This is the first comprehensive monographic study dealing with the topic of Jewish refugees in Warsaw, from the beginning of the war through ghettoization and ending with the deportation initiated by the Germans in July 1942. The author is a researcher at the Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland, and the volume is the revised version of her doctoral thesis. The book begins with a rich introduction, which underlines the lack of attention paid thus far by international research efforts to a topic which is well known and whose importance is often stressed, but which has until now been treated marginally by historians. Prais instead has focused her deep analysis on this topic, gathering a rich and “eclectic mass of material” (27), in great part produced at that time by researchers of Onegh Shabbat in Warsaw. Most of the sources are subjective, with a predominance of Jewish sources, whereas the Polish and German ones are largely absent. The dimension of the phenomenon is impressive: it can be estimated that roughly 150,000 people (one third of the inhabitants of the ghetto) throughout these years moved or were moved forcibly to the capital city, uprooted from their cities and villages in the countryside. A preliminary chapter is devoted to the forced movements of Jews in Russian Poland during the First World War to Warsaw, the largest Jewish community in all of Europe that attracted many.

A second, shorter chapter analyzes the fate of the some 17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany, who in autumn 1938 were forced to no-man's land by the Nazi authorities. Both events, although having different causes and taking different forms, are considered by Prais as antecedents to what would happen, on a much larger scale, after the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

The first of the two major parts of the book follows a timeline. The author distinguishes three waves of eradication, provoking masses of refugees. The first took place as a consequence of the advance by the German army (October 1939–March 1940). The second (January–June 1941), occurred following the German decision to empty all small Jewish communities west of Warsaw with the aim of opening colonizing spaces at the “Eastern wall.” Finally, with the ghetto already sealed, the third took place after June 1941, which dramatically worsened the living condition in the overcrowded ghetto.

The three evacuation waves are characterized by chaos and the absence of any planning concerning the destiny of the refugees, who were subjects of tremendous violence during this time. Even though many of the refugees were somehow attracted to Warsaw, where they hoped to receive help from relatives and friends, in general they were affected by “a sense of disorientation and helplessness” (164). Their expectations were deluded.

The second part of the book is organized around specific topics. Prais analyzes all the main aspects of collective life, including shelter to food, the various forms of welfare or self-help activities, sanitary conditions, the deterioration of families and networks, and the deportations in July 1942. She displays a mastery of the rich sources available.

The relationship of the refugees with the “original” inhabitants of the ghetto is carefully treated through all these facets. Indeed, there was “a similar background and national-religious identity of the Jewish refugees and the host community” (197). This fact did not preclude from the occurrence of conflicts around the issues of the acceptation of the newcomers and the equal redistribution of the scarce resources available, including food, accommodation, and work.

Did the refugees ever really feel “at home,” as is suggested by the books' title? Prais analyses the various facets of the refugees' fate. On the one hand, she stresses the engagement of individuals with spontaneous associations in the ghetto (not including the Judenrat), attempting to build a system of providing assistance for these masses of destitute Jewish refugees. But conflicts erupted with no respite, caused by “a kind of parochial patriotism” (219), and by a predominant sense of “estrangement and apathy” confronting the refugees because of their terrible fate (277). In all moments of daily life in the Warsaw ghetto, a clear “advantage of the locals” (230) can be detected.

Prais' work is centered on the sources, without indulging in summary judgements. Nonetheless, her reconstruction is pitiless. As an example, one should look at the pages describing the appalling hygienic conditions in the so-called “points” (307ff.). Finally, it is significant that the Germans justified the general evacuation with the largely accepted notion that it was necessary to liberate the ghetto from the “unproductive and outcast elements” (408) par excellence: the refugees. No, they were not “at home” at all.