Jewish Childhood in Kraków: A Microhistory of the Holocaust

by Joanna Sliwa

Overview

Winner of the 2020 Ernst Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Holocaust Library​

Jewish Childhood in Kraków is the first book to tell the history of Kraków in the second World War through the lens of Jewish children’s experiences. Here, children assume center stage as historical actors whose recollections and experiences deserve to be told, analyzed, and treated seriously.

Sliwa scours archives to tell their story, gleaning evidence from the records of the German authorities, Polish neighbors, Jewish community and family, and the children themselves to explore the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland and in Kraków in particular. A microhistory of a place, a people, and daily life, this book plumbs the decisions and behaviors of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

Offering a window onto human relations and ethnic tensions in times of rampant violence, Jewish Childhood in Kraków is an effort both to understand the past and to reflect on the position of young people during humanitarian crises.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978822931
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	09/17/2021
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

JOANNA SLIWA is a historian at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) in New York City.
 

Table of Contents

Note on Terminology ix

Introduction 1

1 Navigating Shifts in the City 7

2 Adapting to Life inside the Ghetto 27

3 Clandestine Activities 48

4 Child Welfare 69

5 Concealed Presence in the Camp 91

6 Survival through Hiding and Flight 116

Epilogue 138

Acknowledgments 145

Abbreviations Used in Notes 147

Notes 149

Bibliography 181

Index 197

Editorial Reviews

"A well-researched book. An important addition to Holocaust literature."

author of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland - Jan T. Gross

:This well researched book on the history of Jewish Childhood in Kraków will become a standard work on the subject, inviting other scholars to investigate Jewish childhood in other ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe.:

author of Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present - Joanna Beata Michlic

"Joanna Sliwa offers a nuanced and compelling picture of what it meant to grow up Jewish under the German occupation of Kraków, one of the oldest Jewish communities in Poland. By giving voice to Jewish children and their fears, heartbreaks, loss, and survival, she allows readers to learn of children’s vulnerability and resilience, agency and helplessness firsthand. These voices will become central to the ways we think about Jewish children’s experiences during the Holocaust."

author of Conscious History: Polish Jewish Historians before the Holocaust - Natalia Aleksiun

"Sliwa’s book is an essential contribution to Holocaust scholarship, but even more significantly, she offers us the opportunity to learn about children’s experiences, which often are absent from Holocaust literature. Their concealed presence, which Sliwa spends so much time discussing, is precisely what makes it difficult to tell their stories. But Sliwa’s persistence and ability to dig through a multitude of sources to find even the smallest pieces of information resulted in this remarkable account that will hopefully encourage future scholars to explore the experiences of children in other parts of Poland and Europe."

H-Poland - Rachel Rothstein

"An outstanding contribution to the history of children and families during the Holocaust in Poland. . . . [Sliwa] has a keen sense of historical geography and timing, leading the reader through continuity and change in monthly, weekly, or even daily stages of city life. Time and space are thus deeply historicized in this book, making for a superb microhistorical account. . . . This superbly narrated short text, unburdened by academic jargon, should be a must-read not only for academics but for anyone interested in family, children, and genocide histories. Dedicated 'To the children for whom this history was a reality,' Jewish Childhood in Kraków is a most compelling exploration of Jewish children's life and death during genocide."

The Polish Review