Central European University Press
On the Margins: Essays on the History of Jews in Estonia
Key Metrics
- Anton Weiss-Wendt
- Central European University Press
- Hardcover
- 9789633861653
- 9.2 X 6.4 X 0.8 inches
- 1.2 pounds
- History > Jewish - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Estonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish history, On the Margins fills this lacuna. Rebuilding a life beyond so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement, the Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia, and the trauma of Soviet occupation of 1940-41 are but few issues addressed in the book. Most profoundly, the book wrestles with the subject of the Holocaust and its legacy in Estonia. Specifically, it examines the quasi-legal system of murder instituted in Nazi-occupied Estonia, confiscation of Jewish property, and Jewish forced labor camps. One the Margins develops an analysis of the causes of collaboration in the Holocaust and explains the dynamics of war crimes trials in the Soviet Union since the 1960s and so-called denaturalization trials in the United States in the 1980s. The haunting memory of Soviet and Nazi rule, the book concludes, prevents a larger segment of the Estonian population today from facing up to the Holocaust and the universal message that it carries.
Author Bio
Mr. Anton Weiss-Wendt received an M.A. in modern Jewish history at New York University and a B.A. in modern European history at the University of Tartu, Estonia. During his fellowship at the Museum, he was a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University.
Anton Weiss-Wendt is a Norwegian academic and historian
For his Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research, Mr. Weiss-Wendt conducted research for his project “The Holocaust in Estonia: The Problem of Indigenous Collaboration.”
Mr. Weiss-Wendt has published several articles in scholarly journals including, “Extermination of the Gypsies in Estonia during World War II” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Spring 2003); “What We Make out of the Holocaust: American and Estonia Compared,” in Vikerkaar (Spring 2001); and “The Soviet Occupation of Estonia in 1940-1941 and the Jews,” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Fall 1998).
He has presented his research at major international scholarly conferences.
In 1999, he spoke on Estonian collaboration at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s symposium, Perspectives on Indigenous Collaboration in the Baltic States during the German Occupation. He has worked for the Robert Wagner Labor Archives at New York University, the Andrei Sakharov Archives at Brandeis, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations.
He is the recipient of numerous awards including Dorot and Fulbright Fellowships as well as grants from the Soros Foundation, Max Kade Foundation, and German-American Exchange Program (DAAD).
Source: Holocaust Memorial Museum
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