Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland Yizkor Book

Proposal
Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland Yizkor Book

Project Name Translation Pinkas Novy-Dvor, (Memorial book of Nowy-Dwor)

Project Coordinator

JewishGen Yizkor Book Project Manager: Lance Ackerfeld

Project Synopsis

The project will translate the 575 page Pinkas Novy-Dvor written in Hebrew and Yiddish into English. A translation of the table of contents online at http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Nowy_dwor/Nowy_dwor.html and the published text's nineteen page synopsis in English indicates the historical value of the contents.

Key Audiences

The editorial remarks that open the synopsis clearly identify one intended audience, “the fortunate children and grandchildren of the Jews of Novy-Dvor.” However, the text also serves as a primary source for the descendents of other Eastern European Jewish communities which have not produced memorial books. Life in various Jewish communities echoed one another while distinctions defined each as unique. The specific nature of the text, including the citation of witnesses' names, also addresses the needs of a professional, scholarly historian, particularly historians researching the Holocaust, Poland's interwar years, the history of Jews in Europe, and labor history.

Project Importance

Pinkas Novy-Dvor is a primary source of historical significance, preserving information about a kind of life that was annihilated during World War II and the origins of that way of life. It addresses both personal and scholarly audiences. The narratives and details relate to religious, social, political, and economic aspects of life. In many ways, geography determined Novy-Dvor's destiny. Because Warsaw is so close to Novy-Dvor, this small town embodied both the cosmopolitan influence of Warsaw and the traditional practices of Eastern European shtetls. Pinkas Novy-Dvor provides a complex picture of life that echoes typical depictions of Eastern European Jewry and rebuts stereotypes. Novy-Dvor's economic biography contains eras of immigration of Jews from other distant and distinct regions, waves of industrialization, development as a Hebrew publishing center, and the rise of political, social, and labor movements. There are surprising impressive accomplishments. A vivid depiction of interwar politics and struggles of Jews in Poland emerges. It provides specific eyewitness accounts of events in Novy-Dvor from 1939 to 1946. An English translation of this important resource, currently available in Hebrew and Yiddish at YIVO and online at the New York Public Library website, would allow many more scholars access to a valuable source of information. It would allow the descendents of the Jews of Novy-Dvor access to their past.

Project Description

Translators will translate, into English, the 575 page primary source Pinkas Novy-Dvor written in Hebrew or Yiddish, including captions of the historic photographs. It includes specific witnessed accounts for the years of 1939 through 1946. The book was published in 1965 by the Organizations of Former Novy-Dvor Jews in Israel, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, and France by “Shikun Novy-Dvor” in Holon, Israel. This translation fulfills the writers' and publishers' stated “hope that some day this entire book will be translated and published in English.” They saw “this Memorial Volume” as “a literary monument in honor of the destroyed Novy-Dvor community and the thousands of its martyrs.” Debra Michlewitz will serve as project coordinator and will work with the translator.

Estimated Cost

Currently the estimated cost is $17,000. The estimate will be revised as the project progresses.