Reuben Ainsztein

Reuben Ainsztein (also Rubin Ajnsztejn , born 1917 in Vilnius , Russian Empire , † December 6, 1981 in Little Hadham, Hertfordshire , England ) was a Polish - British journalist and publicist .

origin

Reuben grew up as the son of Zelman and Hannah Ainsztein in Wilna, the most important Jewish metropolis in the Polish- Lithuanian area at the time.

Discrimination, flight and war

Because it because of its Jewish in Poland origin discrimination was more Reuben Ainsztein to Belgium and began 1936 in Brussels a medical degree . After the outbreak of World War II , he decided to go to Great Britain to fight German troops as a soldier. However, this project initially failed because the Wehrmacht also occupied Belgium in the course of the western campaign . Ainsztein flees from the German access through France and Spain . There he was interned for 14 months before finally arriving in the British Isles via Gibraltar . Overcoming initial concerns from British military authorities, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1940 . He worked for the Royal Air Force's military intelligence and took part in more than twenty air raids between September 1944 and January 1945 as a gunner . After the end of the war, he learned that his sister had been murdered by the Germans near Kaiserwald and that his parents had died near Paneriai. On February 8, 1949, he was naturalized as a British citizen.

Journalistic activities

In the following years Ainsztein, who spoke eleven languages, including Yiddish , Polish , Russian and Hebrew , made a career as a journalist. He worked for Reuters , the BBC and The Sunday Times . Ainsztein's contributions have also appeared in The Times , New Statesman , Jewish Quarterly and other publications.

Ainsztein defended himself against trivializations and distortions of the Holocaust as well as against the thesis of the lack of Jewish resistance to this genocide . From this drive two historiographical studies emerged; the first dealt with the Jewish resistance in occupied Eastern Europe in 1974, the second dealt with the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1979 . As early as 1958, Ainsztein sparked a debate in Great Britain about the level of anti-Semitism in the Polish Home Army .

In 2002, his autobiographical notes, written in the 1940s or 1950s, were published posthumously, describing in particular his escape from the National Socialists .

Works

Literature by and about Reuben Ainsztein in the bibliographic database WorldCat .
Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. With a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora . Elek, London New 1974, ISBN 0-236-15490-7 (German: Jewish resistance in German-occupied Eastern Europe during the Second World War . Translated from English and edited by Jörg Paulsen, Library and Information System of the University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg 1993, ISBN 3 -8142-0459-X ).
The Warsaw ghetto revolt , Holocaust Library, New York 1979, ISBN 0896040070 (German: Revolte gegen die Vernichtung. Der Aufstand im Warsaw Ghetto , Schwarze Risse Verlag and bookstore, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-924737-19-3 ).
In lands not my own. A wartime journey , Random House, New York 2002, ISBN 0-375-50757-4 .

Web links

Biographical information about Ainsztein on the website of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University (accessed October 11, 2013, archived version).
Reuben Ainsztein Dead at 63 (obituary dated December 11, 1981; retrieved from www.jta.org on October 11, 2013).
Merle Rubin: Memoir Explores One Man's Flight From Anti-Semitism , Los Angeles Times , June 10, 2002 (accessed October 11, 2013).

Individual evidence

↑ Unless otherwise stated, the information originates from the texts specified in the "Web Links" section.
↑ London Gazette . No. 38568, HMSO, London, March 22, 1949, p. 1454 ( PDF , English).
^ Joshua D. Zimmerman: The Attitude of the Polish Home Army (AK) to the Jewish Question during the Holocaust: The Case of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , in: Murray Baumgarten, Peter Kenez, Bruce A. Thompson (Eds.): Varieties of Antisemitism. History, Ideology, Discourse , University of Delaware Press, Newark 2009, ISBN 978-0-87413-039-3 , pp. 105-126, here pp. 106-108.

personal data
SURNAME	Ainsztein, Reuben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ajnsztejn, ruby
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Polish-British journalist and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH	1917
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vilna
DATE OF DEATH	December 6, 1981
Place of death	Little Hadham, England

[1] Unless otherwise stated, the information originates from the texts specified in the "Web Links" section.

[2] London Gazette . No. 38568, HMSO, London, March 22, 1949, p. 1454 ( PDF , English).

[3] Joshua D. Zimmerman: The Attitude of the Polish Home Army (AK) to the Jewish Question during the Holocaust: The Case of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , in: Murray Baumgarten, Peter Kenez, Bruce A. Thompson (Eds.): Varieties of Antisemitism. History, Ideology, Discourse , University of Delaware Press, Newark 2009, ISBN 978-0-87413-039-3 , pp. 105-126, here pp. 106-108.