The New Life

In recent years, historians have recounted the extraordinary travails of tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who temporarily settled in West Germany after the Second World War. Scholars have been attracted to this episode in German–Jewish history for several reasons: the encounter between East European Jews, Germans and Allied soldiers, for instance, offers insight into the way in which Germans responded to the Holocaust, Jews reacted to these responses and Allies tried to mediate between the two. Examining Jewish life in the displaced persons (DP) camps allows for the study of newly-emerging Yiddish literature or the impact of Zionist ideology on Diaspora existence. Most importantly, perhaps, the close analysis of Jewish existence on German soil during this period has produced work that questions earlier narratives according to which the Jews had embraced one ideology only (Zionism), experienced the horrors of the Nazi camps (in fact, a majority managed to survive Nazi persecution in the Soviet Union) or displayed uniform emotions towards Germans (hatred) and Americans (gratitude) alike. The potential for engaging with transnational history is equally apparent, as a majority of these Jews emigrated to Palestine/Israel and the United States in the late 1940s. Well-researched and beautifully crafted, Jeremy Varon’s new book is a welcome addition to this growing field

Archaeology · German · Hatred · Ideology · Judaism · Nazi Germany · Nazism · Persecution · Political science · Politics · The Holocaust · Zionism · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies