Life in the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Jewish Life in the Nazi Ghettos of Eastern Europe

Catalog description

In this course, we will explore not the mass murder of East European Jews during the Holocaust, but rather their lives in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in such places as the Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno Ghetto. Regarding religious life, we will examine Rabbi Ephraim Oshry's responsa in the Kovno Ghetto and Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira's hasidic sermons in the Warsaw Ghetto. We will also look at the importance of Yiddish theater, literary clubs, and libraries in the Vilna Ghetto. In addition, we will learn the story of the Vilna Ghetto's paper brigade and will discover Emanuel Ringleblum's Oyneg Shabes archive in the Warsaw Ghetto. Methodologically, we will address the question of the extent to which pre-war local conditions determined Jewish religious, cultural and physical responses to ghettoization and to what extent Nazi policies contributed to these responses.