Bombs in Vilnius: Radicalization of Antisemitic Attitudes and Practices Before World War II
Bombs in Vilnius: Radicalization of Antisemitic Attitudes and Practices Before World War II

Summary/Abstract: On the eve of the Holocaust Poland saw enormous acts of antisemitic violence in every aspect of everyday life. This article proposes an analysis of antisemitic acts and actions that under Polish rule took place in Vilnius. In early 1937, the city witnessed a wave of antisemitic bomb attacks. Vilnius violence is set in the context of pogroms in other cities, but it remains an example and a specific model of unconditional radicalization of both nationalist attitudes and practices among Poles from different classes and social strata. The study focuses on the participation of students, prospective or actual members of the intelligentsia, in this “festival of violence”, and analyzes those events within the concepts of pogrom and Victor Turner’s social drama.

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