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Holocaust: The reality of genocide in Southern Ukraine.
No full textThis study will concentrate on the Holocaust in Southern and Southeastern Ukraine, as carried out by Nazi Germany and Antonescu's Romania with the help of the local Ukrainians and ethnic German colonists. Topics such as the Jewish participation in resistance and opposition, collaboration among local inhabitants, and the interrelations of Jewish and non-Jewish population during the Holocaust will be emphasized.The topic of the Jewish partisan activities will come under careful scrutiny. The difference will be drawn between the actual and alleged Jewish participation in the Soviet partisan movement, since under the pretext of anti-partisan counterattack, Wehrmacht, SS units and Einsatzgruppen were deployed in Ukraine to perform killing sprees on the Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered in the Ukraine under the cover of anti-partisan activities.Two of the topics that I will especially concentrate on will be the Crimean and Transmstrian Holocaust, both of which are unresearched subjects. The situation there was different from the other cities and towns in the Ukraine and thus requires further investigation and research. In Crimea, the Tatar antisemitism as well as the existence of two or more different Jewish separate groups, Karaites, Krimchaks and Rabbinical Jews, created a unique environment, which will be analyzed in detailed discussion.The Holocaust in Odessa, on the other hand, was carried out by the Romanians and not by Germans. The Romanian example is the only example of its kind in World War II. Romania was the only independent country, which was directly involved in genocidal killing operations. The examination of the issues surrounding the willingness of Romanians to initiate and execute the killings will be included in the project. While the policies of the Romanian state were inspired by the widespread antisemitism, the petty bureaucrats were guided by greed and opportunity. The result of the latter led to the sufferings of many but also opened a door of salvation for many others.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brandeis University, 2003.School code: 0021
Creating America on stage: How Jewish composers and lyricists pioneered American musical theater.
No full textTheater critic Clive Barnes once argued that the musical "was never a particularly sophisticated form of theatre" and "was not intended to stir deep emotions". This dissertation disproves the claims that American musical theater has had no bearing on culture and no legitimate argument to make. Musical theatre has been an integral part of American society since its inception.Further, this dissertation argues that it was Jewish composers and lyricists specifically who created and defined America on the musical theater stage. These writers were either European-born, came from immigrant families, or grew up as second-generation Jews in a land troubled by anti-Semitism. Interestingly, these "marginalized" Americans were the ones who considered America a worthwhile topic for the stage.Chapter One provides the historical and cultural context for the thesis, highlighting the attributes of "Jewish" music and lyrics and a brief chronology of anti-Semitism in the first half of twentieth-century America. Chapter Two focuses on Irving Berlin's transition from Russian immigrant to the composer of the great musical of Americana, Annie Get Your Gun . Chapter Three describes the collaboration of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, and argues that their Show Boat became an early example of presenting racism in the American musical. Chapter Four studies how George and Ira Gershwin utilize Jewish music and lyric to create their jazz opera, Porgy and Bess. Chapter Five examines the work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who explore American discrimination in South Pacific and invigorate the American landscape in Oklahoma!That these Jewish composers and lyricists were marginalized themselves gave them a unique insight into American culture. In essence, they wrote about their own experiences of discrimination; in all these musicals, the Jewish composers and lyricists made it a priority to champion the marginalized people of America. By doing so, they prove that the American musical moved from being a casual diversion to a serious cultural influence that has underwritten American theater and thought.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Claremont Graduate University, 2003.School code: 0047
Jewish fringes Texas fabric: Nineteenth-century Jewish merchants living Texas reality and myth.
No full textMany historians of American Jewish history focus their studies on the area spreading along the eastern coast of the United States and on large urban areas. Such emphasis leaves undocumented the experience of American Jews who settled in the South, the West or in small towns. This work begins to fill that gap by focusing on the Jewish entrepreneurs who made their way to the frontier of Anglo-European society while settling in Texas.This story begins with the Jewish pioneers, mostly men, who recognized the opportunities available in Texas and immigrated to the emerging Republic of Texas and later to the state. The majority of the original settlers were European immigrants who left the security of a nurturing Jewish culture seeking economic success, political rights and, at times, adventure. These brave men found a home in a land that allowed them to integrate into the Texas society. These immigrants found more than success: they found respect. The study explores their economic successes, such as their involvement in the development of railroads, their involvement in the burgeoning fraternal movements such as Masons and Odd Fellows, their service in the Civil War, their political achievements, and their social integration in such towns as Galveston and Victoria. The document recounts the story of how these men found a home complete with economic achievement and social acceptance in the rugged Texas society.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas A&M University, 2003.School code: 0803
'Yung-Vilne': A cultural history of a Yiddish literary movement in interwar Poland.
No full textThis dissertation is the first comprehensive study of the Yiddish literary group 'Yung-Vilne' (1929--1941). It explores the intersection of language, lineage, and locus, and its influences on a new generation of Yiddish writing in one of Eastern Europe's most important Jewish cultural centers. I argue that the group embraced a populist modernism that allowed it to appeal to audiences in both high and mass culture, and tolerate members who ranged from the politically engaged to the aesthetically detached. Through my excavation of the group's work, and a discussion of its members' role in the broad cultural life of Vilna, I highlight the symbiotic relationship between artistic corpus and cultural context.The primary goal of the dissertation is to provide a framework for understanding the group's struggle to satisfy the expectations of local audiences for a humanistic, socially engaged literature against some members' gravitation towards more rarefied forms of artistic expression that could expand the borders of Yiddish art. Chapter one shows how Yung-Vilne was an organic outgrowth of its cultural community. Chapter two introduces Yung-Vilna's first star, Leyzer Volf. I explain that Volf's comical engagement with canonical texts from the European and Yiddish literary spheres, and his grotesque re-interpretations of Vilna's physical and cultural landscape were emblematic of larger generational anxieties of Yiddish cultural parochialism. Chapter three discusses the group's magazine, Yung-Vilne, as a way to introduce its choir of visual artists, poets, and prose writers. My discussion highlights the tension between the pull of radical politics and the desire to escape from reality through literature. Chapters four and five offer extended readings of the group's two most famous writers, Chaim Grade and Abraham Sutzkever. I show how Grade re-introduced the language of faith and religious struggle into Yiddish literature at the precise historical moment when Yiddish writing was most alienated from tradition. Chapter five suggests that Sutzkever was also striving to recover metaphysical wonder. I show how his modernist innovation transcended the limitations of Vilna's material realities. The dissertation underscores the extent to which artistic choices made by Yung-Vilne were connected to the national struggle for cultural self-definition.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard University, 2003.School code: 0084
AHC Interview with Fritz Jahoda.
No full textFritz Jahoda was born in Vienna on May 23, 1909. He lived at Seidelgasse 22 in the third Viennese district. He studied conducting at Munich, Germany. One of his fellow students was the famous conductor Herbert von Karajan. Fritz Jahoda then worked as a conductor at the opera house in Graz, Styria, Austria. After the Nazi's rise to power, he fled from Austria to England, then to the USA, where he could not continue his career as a conductor. Instead he worked as a music teacher. His sister is the famous sociologist Marie Jahoda.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC Interview with Rudolph Friedlander
No full textRudolph Friedlander was born in Graz, Austria, on October 22, 1915, where he lived at Schiesstattgasse 55. After the Nazis' rise to power he emirgated via the Netherlands to the USA. He did different manual jobs until he established his own business.Austrian Heritage Collectio
Novel ambitions: Four early Jewish-American writers and their professional formation.
No full textDuring the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many Jews emerged from the Lower East Side to stake a claim in the field of American letters as novelists, poets, and intellectuals. My dissertation examines the professional development of three of these individuals---Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, and Henry Roth---and asks a question largely overlooked in the field of Jewish-American studies: why would a poor, non-native-speaking immigrant pursue an economically risky career as a writer?Adapting Pierre Bourdieu's cultural insights, I set aside the romantic paradigms of authorship and try to explore the professional origins of Jewish-American writing by situating it within a nexus of social and cultural relationships. I contend that Cahan, Yezierska, and Roth were acutely aware of the economic pitfalls that came with being a writer but argue that for each author cultural advancement possessed a "redemptive" potential unavailable simply through economic achievement. Throughout this dissertation I explore the various ways these authors demonstrate their mastery of English in an attempt to distance themselves from the Yiddish-speaking masses and join an elite group of American writers.I contrast the professional ambitions of these immigrant authors to those of the Anglo-American writer Henry Harland, who, during the 1880s, produced a series of "philo-semitic" novels under the pseudonym Sidney Luska. Not only did these novels claim to provide a window into the Jewish world, Harland selected the name Luska to convince readers that their author was himself a Jew. But, I argue, these books have little to do with Jews; rather, they are borne out of a set of aristocratic cultural and social values that denigrated realism's mimetic codes. The way Harland utilizes Jewish characters to articulate these values is central to my analysis of his literary development.Ultimately, I contend, each author's career was shaped by social and cultural desires that were so pressing they inevitably made their way into his/her literary work. A good deal of this dissertation, therefore, is devoted to demonstrating how these early Jewish-American narratives-in their various stylistic and formal manifestations-may be read as allegories that encode the deepest professional concerns of their authors.Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of New York, 2003.School code: 0046
Raoul Wallenberg, the American War Refugee Board and the last minute effort to save Hungary's Jews.
No full textThis study examines the events of the Holocaust, American anti-semitism, the creation of the American War Refugee Board and the efforts of one individual, Raoul Wallenberg, on behalf of Hungary's Jews. Representing the interests of the American War Refugee Board in his role as a member of the Swedish legation in Budapest, Wallenberg valiantly stood up for an estimated 100,000 Hungarian Jews and saved them from the certain death promised them by the Germans in the final days of the war. Through new eyewitness testimony by survivors speaking for the first time since the end of the war, the horror of the events and the courage of Wallenberg stands out against the background of apparent indifference by Western leaders as millions of Europe's Jews were systematically murdered by the Third Reich.This study looks at Raoul Wallenberg and how he came to Budapest in 1944 at the age of 31 as a member of the Swedish legation and rescuer of Jews. It also examines the various paths by which the news of the Jewish tragedy came to the attention of Allied leaders and how those leaders responded and why. For decades, the historiography after the end of World War II on the Holocaust left the reader with the impression that Allied leaders were not aware of the Nazi plan for the Final Solution and the murder of Europe's Jews. However, a review of official documentation from the time, of journals and newspapers published during World War II and after, and memoirs and eyewitness testimony from survivors speaking more than 50 years later, make it clear that Allied leaders and many others were aware of Hitler's plans. Yet the Allied leaders, men such as Roosevelt, chose not to act on the information until 1944 when it became politically necessary to do so. This action was the creation of the American War Refugee Board in January 1944.By January 1944, one of the only remaining and largely intact Jewish community in occupied Europe was that of Hungary, and it was to that country that Wallenberg was sent, and where he stood his ground against the Germans. With sheer force of will, insight, courage and the occasional payment of the necessary bribe, he would demonstrate what one man could do to help the Jews.While the War Refugee Board came into existence only at the end of the War, it was able to help in the rescue of between one hundred and fifty to two hundred Jews in occupied Europe. This success leaves one with the unanswered question of how many more could have been saved if the Board had been created in 1942 when the Allied leaders first became aware of Hitler's Final Solution.Thesis (Ph.D.)--State University of New York at Albany, 2003.School code: 0668
Memoirs 1870-1968
No full textThe memoirs of Leopold Levi, translated by Werner Blumenthal.Leopold Levi is born the 6th of March 1870 as the second son of Moses Levi and Jeannette Heilbronner Levi in Buttenhausen. He has an older brother, Salomon, and also close relations to his grandmother and great-grandmother as well as to his uncles and aunts who live nearby. His father earns a living as a peddler, a job in which Leopold joins at the age of fourteen after he has completed his education at school, because his elder brother Salomon has long before emigrated to America. Leopold enjoys helping his father, but after three years he goes to the beverage firm Levi & Co. as an apprentice in business. The firm sends him to Nuernberg after nine months of training, where he succeeds in business but is never left without the strong feeling of homesickness. One of the owners, Salomon Levi, soon plans to start his own firm, Leopold follows him and from then on gets to live together with the family of is new employer where he finds a new home and makes friends for life, for example the families Bernheimer, Tannhauser and Weil. In the firm, Leopold works under Jacob Levi, father of Paul Levi, future famous delegate of the Reichstag. In these years Leopold meets Minna Stein, to then becomes his wife in 1897. Leopold gets the offer to manage a branch of the firm Landauer Brother, Ulm, in Reutlingen, where the newlywed establish their first home after a wedding trip to Dresden and Berlin. In 1898, their first daughter, Luise, is born, and in 1899 their son Emil is born, followed in 1901 by the twins Martha and Gertrud.Because of lack of social life in Reutlingen, the family moves to Stuttgart and Leopold plans to do wholesale and manufacture there. Leopold establishes a small work clothing manufacturing business, which does not grow much larger with the times, but sustains the family quite well and gives their children the opportunity to receive a decent education including some musical instruction. The family’s social contacts spread quickly in the bigger city, for example there were connections to the families Loewenberg, Seligmann, Boettigheimer, Weil and many others. Leopold is soon elected to the leadership of the Chevra Kadisha and thus starts to participate actively in community activity, a part of his life he extends throughout the years. The contacts to Leopold’s parents remain close and stable with the help of regular mutual visits and occasional family celebrations. Also Leopold’s brother Salomon pays a visit to his German relatives once in a while, bringing along his American family. The outbreak of World War I later on leads to serious changes also for the personal lives of Leopold’s family. Many of their friends are mobilized right away. The firm receives military purchase orders. They all experienced food shortages and rationing. In 1917, Emil is called to the military forces and dies in the war soon afterwards. Leopold is elected to the Oberkirchenbehoerde.After the war, Luise marries Ludwig Hess, friend of Leopold, in spite of their difference in age. The newlyweds soon have to move to Leopold’s house due to Ludwig’s serious sickness, which forces him to stay in bed and being taken care of. In 1920 he dies, not longer after Luise has given birth to a little girl, Marianne. Family life goes on, bringing along celebrations, marriages, childbirths and deaths, vacations, traveling, children’s sicknesses and so on. Minna, Leopold’s wife, suffers repeatedly from serious heart weakness, which she tries to cure by repeated visits to Buttenhausen and Baden-Baden. The search for the grave of their son on a cemetery near Paris in 1929 is an experience that deeply affects both Minna and Leopold. In Leopold becomes vice president of the Oberrat and continues his work for the institution devotedly.In the early thirties, the family suffers from the unstable economic situation causing them a lot of worries. Moreover, the Nazi regime took over and as a Jewish family, Leopold and his relatives began to experience serious agitation against themselves. In Wuerzburg, there is established a combination of several Jewish charitable organizations in reaction to the severe threats against Jews, and Leopold as vice president of the Oberrat is put in charge of it. The next step of his career occurs when the president of the Oberrat, Dr. Otto Hirsch, is elected to be (together with Rabbi Leo Baeck) one of the leaders of the planned Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. Consequently, Leopold becomes his successor as president of the Oberrat and is also elected as a member of the advisory council of the Reichvertretung. Due to this position, Leopold soon gets to know a lot of high-ranked personalities at meetings and conventions. In 1934 the family is notified about the death of Salomon, Leopold’s brother who spent most of his life in San Francisco. The Nuernberg Laws bring another personal affect to the family: their maid of many years, Paula, has to leave the family. Denials of credit, of the electoral right and the threat of deportation follow. The first friends decide to emigrate to America. In the end, under the pressure of the political situation, Leopold has to give up the business - it was sold to a new owner, and thus "de-Judaized", as Leopold writes. The ninth of November turns out o be a real shock for Leopold, seeing "his" synagogue that gave him support for so many years, on fire. Finally, in 1939, the whole family (many of its male members already brought to concentration camps) made feverish efforts to emigrate from Germany. Under great difficulties and via various countries, Minna and Leopold make it to the U.S. only in 1943