This book examines the process of re-establishment of Jewish communities in two post-war
European cities ¿ in Wroc¿aw which passed after 1945 from Germany to Poland and in L¿viv which
passed from Poland to the Soviet Union. These processes were thus overseen by two different
Communist regimes. The book compares similarities and differences in the policies of the two
countries. The attempt to re-establish full-blown Jewish life failed in both cases. This study
explains why the efforts to create communities that were self-identified as Jewish and loyal to
the Communist state did not succeed. After reviewing the prewar history and wartime destruction
of Jews in German Breslau and Polish Lwów the book explores the efforts of the postwar regimes
supported by Jews who had survived the Holocaust to reconstitute Jewish life. It examines the
history of the nascent communities up to 1968 in Wroc¿aw and up to the 1970s in L¿viv. The
comparison is made in relation to five inter-related contexts. These contexts are the official
policies towards Jews of the governments of the Polish People¿s Republic and Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic how these central policies were implemented at the local level the
particular national frameworks of Jewish life in communist Poland and Soviet Ukraine the
effects of popular and official antisemitism on postwar Jewish communities in Wroc¿aw and L¿viv
and the repercussions of the economic and social modernization of the Communist regimes for
local Jewish communities.
