Eminent Holocaust historian Bauer (Rethinking the Holocaust
) examines the death under Soviet and then Nazi occupation of the shtetls, small Jewish communities where lived 30% to 40% of prewar Polish Jewry and one-fifth of all Jews killed in the Holocaust. Burdened by poverty and anti-Semitism, shtetl Jews demonstrated solidarity and devotion to Judaism and family. With the establishment in 1939 of Soviet rule, these traditions and the institutional structures of the Jewish communities collapsed quickly and with little resistance; Bauer speculates on why this was so. From the German occupation in the summer of 1941 until the winter of 1942, Jewish resistance was mainly unarmed, in the form of educating children, baking Passover matzos, and smuggling food. Most of the Polish shtetl Jews were brutally killed between March and December 1942 by Einsatzgruppen (specialized German murder units) or by local militias under German command. The behavior of Jewish leaders ran the gamut from heroic to corrupt, and attitudes of gentile neighbors were usually indifference, suspicion, hostility, and murderous anti-Semitism. Although too specialized for lay readers, Bauer's valuable addition to Holocaust scholarship spotlights an under-researched aspect of the Jewish genocide. Maps. (Jan.)
