Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz was an American historian and an author of books on modern Jewish history, in particular books on the Holocaust. Dawidowicz was born in New York City as Lucy Schildkret. Her parents, Max and Victoria Schildkret were secular-minded Jews with little interest in religion. Dawidowicz did not attend a service at a synagogue until 1938. Dawidowicz's first interests were poetry and literature. She attended Hunter College from 1932–36 and obtained a B.A. in English. She went on to study for a M.A. at Columbia University, but abandoned her studies because of concerns... over events in Europe. At the encouragement of her mentor, the historian Jacob Shatzky, Dawidowicz decided to focus on history, especially Jewish history. Dawidowicz made the decision to learn Yiddish, and, at Shatzky's urging, she traveled to Wilno, Poland in 1938 to work at the Yiddish Scientific Institute . With the help of Shatzky she became a research fellow there. Dawidowicz lived in Wilno until August 1939 when she returned to the United States.
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