Format of the workshop
Date: October 19-22, 2026
Organizers: SGH Warsaw School of Economics & POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Organizing committee: Marcin Wroński (SGH) & Zachary Mazur (POLIN)
POLIN’s Global Education Outreach Program supports the event.
Contact: marcin.wronski@sgh.waw.pl
The workshop will involve 10-15 participants. The papers will be pre-circulated prior to the workshop. Each piece will be allotted a 45-60 minute discussion slot. Each paper session will be assigned a chair who is responsible for starting off the discussion with a few key points and keeping order.
This workshop brings together historians and social scientists to examine a single core problem: how pre-war socioeconomic structures interacted with discrimination and wartime institutions of violence to shape (i) exposure to persecution and survival strategies, (ii) the appropriation and redistribution of Jewish property, and (iii) postwar social stratification, mobility, and urban change.
- Justification
The First World War reshaped Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to a greater extent than in any other region. New states were (re)born on the ruins on empires. The principle of self-determination was intended to grant each nation its own state, but in practice, the newly independent states resembled mini-Habsburg empires, containing substantial national minorities (Judson, 2018; Conelly, 2020). The nation states in practice turned out to be “nationalizing states” (Brubaker, 1996; Sundhaussen, 2001; Hilbrenner & Dahlman, 2007; Müller, 2020). However, the economic and social history of the 20th century Central and Eastern Europe remains focused on majoritarian nations. National perspectives are dominant, and comparative approaches are rare.
Jews performed a specific role in CEE economies. Almost all lived in cities, they were significantly better educated that the general population. Jews were overrepresented (in comparison with their population share) in industry, trade (especially finance) and liberal professions (doctors, lawyers, journalists), they were also more likely to be self-employed (Schiper, 1932; Kuzents, 1960; Mendelshon, 1983; Silber, 1992). Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Kuzents (1960) published an extensive statistical analysis of the economic activity of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, concluding that in all countries of the region, they were underrepresented in agriculture, overrepresented in industry and trade, and among the self-employed. The exact structure varied across countries, but the general pattern was the same everywhere. The urbanization and employment in the modern sectors of the economy resulted in a privileged position in the distribution of income and wealth (Halmos, 2009; Wroński, 2025) and overrepresentation (once again compared against the population share) in the middle class. The Jews had a valuable human capital, which disappeared rapidly during the Holocaust.
Available research suggests that the economic and social position of Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe weakened during the interwar period. This shift likely reflected (i) structural pressures on occupations in which Jews were disproportionately represented (especially small trade, petty manufacturing, and certain liberal professions), and (ii) the rise of antisemitism and economic nationalism, including discriminatory state practices – willingness to tax Jewish citizens, but reluctance to employ them in the public sector or extend equal access to licensing, credit, and education (Karlip, 2013; Mazur, 2022; Wroński, 2025).
In 2012, King posed the question: “Can There Be a Political Science of the Holocaust?” (King, 2012). In the decade following this question, there has been a notable increase in quantitative research on the Holocaust—its causes, course, and consequences —across economics, economic history, political science, and sociology. Kopstein et al. (2023) offers an excellent discussion of the emerging empirical social science of the Holocaust. In the field of economics Akbulut-Yuksel & Yuksel (2015) estimated the long-run negative effects of the expulsion of Jews on human capital in Germany, Waldinger (2010, 2012) quantified detrimental effects of dismissal of Jewish scientists for German science, Moser et al. (2014) documented the positive impact of Jewish immigrants from Nazi Germany on US invention, while Huber et al. (2021) showed that aryanizations negatively impacted economic outcomes of the companies. Acemoglu et al. (2011) demonstrated the negative impact of the Holocaust on urban development and the size of the middle class in Russia. The quantitative method has also been used to study the survival probability, the outcomes highlight the importance of social capital/personal connections with non-Jewish people, with some importance left also to economic factors (Suderland, 2013; Tames, 2017).
One of the major social consequences of World War II was the emergence of a “social void”: the mass murder of Jews, the forced emigration of Germans and other minorities, and the elimination of large landowners as a distinct social class removed entire strata from local society. As Kaufman (1997, p. 5) remarked: “Much has been written about what the Holocaust did to Jews. But little has been said about what it did to Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland—how it deprived these countries of generations of artists, scientists, writers, and entrepreneurs; even more, of an entire worldview.” Istvan Daek (2003, p. 207) argued that the disappearance of legally, economically, or culturally privileged minorities (Poles in Ukraine, Germans in Romania, Poland, and Russia, Jews everywhere) brought more significant changes than the rise of national ideologies such as fascism or communism.
Recently, there has been a growing interest among historians social scientists in social void and its consequences (Wylegała, 2023; Wylegała et al., 2023). Leder (2014, 2016) interpreted World War II and the Holocaust in Poland as a social revolution that allowed a post-feudal society to transition into modernity. The mass murder of Jews created significant opportunities for upward social mobility for those who survived.
The potential topics include, but are not limited to:
1) economic & social foundations of Jewish life during the interwar period (e.g., position in occupational, income, wealth distribution; the cooperation and competition with non-Jewish people; Jewish business community, working class)
2) the impact of rising antisemitism and economic nationalism on Jewish economic and social life (e.g., the evolution of the position of Jewish minority in the economy/income distribution, change in the occupational structure of Jewish minority, access to liberal professions, education, public administration, the prospect of Jewish youth) ;
3) the Jewish response to rising antisemitism in the 1930s (e.g., emigration, political coalitions, professional decisions, business strategies & asset allocation);
4) the economic & social selection during the Holocaust (e.g., the role of income/wealth/class/occupation for the survival strategy & their impact on the survival rate; Jewish elite vs. masses, tensions within the Jewish community)
5) the plunder of Jewish wealth during Holocaust (e.g., Jewish economic institutions in the years 1939 – 1945, Jews as partial-owners of companies, the relations between Jewish and non-Jewish people; the role of Germans/Nazis vs. the local/native population; architecture of plunder & legislative dimension; notarial & business archives; the value of plundered wealth)
6) the post-war property transfers (e.g., the fate of Jewish wealth after the mass murder of European Jewry; the post-war legislative approach to assets previously owned by Jews; real estate; business wealth; financial assets, banks & financial institutions; communal assets; the restitution of Jewish property after 1945/after 1989; judicial cases)
7) the social & economic legacy of the Holocaust (impact on economic development; social stratification; spatial & social mobility; social void; legacy in urban life; short-run and long-run impact)The workshop is open to diverse disciplinary approaches, including (but not limited to): microhistory, cases studies, local & regional studies; comparative research quantitative history/empirical social sciences, economic history & cliometrics, business history; digital humanities, economics, legal studies.
The workshop will be conducted in English. Selected contributions will be invited for submission to a special issue of Historical Social Research (to be confirmed). All submissions will undergo internal screening and external peer review, and final publication decisions will be based on the outcome of the review process.
- Important Dates and Logistics
Please submit an extended abstract to marcin.wronski@sgh.waw.pl by April 15th.
The workshop will take place at SGH Warsaw School of Economics. Organizers do not cover travel & accommodation costs.
Deadlines:
1. Submission of extended abstract (500 – 1,000 words) April 15th
2. Notification of selection decision April 26th 2026
3. Submission of completed papers: August 15th 2026
4. Peer-review August – September 2026
5. Workshop: October 19th – 22th 2026
6. Submission of revised papers: November 30th 2026
7. Publication of special issue: 2027- References
- Acemouglu, D., Hassan, T. & Robinson, A. (2011). Social Structure and Development: A Legacy of the Holocaust in Russia. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(2), 895 – 946.
- Akbulut-Yuksel, M., & Yuksel, M. (2015). The Long-Term Direct and External Effects of Jewish Expulsions in Nazi Germany. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 7(3), 58–85.
- Brubaker, Rogers (1996). Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Conelly, John (2020). From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Daek, I. (2003). How to construct a Productive, Disciplined, Monoethnic Society. The Dilemma of East Central European Governments, 1914–1956,”. In: Weiner, A. (Ed.) Landscaping the Human Garden, Twentieth-Century Population Management in a Comparative Framework, ed. A. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Halmos, K., 2009. Az egyszazalekos tamogatas es a szaz evvelezelo˝ ttiegyha ziado [The one-year subsidy and the one-hundred-year-old household tax]. In: Halmos, K., et al. (Eds.), Torte neti tanulmanyok Kover Gyorgy tiszteletere [Studies in honor of Gyorgy Kover]. Szazadve´. Budapest, 504–513
- Hilbrenner, Annke & Dahlmann, Dittmar (2007), Zwischen grossen Erwartungen und bösem Erwachen: Juden, Politik und Antisemitismus in Ost- und Südosteuropa 1918-1945. Leiden: Brill.
- Huber, K., Lindenthal, V., Waldinger, F. (2021). Discrimination, Managers, and Firm Performance: Evidence from “Aryanizations” in Nazi Germany. Journal of Political Economy, 129(9), 2455-503.
- Kaufmann, J. (1997). A Hole in the Heart of the World : Being Jewish in Eastern Europe. New York: Penguin Press
Karlip, Joushua M. (2013). The Tragedy of a Generation. The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press - King, C. (2012). Can There Be a Political Science of the Holocaust?. Perspectives on Politics, 10(2), 323 – 341.
- Kopstein, J.S., Subotić, J. & Welch, S. (2023). Politics, Violence, Memory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Kuznets, S. (1960). Economic Structure and Life of the Jews. In: Finkelstein, L. (Ed.), The Jews. New York: Harper.
- Leder, A. (2014). Prześniona rewolucja. Ćwiczenie z logiki historycznej (The Sleepwalkers’ Revolution: Exercises in Historical Logic). Warszawa: Krytyka Polityczna
- Leder, A. (2016). The sleepwalkers’ revolution. Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest, 47(4), 29-55.
- Judson, P. M. (2018). The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press.
- Mazur, Zach (2022). The Grabski Tax Reform and Jewish Merchants: State Building in Interwar Poland. East European Politics and Societies, 36(2), 626 – 643
- Mendelshon, J. (1983). The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars. The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.
- Moser, P. Voena, A. & Walindger, F. (2014). German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention. American Economic Review, 104(10), 3222 – 255.
- Müller, Dietmar (2020). Statehood in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe: The interwar period. [In:] The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, ed. W. Borodziej, S. Ferhadbegović and J. von Puttkamer. New York: Routledge
- Rosner, A. (2014). Obraz społeczności ocalałych w Centralnej Kartotece Wydziału Ewidencji i Statystyki CKŻP (The Image of the Survivor Community in the Central Registry of the Department of Records and Statistics of the Central Committee of Polish Jews). Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny.
- Schiper, I. (1932). Żydzi w Polsce odrodzonej dzialalność spoleczna, gospodarcza, oświatowa i kulturalna (Jews in Reborn Poland: Social, Economic, Educational, and Cultural Activity). Warszawa: Żydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej.
- Sundhaussen, Holm (2001). Unerwünschte Staatsbürger: Grundzüge des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts in den Balkanländern und Rumänien. [In:] Staatsbürgerschaft in Europa: Historische Erfahrungen und aktuelle Debatten, ed. Ch. Conrad and J. Kocka. Hamburg, Edition Körber Stiftung.
- Suderland, M. (2013). Inside Concentration Camp. Social Life at the Extremes. Malden: Polity Press.
- Tammes, P. (2017). Surviving the Holocaust: Socio-demographic Differences Among Amsterdam Jews. European Journal of Population, 33(3), 293 – 318.
- Waldinger, F. (2010). Quality Matters: The Expulsion of Professors and the Consequences for PhD Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany. Journal of Political Economy, 118(4), 787-831.
- Waldinger, F. (2012). Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany. Review of Economic Studies, 79(2), 838 – 861
- Wroński, M. (2025). Income distribution in Poland, 1924–1945: pro-poor growth, ethnic inequality, and the consequences of World War II and the Holocaust. Unpublished manuscript, under review at Economic History Review
- Wylegała, A. (2021). The Void Communities: Towards a New Approach to the Early Post-war in Poland and Ukraine. East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 35(2), 407 – 436.
- Wylegała, A., Rutar, S. & Łukaniow, M. (2023). No Neigborhs’ Land in Postwar Europe. Vanishing Others. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Workshop is supported by POLIN’s Global Education Outreach Program.