From Publishers Weekly
How has there come to be a Jewish population more than 100,000 strong in the land Hitler promised to make "Judenrein"? As Gay shows in this intriguing if uneven history, Germany ironically served as a haven for Eastern European Jewish immigrants immediately after the war, when a quarter-million Jews were housed, under the protection of the Allies, in displaced persons camps. Gay's discussion of this is the strongest part of her book, as she deftly examines the dynamics of the "surviving remnant" of European Jewry as it tried to rebuild itself amid the ashes of the Holocaust, creating schools, arts organizations and families. As Gay notes poignantly, "the last flowering, the last living moment of Polish Jewish culture, played itself out in the D.P. camps in Germany." As soon as they could, however, most of the Jews emigrated. Germany's Jewish population then struggled with small numbers and the legacy of Nazism for more than 40 years. As Gay (who won a National Jewish Book Award for Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America) tracks the life of Jews in both East and West Germany, the book loses focus. But as she details the influx of tens of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, the narrative picks up again as she shows how this latest set of refugees has the opportunity to create a new, vibrant German Jewry. 30 illus.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this succinct and well-documented study, Gay, a renowned writer of Jewish history and winner of the 1997 National Jewish Book Award, illustrates the many tensions that have existed for Germany's postwar Jewish population. She draws on both primary and secondary sources to organize her work into six lengthy chapters, each discussing a different aspect of prewar and postwar Jewish experience. Although the title implies that Jews were "safe" in Germany, it is somewhat misleading, as the author clarifies the many difficulties encountered by Jews in reestablishing their communities, their businesses, and their sense of self in both the Allied and the Soviet sectors of Germany. Lynn Rapaport's Jews in Germany After the Holocaust: Memory, Identity and Jewish-German Relations and Michael Brenner's After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Post-War Germany complement Gay's more in-depth analysis of this troubled period. Gay's scholarly yet readable work includes photographs, notes, and an index (not seen). Recommended for all academic libraries. Maria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll. Lib., Painesville, OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"[A]n emotionally charged but historically balanced account in this story of religious introspection. . . . [T]horoughly readable, enjoyable, and instructive." -- Choice
From the Back Cover
"Ruth Gay has turned her considerable talents toward post-World War II Germany and the question of how Jews could still live there after the Holocaust. Her book -- the first to focus on this -- is well written, both scholarly and poignantly human." -Marion Kaplan, New York University An engrossing account of the relative safety that Jews found in Germany after World War II.
About the Author
Ruth Gay has written extensively on Jewish history. Her other books include Jews in America: A Short History and Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America, for which she won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award for nonfiction.
