Edited by: Eliyana R. Adler and Natalia Aleksiun
The Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of Europe led to the atomization of the social relationships of the victims. Families were ripped apart. Entire communities were ghettoized and isolated from the outside world. The forced removal of the Jews from the midst of the non-Jewish population facilitated the crimes committed against them, significantly limited the assistance they could rely on, and restricted the number of witnesses to their persecution and murder. However, despite the devastation, disruption, and loss brought by the Holocaust, prewar patterns and lationships continued to shape decisions and actions by Jews and non-Jews both during and after the war. Even in extremis, they often relied on established networks of support that had been forged in very different circumstances. Jewish victims as well as bystanders and perpetrators relied on the already familiar cohort of relatives, neighbors, peers, and colleagues to support and assist them during this time. Just as these networks brought people with various backgrounds together, Entanglements of War compiles a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives to reveal invaluable findings about the relationships, choices, and actions that shaped these complex connections, and their impact on Jewish lives during the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath.
