This volume of the Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur published by the Simon Dubnow Institute explores the complex aggregate of themes in the realm of interethnic relations in the kresy, the eastern Polish borderlands and their adjoining areas, and the Baltic domain in the short span of 1939-1941 and its immediate aftermath, and most particularly the difficult relation between Poles and Jews. The papers reflect the current international state of research and its cutting edge in this field of inquiry, directing the focus of epistemic questioning to the respective contemporaneous ethnic and national historical narratives. In addition, it is the aim of this volume to expand the narrow aperture of one's own perspective by perception of the Others and their historical narrative, in order to achieve a more comprehensive picture and imagining of history pertaining to those violent events.