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History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume III, From the Accession of Nicholas II until the Present Day

Simon Dubnow

Simon Dubnow was born in 1860 to a poor Jewish family in Belarussian town of Mstsislaw and later became authority of Jewish history and an activist. Due to his Jewish origin, he had to move to St.Petersburg, Odessa, Vilna(Lithuania), St.Petersburg, Kaunas, Berlin and finally Riga. When Nazi troops occupied Latvia 1941, he was moved with thousands of other Jews to Riga ghetto and was eventually killed. His life is a symbol of Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe. In this book Jews have been migrating from Germany and other European countries to Poland since late middle ages where they were protected by Polish kings mainly for their economic contribution, but frequently persecuted by Christians whenever there were pretexts or kings' power was not strong enough to protect Jews. After Poland was annexed by Russia in late 18C they became object of systematic persecution by Russian government. This tragedy is parallel to the life of the author culminating at Nazi Holocaust. - Summary by S. S Kim