Between 1918 and 1921, over 100,000 Jews were murdered in Ukraine and Poland by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely forgotten today, these pogroms‚ “ethnic riots‚” dominated headlines and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination. Twenty years later, these dire predictions would come true.
Drawing upon long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly discovered witness testimonies, trial records, and official orders, acclaimed historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shows for the first time how this wave of genocidal violence created the conditions for the Holocaust. Through stories of survivors, perpetrators, aid workers, and governmental officials, he explains how so many different groups of people came to the same conclusion: that killing Jews was an acceptable response to their various problems.
Nonfiction
In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918 – 1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust
September 1, 2020
Discussion Questions
In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918 – 1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust by Jeffrey Veidlinger is an important contribution to our understanding of a tragic period in twentiethcentury history: the pogroms convulsing Ukraine, Galicia, and southern Russia between 1918 and 1921. These tragic events have long been overlooked by historians because of the even more horrific events of the Holocaust. By exhaustively examining a wide range of archival and printed material, including witness testimonies from the time, this book shines a spotlight on these events, and offers a new perspective on the question “how could the Holocaust happen?”. It could because its roots were in the wave of genocidal pogroms that swept Eastern Europe during and after World War I. It explains how the atrocities of the Holocaust were rooted in the collective memory of the peoples of Eastern Europe. The book unravels the complex history of Ukraine in this period in a vivid and readable form. It also conducts a close analysis of the relations between armed forces, non-Jewish neighbors, and local Jews when tensions spiraled into pogroms.
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