In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918–1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust

Veidlinger (In the Shadow of the Shtetl), a professor of history and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan, details a little known antecedent to the Holocaust in this revelatory account. Between 1918 and 1921, over 100,000 Jews died as a result of more than 1,000 pogroms carried out in 500 places in what is now Ukraine. Utilizing survivor testimonies and secondary sources, Veidlinger outlines the history of violent anti-Semitism in the Russian Empire before WWI and describes the targeting of Jewish civilians by Polish military units as the war neared its end. False charges that Ukrainian Jews planned to install a Bolshevik government led to 167 pogroms carried out by militias connected to the newly formed Ukrainian People’s Republic in the first three months of 1919. Atrocities were also committed by the Russian White Army, which blamed Jews for the downfall of the czar. Veidlinger notes that American fears that the U.S. would be flooded by Jewish refugees led to the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which dramatically reduced the number of people allowed into the U.S. from Eastern Europe and thereby “ensured that America would be closed to the tens of thousands of European Jews desperate to flee the rise of fascism.” Veidlinger’s crisp prose and extensive research makes the scale of the tragedy immediate and devastating. This is a vital addition to understanding how the Holocaust happened. (Oct.)