Max Eilenberg

From the Middle Ages until the Holocaust, Polish Jews comprised an appreciable part of Poland's population. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, known for its religious tolerance, had attracted tens of thousands of Jews who fled persecution from other European countries. Poland was a major spiritual and cultural center for Ashkenazi Jews. At the start of the Second World War, Poland had the largest Jewish population in the world (over 3.3 million, some 10% of the general Polish population). The…