Language:
English
Year of publication:
2012
Titel der Quelle:
Polin; Studies in Polish Jewry
Angaben zur Quelle:
24 (2012) 257-274
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Pogroms
;
World War, 1939-1945 Collaborationists
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
Abstract:
Examines the pogroms of summer 1941 in newly German-occupied Western Ukraine, Lithuania, and the Łomża region of Poland as a complex phenomenon stemming from the interplay of various causes. Among the instigators of these pogroms were both the Germans and local radical nationalists. The former regarded the Jews as the force behind the Bolshevik regime and the Soviet elite, a force to be eliminated; the latter also adopted this view, but had an agenda of their own. In Lithuania and Ukraine, the nationalists were eager not only to retaliate against the Jews for their collaboration with the Soviets, but also to realize a national utopia - to cleanse their own nation of "aliens" and to create a homogeneous community in their own territory. The rank-and-file participants in the pogroms in these territories, including the Łomża area, were driven by folk images of Jews shaped by Christian tradition. In their view, under the Soviets, Jews had overstepped the traditional boundaries set for them and now were to be punished. The pogroms of summer 1941 were a ritual punishment for the Jews, in a sense, a "ritual murder".
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