“Engines Of Acculturation”: The Last Political Generation of Jewish Women in Interwar East Europe

Abstract

This study explores the formation of a political generation of Jewish women in interwar East Europe. Based on questionnaire data obtained from the Survivors of the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp for Women and on secondary historical materials, it applied Mannheim's theory of political generations and the conditions for the formation of ''generational units'' under the impression of ''fresh contact'' in order to examine the role of class, education, and religiosity in the formation of political generations. Under the specific socio-historical circumstances analyzed, it is argued that Jewish women who came of age in interwar East Europe formed, perhaps for the first time a distinct political generation, as evidenced by high rates of political participation and assimilation into the thriving secular nationalistic culture of their time.