The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public: The Legacies of David Cesarani

366 Pages·2019·3.318 MB·English

by  Larissa Allwork, Rachel Pistol

THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS CONTEXTS
The Jews, the Holocaust,
and the Public
The Legacies
of David Cesarani
Edited by
Larissa Allwork
Rachel Pistol
The Holocaust and its Contexts
Series Editors
Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann
Loughborough University
Loughborough, UK
Ben Barkow
The Wiener Library
London, UK
More than sixty years on, the Holocaust remains a subject of intense
debate with ever-widening ramifications. This series aims to demonstrate
the continuing relevance of the Holocaust and related issues in contempo-
rary society, politics and culture; studying the Holocaust and its history
broadens our understanding not only of the events themselves but also of
their present-day significance. The series acknowledges and responds to
the continuing gaps in our knowledge about the events that constituted
the Holocaust, the various forms in which the Holocaust has been remem-
bered, interpreted and discussed, and the increasing importance of the
Holocaust today to many individuals and communities.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14433
Larissa Allwork • Rachel Pistol
Editors
The Jews, the
Holocaust, and the
Public
The Legacies of David Cesarani
Editors
Larissa Allwork Rachel Pistol
University of Derby King’s College London
Derby, UK London, UK
The Holocaust and its Contexts
ISBN 978-3-030-28674-3 ISBN 978-3-030-28675-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28675-0
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P
reface
When I first met David Cesarani, I was a second year History undergradu-
ate and he had only just started working at Royal Holloway, University of
London. At that point, I had no idea what a great historian he was. I only
knew him as a kind and somewhat absent-minded Professor. At that stage,
I had no idea that David would supervise my Bachelors, Masters, and
Doctoral theses, or that he would be such an incredible friend and mentor.
We had got to know each other because we kept bumping into each
other on campus. David was unfamiliar with the buildings because he was
new, and I kept giving him directions. When we bumped into each other
at the Royal Holloway student party, he was very surprised to learn that I
was actually a student and not a member of the History staff. He won-
dered why I should have helped him considering there was no financial
gain in it for myself! This was ironic considering that this was how David
worked himself. At that stage, I was convinced that I was going to be an
early-modernist. However, I had just finished an independent research
essay on the internment of Japanese Americans and David asked me if I
realized that internment was an area of his research. That conversation
changed the course of my life, and from that moment on, I was committed
to studying with David.
The following year, when it became time to choose a dissertation topic,
I found that my planned supervisor had no interest in supervising a thesis
on the treatment of aliens in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies. Off I trotted to see David, and in true Cesarani generosity, he
agreed to supervise my dissertation, despite the fact that he would not be
given any credit for it and it increased his workload. But that was David all
v
vi PREFACE
over—constantly receiving requests from students all over the world for
his advice and wisdom, and answering so many of them because he cared
so much about students getting it right. When I spoke to David after he
had marked my undergraduate dissertation I asked him what he thought.
He said, ‘It wasn’t bad…considering you quite obviously wrote it in a
week’. It was just as well that I had only written it in a week, otherwise
that would have been embarrassing! But I realized then that with David
there could be no shortcuts and he would demand excellence, which is
exactly what he demanded from all of his students. That is not to say I
never tried his patience again—after reading my Masters’ thesis, David
told me again that it was not bad, but I could have done considerably bet-
ter had I not written it in two weeks, and that I had better not try to write
my doctorate in 3 weeks! David did not pull his punches when delivering
feedback on students’ work, as anyone who studied under him knows
well. One young man once came up to Dawn and David in a very busy
Leicester Square, jabbed his finger at them and muttered ‘See, see’. David
and Dawn were quite taken aback, only for David to remember that the
young man was in fact a student from Queen Mary’s, to whom he had
given a C. Another former student, Raymond Simonson, remembers
receiving an essay he thought was quite good back with the comment
‘Next time, read the books with your eyes open’. Raymond was incredibly
disappointed but was determined to prove he could write a good essay so
had another go. This time David’s comments on the essay were ‘Eyes
open’ and he had given it a First. That was the thing about David—you
wanted to prove to him that you could achieve what he expected. And
when you did, he was so proud.
David rejoiced in his students’ successes and commiserated when we
were denied opportunities he felt should be ours. He was particularly pro-
tective of his PhD students and could get incredibly excited or incredibly
angry on our behalf. Once he decided to supervise you, you became part
of the family, and indeed joined with the family every Hanukkah and every
summer. He would boast about you to people he met. After seeing Vivi
Lachs perform at one of her Yiddish music concerts, he stood beaming
telling those around him, ‘That’s my student’. When he was congratulated
by members of staff after I passed my viva, he was typically self-effacing
and told them that I had done it all by myself and that it had nothing to
do with him. Of course, that was not the case at all, but I think that is one
of the things that made David truly great—he knew what he was talking
about, but he was not arrogant about the way he conveyed his knowledge.
PREFACE vii
When a student joined the Cesarani academic fold, David emphasized
the need for being a rounded academic. He treated us all as individuals,
and we all had very different experiences of his supervision. David encour-
aged us not only to think about excellence in our academic work but also
emphasized the need to have balanced lives and stressed the importance of
family and relationships. The first piece of advice he gave me when I
started my PhD was incredibly practical—the need for doing sit-ups every
day in order to make sure my core muscles were strong before I visited
libraries and archives. When we were sick or in hospital, David and Dawn
would send ‘get well soon’ messages, and when babies were born, there
would usually be the gift of a, ‘When I grow up I’m going to Royal
Holloway’ babygrow.
David truly cared. When Rachel Century was giving a paper at a confer-
ence at the Imperial War Museum, knowing she was nervous he made sure
that he was the one to ask her an opening question, one that she could
easily answer, in order to put her at ease. When David went to Warsaw for
a conference in 2015 he met up with Kasia Person. As she had no childcare
that day, he accompanied her to a baby friendly play café, where David sat
on a small chair, surrounded by screaming toddlers, sharing his cake with
Kasia’s two year old daughter, whilst describing the power structure of
Nazi police forces. When Steph Hesz-Wood met David at an unsuccessful
job interview in 2012, the last thing she expected was for him to phone
her up the next day, tell her that he had been taught by the same History
teacher at Latymer Upper School, and ask her why she was not consider-
ing studying for a PhD. These are just a few examples, and I could give
you many more. David had a huge heart, and no matter at what stage of
your academic career, he wanted the best for you.
Of course, David wanted to make us fit for the rigours of our discipline,
and constantly shared with us his thoughts on a variety of things, includ-
ing the numerous reasons we should not follow him into academia, and
his dislike of both bureaucracy and technology. David was not the fondest
of either paperwork or computers, but he did like to do things properly.
Once, David realized that although he and I had been meeting through-
out the year, we had not actually filled in any official paperwork. He
decided that the obvious solution would be for the two of us to find as
many different coloured pens as possible, write some brief comments, and
then sign using a variety of pens so that it did not look like we had just sat
there and created a year’s worth of paperwork in one sitting! Studying
with David was certainly never boring. I am sure many of David’s former
viii PREFACE
students can also tell you about how he would vary his comments depend-
ing on the day and his mood. The night before my viva, I visited David at
home, and he sent me away with two books to read overnight, and a warn-
ing to remember that I could not just expect to walk into the viva, answer
a few questions and walk out a doctor. The following morning he arrived
at my viva, asked me why I looked so sad, and told me that I was just going
to walk in a room, answer a few questions and walk out a doctor! He could
be unpredictable, but it was always because he wanted us to achieve to the
very highest of our abilities. The sense of community he engendered
through our twice-yearly gatherings continues to this day, and we main-
tain our own network as former Cesarani students, offering each other
support and advice. For those of us now in academic roles ourselves, we
have used David very much as an example. When we supervise students,
we are following in his footsteps, although I hope he will forgive us for
answering our emails a tad quicker than he used to!
It is a tragedy that David is not here today, working with us, reading
our articles, joking with us about friends or colleagues, or talking to us
about the news, politics, movies, or music, but I think that his spirit cer-
tainly lives on in those he has mentored through the years. I know he
would be proud of our achievements since his passing, and I know that he
continues to expect great things from us in the future. He instilled in us a
sense of excellence as well as purpose, and as we, the next generation of
Cesarani academics, launch and continue our careers, we will endeavour to
show our students the same level of care, excellence, and inspiration that
he showed us. We will continue to reach for the stars, whilst being well-
rounded individuals because that is what David would have wanted his
legacy to be.
This book is dedicated to his memory.
London, UK Rachel Pistol
c
ontents
Part I I ntroduction 1
1 Introduction: The Lives and Legacies of David Cesarani 3
Larissa Allwork and Rachel Pistol
2 David Cesarani: A Historian with Breadth, Depth, and
the Flair of a Raconteur 21
Robert Rozett
Part II Minorities and Nationalisms 43
3 Zionism and the British Labour Party 45
David Feldman
4 History, Politics, and Nationalism in Ireland and Israel:
Legacies of 1922 and 1948 73
Shane Nagle
ix