Antony Barry Polonsky (born September 23, 1940) is Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at
Brandeis University
Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
.
He is the author of many historical works on
the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
,
and is an expert on
Polish Jewish history.
Career
Antony Polonsky was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to
Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents who arrived in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
in the late 19th century. His father was from a
Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
speaking family from near
Grodno
Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...
(in modern
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
) and his mother was from a
Russified Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family from
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
. Polonsky was not raised in a Polish speaking background.
Polonsky has compared his childhood, growing up in South Africa, to the movie ''
The Help'', being brought up by African servants who had no political rights. As a student at the
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...
, Polonsky organised non-violent demonstrations against
apartheid policies. A
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Established in 1902, it is ...
took him to England to read modern history at
Worcester College and
St Antony's College. His doctoral thesis at Oxford was a study of
Józef Piłsudski's relationship with parliament, subtitled:
The Crisis of Parliamentary Government in Poland, 1922-1931'. Polonsky became a lecturer in International History at the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
in 1970, and was appointed as professor in 1989.
When it was discovered that Polonsky had redirected more than £24,000 of research money he had claimed in the name of colleagues and donated it to Oxford's Institute of Polish-Jewish Studies, disciplinary proceedings were instituted. Although the amount was repaid (including 15,000 from the Institute's own funds), the misappropriation, which was used to finance Institute publications, nevertheless proved highly embarrassing for Polonsky. The disciplinary committee found that although his publications had brought credit to the London School of Economics, he should be 'severely reprimanded'. He decided to take early retirement and seek a new position. Polonsky then moved to Brandeis University in 1992, and in 1999 was appointed Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies—held jointly at Brandeis and at the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...
. He has served as a visiting professor at the
University of Warsaw, the Institute for the Human Sciences, Vienna and the
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa.
Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...
; he has also been a visiting fellow at the
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
Polonsky has played a leading role in setting up the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies in Oxford, and served for six years on the
Board of Deputies of British Jews, including membership of the Yad Vashem Memorial Committee. Polonsky also spent time at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at
University College, London, and is an Associate of the
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
President
Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served the maximum two terms as the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005. His tenure as President was marked by modernization of Poland, rapid economi ...
presented the Knight's Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland to Polonsky in 1999.
In 2006, he received the Rafael Scharf award from the
Judaica Foundation in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
for "outstanding achievement in preserving and making known the heritage of Polish Jewry".
He is the founder and general editor of ''
Polin. A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies'', perhaps the only scholarly publication devoted entirely to
Polish–Jewish history.
It received the
National Jewish Book Award in the Eastern European Studies category in 2000.
In 2011, Polonsky was awarded the Kulczycki Book Prize by the
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Association may refer to:
*Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal
*Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry
*Voluntary associatio ...
for Volumes I and II of ''The Jews in Poland and Russia''.
Themes
In ''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume I'', Polonsky describes how "
shtetl
or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...
" culture emerged in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
in the 16th and 17th centuries during the process of
Polish colonization of Ukraine.
In private towns, owned by Polish nobility and distanced from royal authority, the Jewish community assisted the landowner in turning their estates into profitable concerns. In this context, "Jewish communal autonomy became an integral part of the Polish political system. Jews appointed their own rabbis and communal authorities and collected their own taxes, for their own communities and for the state."
With the
partition of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign ...
, most Jews found themselves living under the rule of Russia. "In a single blow, a state without Jews became the largest Jewish state in the world."
Polonsky argues that interference with Jewish life during the reigns of
Catherine the Great
Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...
and
Nicholas I was motivated more by the Russian rulers' integrationist policies, rather than by
antisemitism
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
. The reforms of
Alexander II led to circles of integrated culture, primarily in
Odesa
Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...
and
St Petersburg.
The retreat of the tsarist government from integrationist policies during the period from 1881 to 1914 led to a rise in the poverty of the Jewish masses. But a period of enormous creativity and transformation of religious culture coincided with these years of repression.
Professor Jeffrey Veidlinger of
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
has commented that Polonsky's history of the Jews in Poland and Russia helps to “correct the nostalgic and romanticized portraits of what is sometimes considered a lost civilization, while simultaneously demonstrating the vibrancy and diversity of Jewish life in the region.”
Reviewing the first two volumes of Polonsky's three volume ''The Jews in Poland and Russia'', ''
The Jewish Chronicle'' wrote that Polonsky wants "to avoid the earlier tendencies to either dismiss the eastern European Jewish experience as backward (the approach of the great German Jewish historian,
Heinrich Graetz) and ultimately doomed to extinction or, alternatively, to view it nostalgically post-Holocaust as an unchanging and harmonious lost world." The reviewer concludes that Polonsky succeeds in his task, but says that the books are most successful when they manage to synthesise experiences across regions and time periods, particularly in the mini-studies of Jewish Places, Jewish Literature and Women.
Timothy Snyder
Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...
, reviewing Volume Three of The Jews in Poland and Russia in ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', praises the book but suggests that Polonsky could have made a stronger link between imperial Russia and modern German anti-Semitism. Snyder suggests that after the 1917 revolution, the
White Russian commanders fled to the west, bringing with them a concept of the
Bolshevik revolution as profoundly Jewish. Snyder argues that the "Judeo-Bolshevik" idea, "brought west by Russians and Baltic Germans after the Bolshevik victory in Russia's civil wars, became an integral part of Hitler's vision." Nonetheless, Snyder calls Polonsky's three volume work "a grand history in the old 19th-century style, a result all the more remarkable because he cannot have the confidence in progress that historians of that age possessed."
Polonsky has written that one of the biggest issues confronting historians of the Holocaust is that all of the countries of Eastern Europe were subjected to two occupations— the German Nazi and the Soviet Russian occupation. The Poles, the Lithuanians, Latvians, and the Ukrainians, were faced with two enemies, and faced the dilemma of how to choose between them. In a talk at the United States Holocaust Museum, Polonsky said:
The Jews were in a different position. For the Jews, the Nazis were unequivocally enemies, whose goal was to destroy physically Jews in Eastern Europe. The Soviets were potential allies. So we’re talking about a very complicated situation in which two totalitarian systems are in conflict, and in which a lot of innocent people on all sides are suffering. And what we need to do is to understand the complexity of these events and show some empathy for all those people—including Jews—caught up in this tragic conflict."
In Volume Three of ''The Jews in Poland and Russia'', Polonsky critiques the typology which
Raul Hilberg established in his analysis of the Holocaust, dividing those involved into
perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.
[R. Hilberg, (1992), ''Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945'', New York.] Polonsky writes that the term 'bystander' is problematic, because "the implication that the bystanders had free choice, as in the parable of the
good Samaritan, either to assist the Jews or go on their way fails to take into account the nature of Nazi rule."
[A. Polonsky, (2011), ''The Jews in Poland and Russia'', Volume III, 1914 to 2008, p.437] Polonski argues that those people living under Nazi occupation were subject to savage treatment, adding that "assistance to Jews was punished severely, often by death, while participation in the looting and murder of Jews was rewarded, particularly in the case of those who served in local police forces and other units subordinate to the Germans."
Polonsky writes that criticism of people living under German occupation in Eastern Europe is often overtly moralistic, and accompanied by unsubstantiated speculation about what these so-called 'bystanders' might have done.
Major publications
*''Politics in Independent Poland: The Crisis of Constitutional Government'' (Clarendon Press, 1972)
*''The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918'' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975)
*''The Great Powers and the Polish Question, 1941-1945'' (London School of Economics, 1976)
*''The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland'', December 1943-July 1945, co-author with Bolesaw Drukier (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980)
*''A History of Poland'', co-author with Oskar Halecki (Routledge, 1983)
*''The History of Poland Since 1863'', co-editor with R.F. Leslie, et al., (Cambridge University Press, 1983)
*My Brother's Keeper?': Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust'', editor (Routledge, 1990)
*''Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939-46'', co-editor with
Norman Davies. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991)
*''Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland: An Anthology'', co-editor with Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, (University of Nebraska Press, 2001)
*''The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland'', co-editor with
Joanna B. Michlic, (Princeton University Press, 2004)
*''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 1: 1350-1881'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009)
*''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 2: 1881-1914'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009)
*''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 3: 1914-2008'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011)
References
External links
Antony Polonsky faculty profile at
Brandeis University
Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polonsky, Antony
1940 births
Living people
Brandeis University faculty
Historians of the Holocaust in Poland
Jewish historians
Historians of Europe
Knights of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
Members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
Writers from Johannesburg
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
South African expatriates in the United States
South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent