From that Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947

In the summer of 1938 the author travelled from New York to Vilna to study at the YIVO (Yiddish Scientific Institute) for a year. Recounts her experiences there. See in particular ch. 8 (pp. 164-185), "Them and Us", for a description of various types of antisemitism: "everyday" antisemitism or hooliganism, antisemitic agitation at Vilna University, the boycott against Jewish shops, the adoption of Nazi measures (e.g. exclusion of Jews from trades and professions), and government-initiated anti-Jewish legislation. Relates her wartime years in New York and work at the YIVO, the gradual realization of what was happening to European Jewry, the reaction of American Jewry and, in particular, the fate and destruction of Vilna Jewry. Finally, discusses her work in postwar Germany with Jewish survivors in DP camps, and her search for remnants of the YIVO library in Vilna.