An Ordinary Polish Town: The Homecoming of Holocaust Survivors to Kalisz in the Immediate Aftermath of the War

Abstract

The rapidly growing historiography on the aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland has focused primarily on post-war anti-Semitism. Scholars have traditionally concentrated on the post-war death, community destruction and emigration of Holocaust survivors rather than their attempts to return to their former homes. This article explores who these survivors were and what their return was like. Using the medium-sized industrial town of Kalisz in western Poland as a case study, the article argues that the composition of survivors' communities and the difficulty of adapting to the new economic reality, together with the already well-researched anti-Jewish violence, played a significant role in preventing a revival of Jewish communal life in provincial Poland in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.