Speaker: Simon Holloway

The Second Polish Republic lasted slightly more than two decades. During that time, Polish Jews came to embody a dizzying array of political responses to modernity. By considering three different historical territories (Congress Poland, Galicia and the eastern “borderlands”), this lecture will introduce participants to the diverse Jewries of interwar Poland and the political and religious issues that divided them. Although those communities all vanished within a few short years, an appreciation of their vibrancy and their diversity is critical to understanding just who the Jews of Poland really were on the eve of their destruction.

Dr Simon Holloway is an Education Officer at the Sydney Jewish Museum, where he runs seminars on Nazi racial science, Jewish resistance and the history of the Holocaust.