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While there is now a considerable amount of work showing the disintegration and extra-legal purges omnipresent in postwar Europe in the immediate aftermath of liberation, individual Jews were usually written out of this story. They were often considered physically and emotionally incapable of getting revenge. The notion of revenge as not only morally ambiguous, but also “irrational” and “uncivilized” as well as dangerous, potentially leading to communal unrest and a circle of violence, was also at that point reinforced by representatives of the Polish Jewish community.

Katarzyna Person discusses how individual survivors, despite very few opportunities available to them, did attempt to get both physical revenge and retribution. Thus the Jewish search for justice can and should be discussed as part of the wider European postwar search for revenge and retribution, while at the same time can be clearly disentangled from the violence surrounding it.

Postwar pamphlet with photographs of Nazi war criminals. (YIVO Archives)

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in Eastern European Jewish Studies | The Workmen's Circle/Dr. Emanuel Patt Visiting Professorship

Image source: YIVO