The Days of Future Past

Thinking about the Jewish Life to Come from within the Warsaw Ghetto

Abstract

Jews imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto pondered not only how to survive the present but also the days to come. The day of liberation was calculated on the basis of rumours, interpretations of wartime developments, and Kabbalistic prophecies. In this paper, among different notions of the future expressed by the inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto, I focus especially on the perspective of Jews active in various parties and youth movements. I approach the question of what Jews thought about the future and what would lead to it within the broader context of the sociology of time. The primary source used in this paper is the Jewish underground press published in the Warsaw Ghetto.