Before 1939, Poland was the largest centre of Yiddish culture in the world. Out of 3,400,000 Jews who lived in Poland, about 3,000,000 used Yiddish on a daily basis. The Holocaust brought vast changes in Yiddish culture, and Jews who survived the war had to rebuild their culture. The 1944-49 period witnessed an intense revival in Jewish cultural life. However the possibility of emigration in 1956 was a blessing to many Jews, but was a curse for cultural activities