After the Holocaust, the many towns where Jewish communities had lived for centuries and where they had created a distinctive way of life became places without Jews. Gathering scholars from Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Israel, and the United States, this conference will explore how shtetls transformed into post-Jewish spaces. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, architects, archaeologists, and heritage practitioners will discuss this process from various angles, looking at the fate of Jewish architectural heritage (such as cemeteries) and personal property, memory practices among Jews and non-Jews, and the reconstitution of shtetl communities in new places.
Day 3: Tuesday, September 10
10:00–11:30 The Shtetl: Transnational Perspectives
Chair: Barbara Tornquist-Plewa
Kamil Kijek, The Last Polish Shtetl? The Jewish Community of Post-war Dzierżoniów: Continuity/Discontinuity of Jewish Life in Early Post-Holocaust Poland, 1945-1950
Hune Margulies, Configuration of Space in Contemporary Shtetls in Metropolitan New York: Between Territorial Positioning, Cultural Resistance, and New Ethnicities
David Assaf and Yael Darr, A Vanished Community and Its Changing Memory: The Case of Nowy Dwόr
11:30–11:50 Jewish Heritage Europe, Natalia Romik in conversation with Ruth Ellen Gruber
11:50–12:20 Coffee break
12:20–14:00 Things Left Behind
Chair: Anna Wylegała
Marta Frączkiewicz and Przemysław Kaniecki, Items Left Behind: Post-Jewish Objects in POLIN Museum’s Collection
Magdalena Waligórska, Prêt-à-priver: Plundered Jewish Clothing in Post-Jewish Towns: A History of Intimate Dispossession
Marta Duch-Dyngosz, Social Transactions Involving Jewish Property in Post-Jewish Towns: Jewish Agency vs. the Social Order
14:00 Closing Remarks: Future Directions
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