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Secret The Hidden Jews of |
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winner
of the Fraenkel Prize in
Contemporary History and
the |
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ISBN
0-300-09546-5 Copyright ) 2002 by Gunnar S. Paulsson |
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Jacket
illustration: Eli Silberstein with his Polish protector. Courtesy USHMM |
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What the
book is about: When the Nazis forced most of Warsaw’s Jews into the city’s
infamous ghetto during the Second World War, some Jews either hid and never
entered the Warsaw Ghetto, or escaped from it later in what Gunnar S.
Paulsson calls “the greatest prison-break in history”. This book, the first
analytical history of Jewish escape and hiding anywhere during the Holocaust,
tells the story of these hidden Jews of Warsaw. |
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From the back cover: “an
intelligent, fresh, and independent-minded analysis.” Michael Marrus, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of
Holocaust Studies Emeritus, University of Toronto “an important, formidable, and
bound-to-be-controversial book” - Berel Lang,
Professor of Humanities, Trinity College, Hartford CT |
“the
best, most complete examination we have to date of the texture of hiding and
rescue in Nazi-occupied Warsaw – or
anywhere in Nazi-occupied Europe for that matter” Lawrence Powell,
Professor of History, Tulane University |
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Reviewers’
comments:
“…
controversial and seminal … a masterful contribution to the history of the
Holocaust and to our understanding of Polish-Jewish relations.” – Samuel D. Kassow, Journal of Modern
History “Paulsson's
conclusions challenge most of our preconceptions about what happened to the
Jews in Poland and the role of "by-standers" in general. … Paulsson does not minimise the intensity
of Polish anti-semitism. But his
scrupulous study of a complex, contested history provides balance to the
customary, grim narrative.” - David
Cesarani, The Guardian (click for full review)
“This amazing and moving study sheds new light on
details of the Holocaust that have up until now not been examined. …
Detailing a wealth of incident … [A]n important and fascinating analysis that
calls for serious thought and reevaluation.” – Publishers’
Weekly “an engrossing and innovative study, both in terms of method and
substance, that will force us to re-think many assumptions about Jewish
responses, Jewish-Polish relations, the topic of rescue, Jewish leadership
and their decision making, and even the behavior of the perpetrators and the
Jewish police. . . . Paulsson paves new ground, asks questions hitherto
avoided and courageously allows the evidence to make his case.” Michael Dobkowski, Jewish Book World “a welcome and significant contribution to the
ongoing debate on Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust … succeeds in
using diversified sources and convincing methods to solve the quantitative
questions … One of Paulsson's achievements is his new conceptualization of
phenomena discussed in Holocaust-related research. … A most interesting and
quite novel approach to the issue of rescue … may lead to the reopening of a
wider question concerning attitudes and actions of "bystanders." …
a most significant addition to the immense Holocaust literature, both as a
specific case study of a single community and as the initiation of a debate
concerning some of the most crucial aspects in Polish-Jewish relations under
German occupation.” Shimon Redlich, The
American Historical Review “impresses
with its careful scholarship and restrained presentation of a controversial
set of propositions. Ultimately, by combining statistical analysis with
analysis of oral histories and memoirs, he succeeds in telling a very moving
and important story, one which adds a whole new dimension to our
understanding of the Jewish experience in Warsaw during World War II.” - Anita Shelton, History: Review of New Books |
“introduces a neglected dimension to the study of the
Holocaust…. Thanks to his adept use of … sources, a significant achievement
of this book is to endow hidden Jews with self-respect by showing with great
empathy (Paulsson is himself the son of a hidden survivor in Warsaw) how much
initiative, resourcefulness, clear-headedness, and sheer nerve life in hiding
demanded of Jewish fugitives from Nazism. … Through impressive use of memoir
material, both published and unpublished, Paulsson paints a compelling
portrait of Jews in hiding, skillfully describes not only the travails but
also the fortitude of thousands of Jews who survived – and perished – in
hiding, thus bestowing dignity on this specific response to Nazi
persecution.” - Gabriel Finder, East
European Politics and Societies “The significance of Paulsson’s book is not
simply that it is the first full-length study of the nature and extent of
Jewish hiding on the Aryan side in wartime Warsaw, but also that it offers a
model of studying the relatively neglected topic of evasion during the
Holocaust … a passionate call for historical engagement with the surviving
traces” - Tim Cole, IHR Online Reviews, Institute of
Historical Research, University of London (click
for full review) “… a model
of clarity for the handling of so intricate a topic. Paulsson frames his
account very carefully: glossaries, tables, even a pronunciation guide for
all Polish words as well as clear summaries of each chapter’s intent and
findings all help keep the reader’s attention … when properly introduced in a
course and complemented by, say, a diary selection, Secret City promises to
help readers rethink their understanding of ghetto life and Jewish-gentile
relationships under conditions of war and genocide. - Guillaume de Syon, History Teacher (click for full review) “the most fascinating part of the book is
based, unexpectedly, on statistics. It is these numbers, both the precise
ones and the estimates, that in the skilful hands of the author turn into the
most convincing part of the argument. His calculations do not only support
seemingly improbable claims, like the one that the survival chances of Jewish
fugitives in Warsaw were more or less the same as in Amsterdam despite much
harsher general conditions, but they give us new insights into Warsaw’s
wartime realities.” Piotr Kuhivchak, Links to other published reviews online
George
Rosie, The Glasgow Sunday Herald |
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Prizes
The Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History is awarded annually by the Wiener Library, London,
for “an outstanding, unpublished work in English, German or French in one of
the fields of interest of the Wiener Library. These include Central Europe
and Jewish history in the 20th century, the Second World War, fascism and
totalitarianism, political violence, racism, etc.” The manuscript on which Secret City is based was the winner
in its category in 1998. |
The biennial PSA/Orbis Prize is awarded by the Polish
Studies Association in conjunction with Orbis Books Ltd., London, for “the best
first book in English on any aspect of Polish affairs published in the past
two years”. The
Polish Studies Association is an affiliate of the American Association for
the Advancement of Slavic Studies. |
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About the author Gunnar S. (Steve)
Paulsson holds a D.Phil in Modern History from Oxford University. A
Commonwealth Scholar, he has been the Senior Historian of the Holocaust
Exhibition Project Office at the Imperial War Museum in London, Koerner visiting
fellow and lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and
Pearl Resnick fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US
Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is the son of a Holocaust survivor. |
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Available from: NetstoreUSA
(US/Canada, Australia/NZ) Deutschland: Alphamusik Amazon
Skandinavien: Bokfynd |
Polish-Jewish
Heritage Society Secret City is being translated into
Polish, and will be published by the Znak Publishing House in Kraków in 2007 |
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Foreword, Glossary, Guide to Polish Pronunciation, Acknowledgements Introduction Prior literature •
Evasion, the Unexplored Continent of Holocaust Studies • Escape and hiding in
Warsaw • Sources • Methods • Representativeness of the memoirs • Limitations 1 Networks Introduction • The Jewish Milieu • The Polish Milieu • A
Case Study • Conclusions 2 Escape Staying out: the
Formation of the Ghetto • The Main
Ghetto Period • The First Liquidation Action • The “Shops”
Period • Escape during and after the Ghetto Uprising •
Conclusions 3 The Introduction • Life
in “Aryan” Warsaw 4 City under Siege Threats from the
German Side • Threats from the Polish
Side • Conclusions 5 The Introduction • The Course of the Uprising • The Jewish
Experience of the Warsaw Uprising • Jewish Perceptions of the Uprising • Atrocities: the Prosta Street Massacre •
Other Atrocities • Jewish Participation in the Uprising • The Treatment of
Jewish Civilians by the Insurgent Authorities and the Population • The Aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising •
Summary and Conclusions 6 Numbers Study 1. How many |
