Hardback
November 7, 2023
9780253066954
English
318
1 color illus, 4 b&w illus.
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
$90.00 USD, £70.00 GBP
v2.1 Reference
Paperback / softback
November 7, 2023
9780253066961
English
318
1 color illus, 4 b&w illus.
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
$48.00 USD, £37.00 GBP
v2.1 Reference

Home after Fascism

Italian and German Jews after the Holocaust

Home after Fascism draws on a rich array of memoirs, interviews, correspondence, and archival research to tell the stories of Italian and German Jews who returned to their home countries after the Holocaust. The book reveals Jews' complex and often changing feelings toward their former homes and highlights the ways in which three distinct national contexts—East German, West German, and Italian—shaped their answers to the question, is this home?

Returning Italian and German Jews renegotiated their place in national communities that had targeted them for persecution and extermination. While most Italian Jews remained deeply attached to their home country, German Jews struggled to feel at home in the "country of murderers." Yet, some retained a sense of belonging through German culture and language or felt attached to a specific region or city. Still others looked to the future; socialist and communists of Jewish origin hoped to build a better Germany in the Soviet Occupied Zone. In all three postwar states, surviving Jews fought against persistent antisemitism, faced the challenge of recovering lost homes and possessions, struggled to make sense of their persecution, and tried to find ways to reclaim a sense of belonging.

Wide ranging and moving, Home after Fascism enriches our understanding of Jews' homecoming experiences after 1945. It reveals the deep affection and persistent love people feel for their homes, the suffering that comes with losing them, and the challenges of a return.

Reviews

"Anna Koch has written a fascinating and differentiated account of the German and Italian Jews who returned to their homelands after World War Two. Closely based on memoirs and archival documentation, Home after Fascism lucidly explores how German and Italian Jews had to redefine notions of home in order to find a place in the countries which had persecuted them."—Bill Niven, Professor Emeritus of Contemporary German History, Nottingham Trent University
Indiana University Press
The Modern Jewish Experience

9780253066954 : home-after-fascism-koch
Hardback
November 7, 2023
$90.00 USD
9780253066961 : home-after-fascism-koch
Paperback / softback
November 7, 2023
$48.00 USD

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