This essay opens a collection of eleven articles that provide diverse insights into the Jewish-Gentile relations in Central and Eastern Europe from the outbreak of the Second World War until the reestablishment of civic societies after the fall of Communism in the late 1980s. The interdisciplinary and comparative perspective enables us to scrutinize the interaction between the individual majority societies and the Jewish minorities in a longer time frame. We are able to revisit complex encounters between Jews and gentiles including propaganda, robbery violence but also help and rescue