Das Ostjüdische Antlitz

Das Ostjüdische Antlitz, by Arnold Zweig and illustrations by Hermann Struck, was the most vivid description of Jewish life in Eastern Europe as seen by the German-Jewish soldiers of World War I. Arnold Zweig and Hermann Struck served in the same unit stationed Kovno, Lithuania, where they, like other German soldiers, had their first personal experience with Eastern Jews.

The travel accounts from these new encounters resulted in a massive glorification of East European Jewish life. The subsequent works were laced with such sentimentality that the characters in the novels were often reduced to caricatures. Yet, this image of East European Jews was vital in maintaining a sense of Jewish distinctiveness among German Jews. Das Ostjüdische Antlitz and similar works echoed the recurring theme among German Jewry, that, "only in the East could one find 'Jewish Jews'."