

at University College London

Antony Polonsky

at Brandeis

Katrin Steffen

at University of Sussex

Anne Christin Klotz

at Hebrew University of Jerusalem