Yechiel Weizman - Unsettled Heritage: Living next to Polands Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust

This book would not have seen the light of day without the help of so many people who have seen me through this project. I am indebted to Marcos Silber and Amos Goldberg for their devoted and inspiring guidance. Their insightful comments and advice, and mostly their endless patience, helped me to flesh out my ideas, sharpen my thoughts, and rethink my research. I was blessed to call the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa my supportive, academic home during my early career stages; it gave me with the optimal conditions for pursuing my research. I began this project in Jerusalem and Haifa and finished it in Leipzig, at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and CultureSimon Dubnow. I am grateful to Yfaat Weiss, Elisabeth Gallas, and all of my colleagues at the Dubnow Institute, who provided me with the perfect intellectual and social atmosphere to bring this book to fruition.

Sitting for hours in archives and typing away in front of a computer screen can be a lonely and discouraging experience, but I was lucky to have acquired colleagues, teachers, and friends to accompany me over this long intellectual, emotional, and very physical journey. Maria Ferenc-Piotrowska and Jan Piotrowski were my family in Warsaw, and their apartment was my home away from home. The long and inspiring walks with Elbieta Janicka through her Festung Warschauchallenged me to rethink what I talk about when I talk about Polish-Jewish relations. I am grateful to Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pdich, for her support and advice and for our joint excursion into the heart of Podlasie back in 2014. Eleanor Shapiro became my chavrutain discovering the contemporary Polish-Jewish landscape, and a constant source of inspiration. In Krynki and its environs, Joanna Czaban helped me tremendously in reaching places and people that I would never have discovered on my own. I am indebted to Ireneusz Cielik, who generously invested his time and efforts in walking me through the traces of Olkuszs Jewish past.

I owe a great debt to Erica Lehrer for all her support and encouragement over these past few years, ever since we first met in 2012 during the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakw. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir substantially influenced the way I approach my research subjects. Her comments and thoughts on my work and this book helped me sharpen my arguments and approach to my research. Natalia Aleksiun read previous versions of this work, and I am grateful for her remarks and suggestions, which have assisted me tremendously in revising and honing my ideas and writing. I am thankful for Jagoda Budizk, for all of her wise and sensitive reflections and thoughts, and for pushing me to see this project through to the end. Adam Musia was my home base in Krakw, and I am indebted to him for his valuable help with the extensive Polish translations.

So many people have read sections of my work, commented on my papers, taken the time to meet me, answered my nagging emails, offered their own ideas, and shared their original material. I am particularly grateful to Anna Artwiska, Eleonora Bergman, Dorota Borodaj, Barbara Engelking, Konstanty Gebert, Agnieszka Ilwicka, Jan Jagielski zl, Karolina Jarmuszkiewicz, Kobi Kabalek, Agnieszka Karczewska, Kamil Kijek, Krzysztof Kocjan, Julia Koszewska, Monika Krawczyk, ukasz Krzyanowski, Jacob Labendz, Magdalena Marszaek, David N. Mayers, Michael Meng, Alicja Mroczkowska, Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Roma Sendyka, Yonatan Shiloh-Dayan, Judith Siepmann, Stephan Stach, Albert Stankowski, Katrin Stoll, John Swanson, Gregor Thum, Magdalena Waligrska, Jonathan Webber, Agnieszka Wierzcholska, Marcin Wodziski, Tadeusz Woleski, and Emma Zohar. I am grateful to the two external readers of this manuscript for their close and meticulous reading and for their generous and helpful comments and suggestions for revision. I would also like to thank Eitan Gavson and Hannah Landes for their professional and committed language editing of several drafts of this book. Working with the editing team of Cornell University Press has been a great pleasure, and I want to specifically thank Emily Andrew, Karen Laun, and Allegra Martschenko for their patience and immense assistance. Finally, I want to thank my mother, Chaya, and my brother, Adi, for their love and support, and to my Frau Doktor, Orly Rabi, for everything.

During these past few years, I have received generous grants and scholarships from various institutions that have enabled me to focus primarily on this research. These include the Minerva Stiftung, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the Israeli Council for Higher Education, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Israeli Inter-University Academic Partnership in Russian and East European Studies, the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv, the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, and the International Institute for Holocaust Research of Yad Vashem.

Chapter 3 in this book is a revised and extended version of my earlier article: Unsettled Possession: The Question of Ownership of Jewish Sites in Poland after the Holocaust from a Local Perspective, Jewish Culture and History18, no. 1 (2017): 3453. It is used by permission of the publisher (Taylor &Francis Ltd., http://www.tandfonline.com ).

A note on language: I use the Polish version of place names, except when a recognized English version exists, which is phonetically different than the original name. For example, I use Warsaw rather than Warszawa, but I do use Krakw and d instead of Krakow and Lodz.