Please join us for a guest lecture in English on Thursday, 6 April, 2023 at 18:00 in the Woronczak Lecture Hall (room 115) at the Taube Department of Jewish Studies.
In 1956, Polish and Soviet authorities again negotiated terms for a formalized repatriation process – the so-called “Second Repatriation” – leading to the transfer of tens of thousands of people from the Soviet Union to Poland, including thousands of Jews. This talk will examine the situation of Jewish repatriates as they either transited through “repatriation points” in Poland or attempted to settle longer-term into their new localities.
The influx of Jewish repatriates, particularly during the peak repatriation years of 1956-8, raised new questions about the nature and future of Polish Jewry in the post-Stalinist period. Jewish repatriates faced unique challenges in securing employment and housing. In addressing these issues, the issue of Jewish repatriation became a rallying cry for the Jewish community. The pre-existing Polish Jewish community built and reinvigorated public Jewish space, including community infrastructure. Return and repatriation, and the various challenges these processes raised, were foundational elements that brought Jews together in post-Stalinist Poland.
Frankee Lyons is a PhD candidate in Modern Eastern European History at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). She is completing a dissertation entitled Jewish Belonging and the ‘Polish Road to Socialism,’ 1953-60, which examines Jewish experiences during post-Stalinist political liberalization and new migration policies generated in this period. She has taught courses on Polish and Jewish history for UIC and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and she recently served as an historical consultant for the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her research has been funded by Fulbright, Title VIII, and JDC Archives grants.