Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) survived in concentration and death
camps, in hiding, and as exiles in the Soviet interior. After
liberation in the land of their persecutors, some also attended
university to fulfill dreams of becoming doctors, engineers and
professionals. In The New Life: Jewish Students of Postwar Germany,
Jeremy Varon tells the improbable story of the nearly eight hundred
young Jews, mostly from Poland and orphaned by the Holocaust, who
studied in universities in the American Zone of Occupied Germany.
Drawing on interviews he conducted with the Jewish alumni in the
United States and Israel and the records of their Student Union,
Varon reconstructs how the students built a sense of purpose and a
positive vision of the future even as the wounds of the past
persisted. Varon explores the keys to students' renewal, including
education itself, the bond they enjoyed with one another as a
substitute family, and their efforts both to reconnect with old
passions and to revive a near-vanquished European Jewish
intelligentsia. The New Life also explores the relationship between
Jews and Germans in occupied Germany. Varon shows how mutual
suspicion and resentment dominated interactions between the groups
and explores the subtle ways anti-Semitism expressed itself just
after the war. Moments of empathy also emerge, in which Germans
began to reckon with the Nazi past. Finally, The New Life documents
conflicts among Jews as they struggled to chart a collective
future, while nationalists, both from Palestine and among DPs,
insisted that Zionism needed "pioneers, not scholars," and tried to
force the students to quit their studies. Rigorously researched and
passionately written, The New Life speaks to scholars, students and
general readers with interest in the Holocaust, Jewish and German
history, the study of trauma and the experiences of refugees
displaced by war and genocide. With liberation nearly seventy years
in the past, it is also among the very last studies based on living
contact with Holocaust survivors.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
