In the imme­di­ate after­math of the Sec­ond World War, the emo­tion­al land­scape of post-war Europe was pro­found­ly shaped by the inter­twined notions of ret­ri­bu­tion and phys­i­cal revenge, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Holo­caust sur­vivors. While much schol­ar­ly atten­tion has focused on extra-legal purges in post-war Europe, the expe­ri­ences of indi­vid­ual Pol­ish Jews have large­ly been over­looked.
The Hour of Revenge address­es this crit­i­cal gap, explor­ing the par­tic­u­lar jour­ney of Pol­ish Jews as they nav­i­gat­ed the com­plex­i­ties of their post-con­flict real­i­ties. Katarzy­na Per­son exam­ines how these indi­vid­u­als not only con­front­ed their trau­mat­ic pasts but also active­ly con­tributed to the recon­struc­tion of their communities.

Cross­ing the tra­di­tion­al his­to­ri­o­graph­i­cal divide between ​“West” and ​“East,” Per­son illus­trates how Pol­ish Jews moved between these zones before the Iron Cur­tain descend­ed, how they rec­on­ciled mem­o­ries of the war and their for­mer lives, and how they built emo­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties in the face of loss. The book con­tributes to a more inte­gra­tive, mul­ti-eth­nic his­to­ry of post-war Poland and to the glob­al his­to­ry of soci­etal recon­struc­tion in the wake of con­flict. In an era of mass migra­tion, The Hour of Revenge sheds light on con­nec­tions to pre-war home­lands as expres­sions of inte­gra­tion and exclusion.