Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

When the Communist parties took over in eastern Europe, many of their leading cadres were of Jewish origin. This was particularly marked at the level just below the top: the Communist police chiefs in Poland and Hungary were Jewish, as were economic policy makers, administrative secretaries, prominent journalists and Party theorists. In Hungary the Party leader (Mátyás Rákosi) was Jewish; in Romania, Czechoslovakia and Poland the Party leader was not Jewish but most of the core leadership group were. Jewish Communists throughout the Soviet bloc owed everything to Stalin. They were not much welcome in the countries to which they had returned, often after long exile: neither as Communists nor as Jews. Experience of war and occupation had made the local