Jewish Books Published in Postwar Poland (1946-89)

Second-place winner of the Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art, Houghton Library, Harvard University

My unique book collection is mainly made up of Yiddish books published in postwar Poland between 1946-1968. It speaks directly to the intersection of Jewish lives and the communist state, both newly forming in the immediate decades following the Second World War.

Few know about the unique history of Jewish life that developed in Poland in the first decades following the Holocaust. Though much had been destroyed, a sizeable population of Jews did build new lives there. Many had survived the war in the Soviet Union as refugees, and they returned to a changed country under new leadership: the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) was a newly formed communist state.

I began collecting in 2020 while living in Warsaw and conducting dissertation research on this little-known subject. Below is a sample of the collection.