The Beginning of the Holocaust in Poland 1939-1941: Jewish Leaders, Ordinary Jews, and the Joint is a working title of my book project that shifts attention to Jewish life in the provinces of German-occupied Poland before the creation of most ghettos. It does so through the lens of correspondence with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC, the Joint), an organization that served as a lifeline to Jewish communities throughout German-occupied Poland. The project illuminates the challenges that Jews outside the major urban areas faced in the first two years of the German occupation. It examines how Jewish leaders in small towns and villages exercised their restricted agency to mitigate the speed and scale of Nazi anti-Jewish policies. And it explores the extent of Jews’ (individual and organized) survival strategies and resistance efforts.

Events and Texts

September 2019: “JDC’s Relief Efforts and the Holocaust in Rzeszów County,” Agency in the Holocaust and Genocide Symposium, Clark University, Worcester, MA.

“JDC’s Relief Efforts and the Holocaust in Rzeszów County,” Agency and the Holocaust. Essays in Honor of Debórah Dwork, edited by Thomas Kühne and Mary Jane Rein (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).