Pre-war Jewish Life in Europe

Teacher and students in a heder in Lublin, Poland, in the 1920s. These Jewish elementary schools taught the basic elements of Judaism and created generations of literate Jews. Photographer: Alter Kacyzne (killed in a Nazi pogrom in 1941).

A housewife, ca. 1935–1938. Vishniac’s images, while profound and moving, offer only a limited portrayal of the Jewish population in pre-World War II Europe. They helped to shape images of eastern European Jews as poor and traditional.

Three generations of a Jewish family in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in 1938 or 1939. In the eighteenth century, Vilnius (Vilna in Yiddish) was a center of Jewish learning. By the 1920s and 1930s roughly a half of the city’s inhabitants were Jews.

A group of Jewish children, prewar, Lublin, Poland. Between the two world wars, Jews constituted Poland’s second-largest minority group. While many Polish Jews still lived a traditional life in rural towns, many moved to cities, where many quickly acculturated to modern life.

A volleyball team in Szczuczyn, Poland. In the interwar years, it was not uncommon for Jewish children to participate in school or community recreational activities with non-Jewish children. Despite the lurking danger of antisemitism, Jews often had close relationships with Christians, which led many to believe that Jewish integration was possible and might even be welcomed.

A studio portrait of two German-Jewish soldiers in Wollstein, Germany, during World War I, circa 1917.

Irenka and Eliska Huber, sisters, at their home in Czechoslovakia in 1920.

Members of a Polish symphony in the 1930s, including many Jewish musicians.

A small ensemble of Jewish musicians performs in Riga, Latvia, in the 1930s.