Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, (Eds: Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Atina Grossmann, Wayne State University Press), 2017
Seeking to complement historical and documentary sources with personal memoirs and testimonies, I... more Seeking to complement historical and documentary sources with personal memoirs and testimonies, I have been exploring written and oral accounts illustrative of the various pathways taken by Jews born in Poland who spent the war years under Soviet authority, and who later settled in Australia. Over the course of the war and through the following post-war decade, most were subject to a series of often less than voluntary geographical relocations. As well as having to readjust to new places, people, and surroundings they were also continuously required to negotiate a shifting, often bewildering and frequently contradictory mélange of structural and political forces impinging not only upon their family loyalties, communal connections and personal liberties, but in some instances challenging the very core of their personal understandings, beliefs and values. I suggest that taken together, such potentially destabilizing encounters required of this disparate group of serially displaced Jews continuous readjustments to, and reevaluations of, their subjective attachments to both previous and more recently ‘acquired’ social, religious, political and ethno-national identity(ies).
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In my current research I explore the diverse and fascinating personal and political pathways traversed by this cohort of Polish Jewish survivors, in particular those several thousand who later settled in Australia. Using memoirs and video testimonies I consider the broad range of encounters by these Polish Jews with different national, ethnic, linguistic and religious cultures; and their constant challenge to respond, adapt and adjust to the impenetrable and often Kafkaesque Soviet officialdom, to their current status, available options and possible future lives.
Papers by John Goldlust
Similarly, in the autobiographical and testimony material from this cohort of Polish Jews very few were unequivocal in placing themselves in the category of “survivor”. Rather, direct articulations differentiating themselves from “Holocaust survivors” were much clearer and more pronounced. And while affirmation of their “eligibility” from testimony gathering endeavors undertaken by numerous Holocaust memorial institutions worldwide meant their interviews would now be lodged in the same archives as Jews who had survived under the Nazis, this did not necessarily change their sense of liminality around whether they did, or did not, “belong” to the survivor group. They were pleased for the opportunity to place on record—mostly, they thought, for the benefit of their families and later generations—more extended narratives that would provide a more coherent chronology, detailed descriptions and personal observations about where and how they had managed to survive during their years in the Soviet Union, but in their own eyes this did not necessarily move them into the category of “Holocaust survivor.”
For many, at least in their own eyes, neither “victims of Soviet Communism” nor “survivors of the Nazi camps.”
A multivariate approach to the analysis of data relating to immigrant adaptation simply recognizes that human behaviour is the complex outcome of many different determinants. In this study of immigrants in Metropolitan Toronto, an attempt was made to construct and verify, under the conditions prevailing at this time, a multivariate model that endeavoured to avoid the pitfalls of linearity, overgeneralization, and insensitivity to the richly varied paths open to both individuals and groups who move into a new society.
A few thoughts and a considerable amount of speculation around the slippery concept of 'Australian identity' - past, present and future.
[Paper presented to research colloquium on ‘State and Identity in Australia: Historical, Sociological and Anthropological perspectives on migration, Victoria University, Melbourne, May 26, 2009]
One important characteristic accompanying the seemingly endless public discussions and political debates around ‘Australian identity’ has been the noticeable absence of the voices of recent immigrants to Australia, many from countries in Asia, whose views and experiences can add considerably to our broader understanding of these concerns. This paper is based on a research study that used a semi-structured interviewing technique with a sample of 128 immigrants from Sydney, Melbourne and the regional areas of Tasmania who settled in Australia between 1985 and 1994. Respondents were asked their views on topics such as life in their country of origin, the process of migration to Australia, life in Australia since arrival, their attitude to their country of origin and to Australia, general questions about their personal sense of identity, and issues related to citizenship.
Respondents in our study provided numerous rich and informative insights into the impact of immigration on their lives. For the purposes of this presentation I will explore a number of themes that emerged in the process of examining the reflections of respondents on their relationship to group or collective identity, subsequent to their migration and settlement in Australia. To illuminate some of these themes and issues I draw examples from the interview transcripts of some of the forty-six immigrant respondents in our study of Asian background.
The study provides further empirical weight to the observed complexities and ‘slipperiness’ surrounding the experience of collective identities in the contemporary world. Immigrants to societies such as Australia that have embraced, at least publicly, the ‘multicultural’ rather than the ‘mono-cultural’ paradigm, still invariably encounter a range of ‘traditional’ collective identity markers that include nationality, religion, race and ethnicity (not to mention class, status and gender). Furthermore, the personal, social and cultural dilemmas around ‘identity’ are rarely matters effectively resolved in childhood or adolescence, but rather continuously encountered by most individuals as part of the life-long socialization experience.
By extrapolating from a number of the elements mentioned in the historical overview in the first section, my exploration proceeds always mindful of the broader context and of the ways in which important global geo-political forces and macro-sociological transformations (such as modernisation, secularisation and large-scale migrations) have impinged upon and contributed to the very definitions and lived experiences of what it means to be, or not to be, Jewish in Australia. I seek first to identify, what I have chosen to designate as either important 'Jewish identity sharpening' or 'Jewish identity weakening' facets in the ongoing history of Jewish life in Australia. It is notable that the 'identity sharpening' aspects tend to focus on the role of human agency in seeking to secure or enhance the likelihood of future Jewish continuity. On the other hand, the 'identity weakening' influences tend to be the outcome, singularly or in combination, of those external, more abstract, historical and social forces referred to above.
The concluding section seeks to evaluate the often complex interaction of these influences, and what they might signal in relation to the future prospects for 'Jewish survival' in Australia into the 21st century.
The exit out of the former Soviet Union that began in the 1970s and reached its peak in the 1990s, following the dissolution of the USSR, led to the subsequent worldwide resettlement over four decades of almost two million Soviet Jews.. A large majority of these Jewish emigrants relocated to Israel and the US, while others found new homes in other western countries, including, it is suggested, probably around 12,000 in Australia. Indeed throughout the period, Soviet Jews represented one of the three major sources (alongside South Africa and Israel) of new Jewish immigration to Australia. However, for many of these former Soviet citizens, the resettlement process, particularly their reception and integration into their new ‘communities’ did not always go as the Jewish leaders and activists who had helped facilitate their exit from the USSR had envisaged.
In this paper I first present an overview of the broader historical contexts of both Jewish life under the Soviets and the process of emigration since the 1970s . I then explore the broader demographic characteristics of those former Soviet citizens who chose to settle in Australia as well as some of their post-immigration adaptation issues. I conclude by identifying a few of the more significant sociological, psychological, cultural and political factors that together may have contributed to the observable tendency for many Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union and their families to still both be perceived as, and to see themselves as “Russians”; a social identity that remains separate and distinct from other Australian-born and other immigrant Jews, who together constitute ‘mainstream’ urban Jewish community life in contemporary Australia.
Poland, with over three million Jews, was home to the largest pre-war Jewish community in Europe, of whom fewer than ten per cent remained alive when the war ended. A considerable proportion (probably as high as two-thirds) of the 17,000 post-war Jewish immigrants to Australia were born in Poland, and their subsequent impact on the character of existing Jewish communities, particularly Melbourne, has been quite profound. These Polish immigrants lost most or even all of their family (parents, siblings, etc.) during the war, but a central characteristic that is little known, and even less discussed, is that the majority were neither ‘survivors’ of the concentration camps, nor escaped because they were assisted or hidden by-non-Jews. Rather, most owe their lives to a combination of personal choice and fateful circumstance. Some made the decision very early in the war, to move out of Nazi-controlled areas in which they were living and into the Russian occupied section of Eastern Poland. Others were living in these areas already when the Soviet troops arrived. As a result, of the 300,000 Polish Jews who did survive the war at least two-thirds did so because they were under the Soviets, rather than at the mercy of the Nazi authorities. I propose to explore this lesser-known pathway, one that is central to the family histories of a considerable number of Jews currently living in Australia, and which therefore deserves to be more widely known and understood. In the process, I also seek to examine why, until very recently, in the broader context of more than sixty years of both academic accounts and personal memoirs that tell of the wartime Jewish experience, the ‘stories’ associated with the overwhelming majority of Polish ‘survivors’ have remained almost invisible.
The paper was presented to a public seminar at the Australian Centre For Jewish Civilization, Monash University, Australia: February, 2010
In my current research I explore the diverse and fascinating personal and political pathways traversed by this cohort of Polish Jewish survivors, in particular those several thousand who later settled in Australia. Using memoirs and video testimonies I consider the broad range of encounters by these Polish Jews with different national, ethnic, linguistic and religious cultures; and their constant challenge to respond, adapt and adjust to the impenetrable and often Kafkaesque Soviet officialdom, to their current status, available options and possible future lives.
Similarly, in the autobiographical and testimony material from this cohort of Polish Jews very few were unequivocal in placing themselves in the category of “survivor”. Rather, direct articulations differentiating themselves from “Holocaust survivors” were much clearer and more pronounced. And while affirmation of their “eligibility” from testimony gathering endeavors undertaken by numerous Holocaust memorial institutions worldwide meant their interviews would now be lodged in the same archives as Jews who had survived under the Nazis, this did not necessarily change their sense of liminality around whether they did, or did not, “belong” to the survivor group. They were pleased for the opportunity to place on record—mostly, they thought, for the benefit of their families and later generations—more extended narratives that would provide a more coherent chronology, detailed descriptions and personal observations about where and how they had managed to survive during their years in the Soviet Union, but in their own eyes this did not necessarily move them into the category of “Holocaust survivor.”
For many, at least in their own eyes, neither “victims of Soviet Communism” nor “survivors of the Nazi camps.”
A multivariate approach to the analysis of data relating to immigrant adaptation simply recognizes that human behaviour is the complex outcome of many different determinants. In this study of immigrants in Metropolitan Toronto, an attempt was made to construct and verify, under the conditions prevailing at this time, a multivariate model that endeavoured to avoid the pitfalls of linearity, overgeneralization, and insensitivity to the richly varied paths open to both individuals and groups who move into a new society.
A few thoughts and a considerable amount of speculation around the slippery concept of 'Australian identity' - past, present and future.
[Paper presented to research colloquium on ‘State and Identity in Australia: Historical, Sociological and Anthropological perspectives on migration, Victoria University, Melbourne, May 26, 2009]
One important characteristic accompanying the seemingly endless public discussions and political debates around ‘Australian identity’ has been the noticeable absence of the voices of recent immigrants to Australia, many from countries in Asia, whose views and experiences can add considerably to our broader understanding of these concerns. This paper is based on a research study that used a semi-structured interviewing technique with a sample of 128 immigrants from Sydney, Melbourne and the regional areas of Tasmania who settled in Australia between 1985 and 1994. Respondents were asked their views on topics such as life in their country of origin, the process of migration to Australia, life in Australia since arrival, their attitude to their country of origin and to Australia, general questions about their personal sense of identity, and issues related to citizenship.
Respondents in our study provided numerous rich and informative insights into the impact of immigration on their lives. For the purposes of this presentation I will explore a number of themes that emerged in the process of examining the reflections of respondents on their relationship to group or collective identity, subsequent to their migration and settlement in Australia. To illuminate some of these themes and issues I draw examples from the interview transcripts of some of the forty-six immigrant respondents in our study of Asian background.
The study provides further empirical weight to the observed complexities and ‘slipperiness’ surrounding the experience of collective identities in the contemporary world. Immigrants to societies such as Australia that have embraced, at least publicly, the ‘multicultural’ rather than the ‘mono-cultural’ paradigm, still invariably encounter a range of ‘traditional’ collective identity markers that include nationality, religion, race and ethnicity (not to mention class, status and gender). Furthermore, the personal, social and cultural dilemmas around ‘identity’ are rarely matters effectively resolved in childhood or adolescence, but rather continuously encountered by most individuals as part of the life-long socialization experience.
By extrapolating from a number of the elements mentioned in the historical overview in the first section, my exploration proceeds always mindful of the broader context and of the ways in which important global geo-political forces and macro-sociological transformations (such as modernisation, secularisation and large-scale migrations) have impinged upon and contributed to the very definitions and lived experiences of what it means to be, or not to be, Jewish in Australia. I seek first to identify, what I have chosen to designate as either important 'Jewish identity sharpening' or 'Jewish identity weakening' facets in the ongoing history of Jewish life in Australia. It is notable that the 'identity sharpening' aspects tend to focus on the role of human agency in seeking to secure or enhance the likelihood of future Jewish continuity. On the other hand, the 'identity weakening' influences tend to be the outcome, singularly or in combination, of those external, more abstract, historical and social forces referred to above.
The concluding section seeks to evaluate the often complex interaction of these influences, and what they might signal in relation to the future prospects for 'Jewish survival' in Australia into the 21st century.
The exit out of the former Soviet Union that began in the 1970s and reached its peak in the 1990s, following the dissolution of the USSR, led to the subsequent worldwide resettlement over four decades of almost two million Soviet Jews.. A large majority of these Jewish emigrants relocated to Israel and the US, while others found new homes in other western countries, including, it is suggested, probably around 12,000 in Australia. Indeed throughout the period, Soviet Jews represented one of the three major sources (alongside South Africa and Israel) of new Jewish immigration to Australia. However, for many of these former Soviet citizens, the resettlement process, particularly their reception and integration into their new ‘communities’ did not always go as the Jewish leaders and activists who had helped facilitate their exit from the USSR had envisaged.
In this paper I first present an overview of the broader historical contexts of both Jewish life under the Soviets and the process of emigration since the 1970s . I then explore the broader demographic characteristics of those former Soviet citizens who chose to settle in Australia as well as some of their post-immigration adaptation issues. I conclude by identifying a few of the more significant sociological, psychological, cultural and political factors that together may have contributed to the observable tendency for many Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union and their families to still both be perceived as, and to see themselves as “Russians”; a social identity that remains separate and distinct from other Australian-born and other immigrant Jews, who together constitute ‘mainstream’ urban Jewish community life in contemporary Australia.
Poland, with over three million Jews, was home to the largest pre-war Jewish community in Europe, of whom fewer than ten per cent remained alive when the war ended. A considerable proportion (probably as high as two-thirds) of the 17,000 post-war Jewish immigrants to Australia were born in Poland, and their subsequent impact on the character of existing Jewish communities, particularly Melbourne, has been quite profound. These Polish immigrants lost most or even all of their family (parents, siblings, etc.) during the war, but a central characteristic that is little known, and even less discussed, is that the majority were neither ‘survivors’ of the concentration camps, nor escaped because they were assisted or hidden by-non-Jews. Rather, most owe their lives to a combination of personal choice and fateful circumstance. Some made the decision very early in the war, to move out of Nazi-controlled areas in which they were living and into the Russian occupied section of Eastern Poland. Others were living in these areas already when the Soviet troops arrived. As a result, of the 300,000 Polish Jews who did survive the war at least two-thirds did so because they were under the Soviets, rather than at the mercy of the Nazi authorities. I propose to explore this lesser-known pathway, one that is central to the family histories of a considerable number of Jews currently living in Australia, and which therefore deserves to be more widely known and understood. In the process, I also seek to examine why, until very recently, in the broader context of more than sixty years of both academic accounts and personal memoirs that tell of the wartime Jewish experience, the ‘stories’ associated with the overwhelming majority of Polish ‘survivors’ have remained almost invisible.
The paper was presented to a public seminar at the Australian Centre For Jewish Civilization, Monash University, Australia: February, 2010
The opening chapter presents an historical overview of immigration and citizenship in Australia, as well as a discussion of the different concepts of collective identity which are to be found throughout the book.