From that Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947From that Place and Time is the memoir of Lucy S. Dawidowicz, an American-Jewish historian who set out to study Yiddish language and Jewish history at YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute in Vilna, Poland, in 1938. Escaping Poland only days before the Nazi onslaught, she worked in the New York YIVO during the war, and returned to Europe from 1946 to 1947 to aid Jewish displaced persons in Munich and Belsen with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Dawidowicz's memoir not only describes her pre-war year in Jewish Eastern Europe, but also treats the ghostly post-war period, and her role in salvaging what remained of Vilna's scorched Jewish archives and libraries. Nancy Sinkoff's new introduction explores the historical forces, particularly the dynamic world of secular Yiddish culture, which shaped Dawidowicz's decision to journey to Poland and her reassessment of those forces in the last years of her life. |
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activists Aleichem Folk Institute American Jewish Aspirantur Bronx Communist Dawidowicz Papers Diaspora Nationalism East European Jewish East European Jewry English essay Evelyn Konoff folder 13 Frayhayt Golden Tradition historian of East Holocaust Ibid idowicz interwar Vilna Jewry INTRODUCTION X X X invasion of Poland Irving Irving Kristol Jewish communal Jewish history Jewish identity Jewish immigrant Jewish tradition Jews Judaism later Lehrer Leibush Lehrer letter Schildkret wrote Libe Schildkret literary literature Lucy Dawidowicz Lucy Schildkret Max Weinreich memoir mitlshul modern Jewish culture modern secular Yiddish Modern Yiddish Culture Mordecai Kaplan Nancy Sinkoff parents Polish Jewry politics rejected SAYG Schildkret to Evelyn secular Jewish culture secular Yiddish culture secularists Shandler Shatzky Sholem Aleichem Shrift shule Socialist Soviet Union Szymon Dawidowicz tion translated University Press Vilna Warsaw word yidishkayt Workmen’s Circle writing wrote to L[eibush Yiddish language Yiddish schools Yiddish-speaking Yiddishist Yiddishkeit YIVO YIVO's young Zelig Kalmanovich