by Joanna Sliwa
Rutgers University Press, 2021
Cloth: 978-1-9788-2294-8 | Paper: 978-1-9788-2293-1 | eISBN: 978-1-9788-2295-5
Library of Congress Classification DS134.6.S58 2021
Dewey Decimal Classification 940.531800830944

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.