Jefrey Koerber. Borderland Generation: Soviet and Polish Jews under Hitler. Modern Jewish History Series. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2020. Illustrations, maps. 286 pp. $80.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8156-3619-9.

Reviewed by Joanna Sliwa (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference))

Published on H-Poland (December, 2020)

Commissioned by Anna Muller (University of Michigan - Dearborn)

Jeffrey Koerber, professor of history at Chap‐ persecution of Jews, the Jews’ survival strategies, man University, headed to Belarus just when the and liberation. The book includes several maps archives were opening in this former Soviet re‐ that allow the reader to understand the land‐ public. Koerber accessed untapped sources to re‐ scapes described in the text. The book also incor‐ search the history of a region that has been largely porates images that add a visual layer to the his‐ marginalized. Most important, he delved into the torical analysis and extensive personal stories. histories of ordinary people to illuminate and ex‐ Individuals assume center stage in this study. plain complex phenomena that enveloped the Pol‐ Koerber has mined archives to retrieve oral his‐ ish-Soviet borderlands, now part of Belarus, espe‐ tories, memoirs, diaries, and testimonies to ampli‐ cially in 1933-45. In Borderland Generation: Soviet fy the voices of Jews, especially those who were and Polish Jews under Hitler, Koerber offers an children and young adults during the years exquisite comparative study about a generation of covered in the book. Serious research on border‐ Jews either born or raised in the interwar period lands nearly always requires competence in sever‐ in the areas that today comprise Belarus. The book al languages. Koerber’s book benefits from the au‐ traces the factors that shaped the experiences of thor’s direct access to a rich body of multilingual Jews in Polish Grodno and in Soviet Vitebsk and sources in Belarus, Poland, Israel, and the United the ways life in these different national contexts States. Borderland Generation is an example of affected the modes of survival of Jews during the how to write about the history of Jews and about Holocaust. the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. The book is Borderland Generation consists of seven grounded in a wealth of diverse archival material chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. The that has allowed Koerber to carefully stitch a com‐ first two chapters explore the years 1933 to 1939 pelling narrative that zooms onto the two Jewish in each of the two cities, Vitebsk and Grodno. The urban centers and zooms out to follow the Jews’ remaining five chapters present a chronological paths of persecution and modes of survival during arc. They focus on themes that affected the Jews’ the Nazi era. trajectories in the years 1939-48: the onset of By analyzing how knowledge and skills ac‐ World War II, the Soviet occupation of eastern Po‐ quired in the 1930s shaped Jews’ survival in the land, the German attack on the Soviet Union, Nazi 1940s, Koerber has highlighted the role of such H-Net Reviews forces as ideology, nationalism, religion, seculariz‐ wartime paths of survival of Vitebsk Jews: fleeing ation, women’s emancipation, antisemitism, and from the city, joining the Red Army, entering into socialization, among others. Until September 1939, partisan units, and forming Jewish resistance net‐ Vitebsk and Grodno, located a little over 350 miles works. His analysis of how men and women of dif‐ apart, differed in national administration and in ferent age groups adopted these various modes of Jews’ life circumstances, in their opportunities for survival and participated in defiance against the integration and advancement. After twenty years Nazi oppressors offers important insights into the under Polish rule, Grodno was swallowed by the role of gender and age during genocide. Survival Soviet Union, and Grodno’s Polish Jews became So‐ strategies, as Koerber shows, necessitated that viet Jews. Yet their attachment to operating in a Jews employ fluid identities. The personal histor‐ Jewish environment remained, influencing their ies that Koerber highlights illustrate all these no‐ modes of survival once Nazi Germany occupied tions particularly well. the territory in summer 1941. Jews from Grodno Some elements in the book stand out for other were confined in a ghetto, drafted for forced and reasons. The use of personal stories is arguably slave labor, and deported to camps. They often one of the key strengths of this book. However, continued to rely on their family and Jewish youth providing too many details about dates of birth networks. Their responses to oppression de‐ and names of parents for only selected individuals pended on timing and the incremental way the affects the narrative flow. For readers familiar Nazis introduced their anti-Jewish policies. The with the Polish language, the inconsistent use of situation was starkly different in Vitebsk. As Koer‐ diacritics juts out, as does the incorrect spelling of ber shows, the Nazis implemented brutal anti-Jew‐ a few names. In addition to the two minor obser‐ ish policies as they moved east, pursuing them at a vations, two larger topics emerge from the book rapid pace. This left many Vitebsk Jews without a that the author could have explained more. The false sense of security. Therefore, flight and life first relates to the concept of “generation” and the under an assumed identity dominated as different experiences and memories that Jews strategies for survival. Having been raised in a So‐ born in the 1920s or earlier had versus those born viet system, these Jews were much better pre‐ in the 1930s. The second topic concerns the last pared to take on non-Jewish identities of ethnic chapter, which claims to cover a long durée, Belarusians or Muslim Tatars. These differences in 1942-48, but which only touches on liberation and upbringing, mentality, and access to the non-Jew‐ the choices made by survivors after the war. One ish world, as well as the role of luck, instincts, ini‐ way to look at it is to see Koerber’s last chapter, tiative, and circumstances, all influenced the Jews’ and, especially, the brief discussion of the after‐ responses in Grodno and Vitebsk. math of the war, as a call for drawing on and ex‐ The focus of the book remains on Grodno and panding the superb research in Borderland Gener‐ Vitebsk. However, it also extends to places in ation. which Jews from these two cities found them‐ Koerber has presented scholars and students selves in the course of Nazi policies or their own of Poland and Polish Jewish history with an in‐ agency while trying to evade those same policies. sightful and original comparative study that Thus, Koerber takes the reader to villages near pushes the boundary of the scholarly gaze east‐ Grodno where some Jews attempted to survive in ward and positions the focus on areas that have hiding and under a false identity. He moves, too, to been sidelined for all too long. By probing the other destinations, particularly of Grodno Jews: Holocaust experiences of Jews affected by the Treblinka, Majdanek, labor camps in Lublin Dis‐ politics and realities of the interwar, Koerber re‐ trict, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Koerber traces the

2 H-Net Reviews fines our understanding of an integrative ap‐ proach to Holocaust history. In Borderland Gener‐ ation Koerber shows that to understand the war‐ time experiences, trajectories, and memories of Jews from the borderlands, one must not simply signal but really scrutinize the phenomena and circumstances that defined and shaped the people and the geographic area. Borderland Generation is a riveting study and a timely exploration of the Polish-Belorussian border region.

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Citation: Joanna Sliwa. Review of Koerber, Jefrey. Borderland Generation: Soviet and Polish Jews under Hitler. H-Poland, H-Net Reviews. December, 2020.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55255

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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