Decent Citizens Serving Chauvinism. Social Portrait of Students Participating in the Blockade of the University of Warsaw in 1936

Abstract

November 1936 saw the blockade of the University of Warsaw, an occupational strike organised by far-right students demanding the introduction of the so-called ‘ghetto benches’ for Jewish students. This article draws a social portrait of the ordinary participants in the blockade and analyses their motivations. I argue that the socialisation of youth into exemplary citizens of a modern nation-state created a fertile ground for far-right organisations and their demands. Moreover, the largest student association, the Fraternal Aid Society, became a space for self-organisation into extreme nationalist politics. Its leaders tapped into the positive motivations of youth, i.e. the search for a sense of belonging and the desire of individuals to fit into the normative order of the community. My examination of the blockade offers a unique insight into the academic background of the far-right and its means of political mobilisation.