Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland
An excellent book. Meng deftly describes how the material legacy of the Holocaust continues to force people in Eastern and Central Europe to confront the past. He brings ideological concerns, questions of identity and nationalism, architectural ideals, and even quotidian construction issues into a seamless narrative. Debunking any simplistic divide between West and East, he offers a much more nuanced and ambiguous picture that takes into account the complex factors that characterized post-WWII Europe. (Brian Porter-Szűcs, author ofFaith and Fatherland)Meng deals with a highly original and interesting topic, which has been largely unexplored, in its comparative, transnational aspects. His research is extremely thorough, and his choice of Jewish "shattered sites" in Warsaw, East and West Berlin, Wroclaw, Potsdam and Essen is very judicious, as it allows us to observe both the big scene and smaller local initiatives. (Saul Friedländer, author ofNazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945)In his pathbreaking and perceptive study, Meng digs through the neglected ruins of Jewish urban life after 1945 to uncover fascinating clues about the complex ways in which Germans and Poles dealt with the physical legacy of genocide. Rigorously researched and commendably comparative, the book makes an important contribution to the fields of Jewish history, Holocaust history, and memory studies. (Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, author ofBuilding after Auschwitz)An extraordinary study of remembering and the sites of memory in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Meng poses important questions and offers illuminating insights, while comparing Jewish sites in West Germany, East Germany, and Poland. This is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the relation of the Holocaust to postwar Central Europe. (Larry Wolff, author ofThe Idea of Galicia)