Die Volksrepublik Polen befand sich Ende der 1960er Jahre in einer wirtschaftlichen und innenpolitischen Krise. Das Regime in Warschau nahm den Sechs-Tage-Krieg zwischen Israel und den arabischen Staaten des Jahres 1967 zum Anlass, ein Exempel an den wenigen Zehntausend nach der Schoah im Land verbliebenen Juden zu statuieren und sie als politische Sündenböcke zu brandmarken. Über 3000 polnische Juden wählten in Folge der offiziell lancierten „Antizionistischen Kampagne“ Israel als neues Heimatland. Dort trafen sie auf eine Gesellschaft, die in zahllose Konflikte verstrickt war: den Krieg gegen die benachbarten arabischen Staaten, der Okkupation der Palästinensergebiete und den innenpolitischen Spannungen zwischen europäischen und orientalischen, religiösen und säkularen Juden. Neben einer historischen Einordnung der Migration nimmt der Autor auch deren Analyse unter migrationspsychologischen Aspekten vor. Die beschriebenen Erfahrungen werden im beiliegenden Dokumentarfilm „There Is No Return To Egypt“ veranschaulicht, in dem Zeitzeugen dieser sogenannten 1968er-Migration in ihrem heutigen Lebensumfeld in Israel zu Wort kommen. / At the end of the 1960s the Peoples Republic of Poland was plunged into an economical and domestic political crisis. In the light of the Six-Days-War of 1967 between Israel and the Arab states the regime in Warsaw took this war as an occassion to make an example of the few tens of thousands of Polish Jews, who had remained in the country after the Shoah, and to cast them as political scapegoats. As a result of an officially launched "anti-Zionist campaign", more than 3.000 Polish Jews left Poland and chose Israel as their new homeland. There they encountered a society entangled in numerous conflicts: the war against the neighboring Arab states, the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the domestic tensions between European and oriental, secular and religious Jews. In this work, the author gives a historical and sociological ovierview and classification of the migration of Polish Jews to Israel. He also analyzes the psycholigical aspects of this migration. The migration experiences of several protagonists and their integration into the Israeli society of the 21st century are visualized in the attached documentary "There Is No Return To Egypt".

In Holocaust research, the study of elderly Jews in Nazi German ghettos remains a blind spot. This thesis begins to fill the research gap by exploring the everyday life of elderly Jews and their agency under the structural conditions of the Warsaw ghetto. On a broader scale, my key findings contribute to scholarly debates and lay the foundation for further research, on Jewish responses to ghettoization and agency during the Holocaust, including the continuity and disruption of gender roles and social hierarchies in the family and Jewish ghetto community as well as religious practices as a coping strategy for elderly Jews in the ghetto. The theoretical framework augments current gender scholarship and explanations of agency and structure in the ghetto with intersectional theory, including gender, class as intervening variables, which represents a barely used theoretical approach to an under-researched subject. To answer my main research question "How did gender, class, and family as well as the Jewish community and German authorities influence the life of elderly Jews in the ghetto?”, the analysis is conducted in the tradition of the history of the everyday on the micro-level. My empirical analysis examines the living conditions, agency, survival, and vulnerability to violence and death of elderly people in the Warsaw ghetto. The primary sources used in the empirical analysis are a combination of archival documents - including the clandestine Oneg Shabbat ghetto archive -, diaries and memoirs by elderly Jews as well as oral history interviews of their grandchildren. A general scarcity of sources by elderly, especially poor elderly and female elderly Jews in the primary sources available to the author, constitute the limitations of this thesis.

Laurence Prempain consacre sa thèse de doctorat d’histoire aux Polonais-es et Juif-ve-s polonais-es venu-e-s vivre à Lyon (France) entre 1935 et 1945. Dans une première partie, elle présente le cadre géographique (Lyon) ainsi que sa méthodologie (approche par le genre, choix de la microhistoire, le silence comme source) et sa volonté de donner à entendre leurs voix afin de les placer au coeur de sa démarche. Pour cela, suite au dépouillement de quelque 600 dossiers administratifs constitués par le bureau de contrôle des étrangers (préfecture du Rhône), les lettres qu’ils-elles ont écrites ont été collectées pour ce qu’elles mettent au jour de la lutte de leurs auteur-e-s pour vivre et survivre. L’historienne part du postulat que les Polonais-es et Juif-ve-s polonais-es venu-e-s en France composent une population hétérogène n’ayant en commun qu’un rattachement à une citoyenneté, mais qu’ils-elles n’en demeurent pas moins des réfugié-e-s économiques, politiques ou de guerre. Ainsi, un temps considéré-e-s comme les bienvenu-e-s, les ressortissant-e-s polonais-es sont tous-tes, à un moment de leur parcours de vie, considéré-e-s comme indésirables. Aussi, la deuxième partie est consacrée à l’exploration des procédés auxquels la Troisième République, puis le régime de Vichy ont recours : expulsions, refoulements, exclusions, internements sinon déportation. Par ailleurs, l’auteure s’intéresse aux sorties de guerre et démontre l’existence d’une dimension genrée de l’épuration, comme expression d’une tentative de réappropriation de l’autorité. L’attention est également portée sur l’organisation du rapatriement des étranger-ère-s déporté-e-s raciaux et politiques. Enfin, dans une troisième partie, elle affirme que loin de subir, ces hommes et femmes agissent et développent des stratégies évolutives. Au travers des lettres qu’ils-elles ont écrites, de ce qui est dit mais aussi passé sous silence, elle établit que ces stratégies semblent relever de ce qu’elle choisit de nommer esquive et transgression. L’une s’accommode des limites quand l’autre s’y oppose délibérément. Esquive et transgression se complètent. Il est montré qu’à l’arbitraire sans cesse croissant du régime de Vichy, répondent des stratégies de plus en plus transgressives, dont relèvent notamment le passage de frontière, l’entrée en clandestinité et en résistance. Le passage d’une forme de stratégie à l’autre dépend de l’individu, du contexte, de ses habiti, de son parcours et de son identité. L’historienne conclut qu’en 2016, la crise des réfugié-e-s qui secoue l’Europe résonne des mêmes voix, de celles et ceux qui cherchent à protéger leurs vies et à vivre dans la dignité / Laurence Prempain dedicates her PhD (History) to the study of the Poles and Polish Jews who came to live in Lyon (France) between 1935 and 1945. In the first part, she presents the geographical framework (Lyon), her methodology (Gender approach, microhistory and silence as a source) and her will to understand their voices and place them to the heart of her work. For that purpose, upon the examination of approximately 600 administrative files amassed by the « bureau des étrangers » (préfecture du Rhône), the letters they wrote have been then systematically collected to shed light on their authors’ struggle to live and survive. The historian starts from the postulate that Poles and Polish Jews in France make up a heterogeneous population, only sharing a common citizenship, nonetheless they remain economic, political and war refugees. Thus, once considered welcomed, all Polish nationals are , at their life, considered as unwanted, « indésirables ». Therefore, the second part investigates the processes used by the Third Republic and then the Vichy Regime to get rid of them: expulsions, driving back, exclusions, internments or deportation. Moreover, the author raises the question of the war ends and demonstrates that purges have a gendered dimension, which can be seen as an attempt of reappropriation of the authority. She also focuses on the foreign deportees repatriation’s organisation. Finally, in a third part, she asserts that far from being subjected, these men and women have acted and developped evolutive strategies. Through the letters they wrote, through what is said and what is silenced, she establishes that those strategies are a matter of what she names sidestep and transgression. The first one adapts itself with the limits while the other is deliberately opposed to it. Sidestep and transgression complete each other. It is also showed that to the arbitrary of the richy regime respond strategies more and more transgressive, such as clandestinity, cross borders and resistance. The moving from a strategy to another one, depends on the person, the context, the habits, the life course and the identity. The historian concludes that in 2016, the refugees crisis that shakes Europe resonates of the same voices, of those who are looking for protecting their lives and to living in dignity..