University as a Pogrom Site: Anti-Jewish Violence on Campuses in Central Europe

• In Event: Pogroms of Jews in 20th Century Central Europe: Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

This talk explores violent outburst that took places at universities in East Central Europe in the interwar period. Indeed, university spaces: lecture halls, laboratories, libraries and staircases became sites of daily attacks against Jewish male and female students. The phenomenon shaped the generational experience of students of esteemed institutions in Vienna, Cracow, as well as universities that were re-established in the new political borders changing their faculty and language of instruction such as Bratislava and Cluj. What patterns emerge from delving into these events transnationally? What did the violence experience by Jewish students reveal about Jewish and non-Jewish project of national rejuvenation and self-defence?

Author

• Natalia Aleksiun, U of Florida