Poland Reborn
A State Between Democracy and Fascism
Tuesday, February 26, 2016 - The Magnes Collection - 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley 94720-6300
This lecture will focus on Poland's attitude toward Jews after the end of World War I in 1918. On the one hand it accommodated the demands of generations of freedom fighters, while on the other, it quickly became a dysfunctional democracy that lapsed into authoritarian rule. Developments after 1926 opened the door for xenophobia and discrimination. Yet this was far from a totalitarian order. The state arrested fascists, and in the late 1930s became a place of modest hopes for reform, where Polish and Jewish parties left of center collaborated, and where the government, with overwhelming support of the population, became the first to say no to Hitler’s expanding rule.
Speaker: John Connelly, Professor of History at U.C. Berkeley and curent director of the Institute for East European, European, Eurasian, and Slavic Studies.
for more information visit: https://magnes.berkeley.edu/programs/around-arthur-szyk-berkeley-scholar...
