Konferencja o żydowskich uchodźcach: tematy, kontekst historyczny, aktualność

Abstract

In the introduction to the volume, the author presents the inspiration behind the theme of the XII Conference in the series Jews of Eastern Poland, held annually in Bialystok at the University of Bialystok and the Lukas Gornicki Podlaska Bookstore. In 2023 it was held on June 5–6 and was titled: “Fugitives, those in hiding, refugees. Jewish odysseys.” With this scion, the organizers were inspired by current, world events. First and foremost, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was an onslaught that set in motion a multi-million dollar wave of refugees from Ukraine to Europe and virtually every other continent. Among the victims of the war’s bestiality were Ukrainian Jews who survived the Holocaust, so incredibly poignant in Ukrainian lands. They also later survived the entire era of the USSR, with its repression, the time of transition after its collapse in 1992, and now they have become victims of the aggression of the state that emerged after the crash of the communist utopia, the Russian Federation. The Jews of Ukraine were thus, as widely reported in the world press, evacuated from a country plunged into war to Germany, Poland, America, and the West. Some of them died in this war, which, in the Russian propaganda message, was to “denazify” Ukraine. The conference focused on various past and more recent experiences of Jewish exile.