07 / CFP: Young Researchers Conference on Interdisciplinary Genocide Research Inviting Institution: Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum Location: Ruhr-University

CFP: Young Researchers Conference on Interdisciplinary Genocide Research

Inviting Institution: Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum

Location: Ruhr-University Bochum

Date: 4^th - 6^th December 2013

Deadline: 30^th June 2013

The Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, is going to hold a Young Researcher Conference on „Ideology and state-induced violent crimes“ at Ruhr-University Bochum from December 4^th to 6^th 2013.

The conference provides a forum for doctoral students, postdocs and young researchers from a variety of disciplines in historical, sociological, cultural and social sciences with a research focus on Genocide, Violence, Peace- and Conflict studies. It offers them the opportunity to present their dissertation and recent research projects to an interdisciplinary research audience and to put them up for discussion.

The conference aims at enhancing the inter- and transdisciplinary scientific exchange and especially at inciting a critical debate on the actual state and recent trends in historical, sociological, cultural and human sciences research on collective violence.

We invite young researchers to give critical theoretical, empirical or conceptional contributions addressing among others the following key issues: Structures, processes and long-term consequences of state-induced violent crimes, especially genocidesas well as new theoretical-methodical approaches in violence research.

The conference's focus is the question of the connection between ideology and state-induced violent crimes. During the last years among sociological, as well as among historical and cultural scientific studies on violence, a strong orientation towards a mainly action-theoretical approach on a microlevel in research on phenomena of violence can be observed, for which in the same time the exclusion of the concept of ideology as well as more generally of the importance of world view frames for violent politics is characteristic. Therefore the question arises, at least in the case of the german-speaking area, whether this paradigm shift in dealing with state-induced violent crimes may open the way for new readings, that are instead of responding to research deficits, rather responding to public debates. At the same time this new orientation stands in a striking coincidence with an increasingly observable exclusion of ideology in public memory of the national-socialist genocides as manifestated in many media discourses.

The connection between ideology and state-induced violent crimes however still remains an only little studied aspect in research and analysis of most of the 20^thcentury's genocides. This young researchers conference wants to focus particularly on those acts of collective violence and genocides which have characterized the last century's history and wants to analyse them from this perspective.

Contributions addressing one or several of the following questions will be taken particular account of:

– Which role do ideological knowledge regimes and their discoursive frames play in the legitimisation of state-induced violent crimes?

– How are concepts of violent crimes and ideology coined in recent scientific discourse? 
– Which new epistemic interests are gained in micro- and macro- level studies with concepts like „Referenzrahmen“, „spaces of violence“, „segments of violence“, „internal dynamics of violence“, „Interaction between violence-carriers“ and „historical transformations of violence“, which aspects are thus deferred and how is this procedure justified?

In order to be taken into consideration in the Conferences programme, paper abstracts of about 400 words and a CV shall be submitted until June 30^th 2013 via E-Mail to: annika.toerne@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Feedback concerning acceptance will be issued until July 30^th 2013.

Travel expenses up to max. 200 Euro as well as board and lodging costs will be provided for lecturers.

It is intended that accepted papers will be published in conference proceedings after the conference. It is possible and welcomed to attend the conference without contribution, though this can not be financially supported. We ask for application until september 1^st 2013.

The conference will be opened on December 4^th 2013 at 4 p.m. and will be closed on December 6^th 2013 at 4 p.m.

location:

Ruhr-University Bochum

contact:

Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies

www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/idg/

Faculty for History

Ruhr-University Bochum

D-44780 Bochum

Tel.: 0234 / 32 - 29700

Fax: 0234 / 32 - 14770

e-mail: annika.toerne@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

CFP: Young Researchers Conference on Interdisciplinary Genocide Research

Inviting Institution: Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum

Location: Ruhr-University Bochum

Date: 4^th - 6^th December 2013

Deadline: 30^th June 2013

The Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, is going to hold a Young Researcher Conference on „Ideology and state-induced violent crimes“ at Ruhr-University Bochum from December 4^th to 6^th 2013.

The conference provides a forum for doctoral students, postdocs and young researchers from a variety of disciplines in historical, sociological, cultural and social sciences with a research focus on Genocide, Violence, Peace- and Conflict studies. It offers them the opportunity to present their dissertation and recent research projects to an interdisciplinary research audience and to put them up for discussion.

The conference aims at enhancing the inter- and transdisciplinary scientific exchange and especially at inciting a critical debate on the actual state and recent trends in historical, sociological, cultural and human sciences research on collective violence.

We invite young researchers to give critical theoretical, empirical or conceptional contributions addressing among others the following key issues: Structures, processes and long-term consequences of state-induced violent crimes, especially genocidesas well as new theoretical-methodical approaches in violence research.

The conference's focus is the question of the connection between ideology and state-induced violent crimes. During the last years among sociological, as well as among historical and cultural scientific studies on violence, a strong orientation towards a mainly action-theoretical approach on a microlevel in research on phenomena of violence can be observed, for which in the same time the exclusion of the concept of ideology as well as more generally of the importance of world view frames for violent politics is characteristic. Therefore the question arises, at least in the case of the german-speaking area, whether this paradigm shift in dealing with state-induced violent crimes may open the way for new readings, that are instead of responding to research deficits, rather responding to public debates. At the same time this new orientation stands in a striking coincidence with an increasingly observable exclusion of ideology in public memory of the national-socialist genocides as manifestated in many media discourses.

The connection between ideology and state-induced violent crimes however still remains an only little studied aspect in research and analysis of most of the 20^thcentury's genocides. This young researchers conference wants to focus particularly on those acts of collective violence and genocides which have characterized the last century's history and wants to analyse them from this perspective.

Contributions addressing one or several of the following questions will be taken particular account of:

– Which role do ideological knowledge regimes and their discoursive frames play in the legitimisation of state-induced violent crimes?

– How are concepts of violent crimes and ideology coined in recent scientific discourse? 
– Which new epistemic interests are gained in micro- and macro- level studies with concepts like „Referenzrahmen“, „spaces of violence“, „segments of violence“, „internal dynamics of violence“, „Interaction between violence-carriers“ and „historical transformations of violence“, which aspects are thus deferred and how is this procedure justified?

In order to be taken into consideration in the Conferences programme, paper abstracts of about 400 words and a CV shall be submitted until June 30^th 2013 via E-Mail to: annika.toerne@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Feedback concerning acceptance will be issued until July 30^th 2013.

Travel expenses up to max. 200 Euro as well as board and lodging costs will be provided for lecturers.

It is intended that accepted papers will be published in conference proceedings after the conference. It is possible and welcomed to attend the conference without contribution, though this can not be financially supported. We ask for application until september 1^st 2013.

The conference will be opened on December 4^th 2013 at 4 p.m. and will be closed on December 6^th 2013 at 4 p.m.

location:

Ruhr-University Bochum

contact:

Institute for Diaspora Research and Genocide Studies

www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/idg/

Faculty for History

Ruhr-University Bochum

D-44780 Bochum

Tel.: 0234 / 32 - 29700

Fax: 0234 / 32 - 14770

e-mail: annika.toerne@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

29 / International Conference “Children as war victims in modern history: Problems of historical memory”

International Conference “Children as war victims in modern history: Problems of historical memory”
Dear Colleagues,
We kindly invite you to take part in the International Conference “Children as war victims in modern history: Problems of historical memory”, marking 10 years since the terrorist attack in Beslan. It will be held in Vladikavkaz from September 1-3, 2013, under the auspices of the President of the Republic North Ossetia – Alania and the President of the Russian Jewish Congress.
Co-organizers of the Conference: K. L. Khetagurov North Ossetian State University, Russian Jewish Congress, Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center, Russian State University for Humanities.
The goal of the conference is to bring the international scholarly community together to study the history of the attack and  methods for preventing terror directed against children, as well as to examine the international experience of preserving historical memory exemplified by Holocaust and to develop methods for preserving memory of the tragedy at Beslan.
The Conference will focus on new research along the following lines:
1.    Tragedy at Beslan: research and memorialization.
2.     Children as Holocaust victims: experience in memorialization.
3.    Children as victims of genocide: problems of historical memory.
4.    Operations to liberate hostages: children as a factor.
Format
The conference will be held in Russian and English with simultaneous translation.
The sessions will include presentations (up to 15 min), as well as ensuing discussions and round tables.
Submission Procedure
All application materials must be submitted in English or Russian and received by the Center no later than June 1, 2013.  The application consists of:
•    An abstract proposal (no more than 2 pages),
•    Short academic biography (15-20 lines).
The application materials should be emailed to center@holofond.ru. Please state in the subject line “Vladikavkaz, 2013”.
Acceptance
Participants will be selected by the organizing committee and notified by July 15, 2013.
Requirements
A copy of the lecture either in English or Russian must be received by the Center no later than August 20, 2013.  
Reimbursement
The organizers will reimburse participants from CIS-countries and Baltic states for their travel (economy-class air / train tickets between Vladikavkaz and their place of residence), accommodation, and meals during the conference.
Inquiries
More details on the application process and the conference are available on the website of the Russian Holocaust Center and the Russian Jewish Congress. Please direct your inquiries to ilya@holofond.ru or call us at 7-916-9064998 (Professor Ilya Altman).
 

13 / "Holocaust" The Newsletter of The Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center and The Holocaust Foundation № 59 JANUARY 2013 Note from the Editor

13 / International Conference “Kristallnacht: History, Memorialization, Lessons”

06 / International Forum “Nazi Genocide of Roma and Jews in Eastern Europe: Research, Methodology and Source Issues”

29 / Conference of Students and Young Scholars "The Holocaust: Memory and Prevention" in Moscow

January 29. VII Conference of Students and Young Scholars "The Holocaust: Memory and Prevention" in Moscow

VII International Conference of Students and Young Scholars "The Holocaust: Memory and Prevention" finished today in Moscow. It lasted three days and stimulated lively discussion at the Museum of the Holocaust on Poklonnaya Hill, the Historical Archives Institute, and the Russian Holocaust Center (these three institutions co-organized the conference). The final session was held at the UN Information Centre. Adviser to the Director of the Centre, V.S. Pavinsky, welcomed the participants, noting its long-standing cooperation with the Holocaust Center. The conference was attended by over 30 students and young scholars.

The five topic sections included themes ranging from the Holocaust in Freud’s life and work and artistic interpretation of the Holocaust in Russian literature to the study of regional features of the Holocaust in Volhyn (Ukraine). The best participants will be selected to participate in a future presentation at UNESCO in Paris slated for July 2013.

Source: http://www.unic.ru/news_inf/viewer.php?uid=267

28 / Results of the 2012 Competition "Lessons of the Holocaust - Path to Tolerance"

January 28. Results of the 2012 Competition "Lessons of the Holocaust - Path to Tolerance"

Winners: "Works by School Children "

1. Shandrovskaya Anna. 10 grade. Gymnasia № 1540 ORT Moscow, "The Holocaust in Moldova (Bessarabia) and Bukovina."

2. Makarova Anastasia , Republic of Mordovia, Pervomaisk MOU "Pervomayskay Secondary School" Lyambir municipal area, "Echo of the Holocaust: Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism and Modern Extremism."

3. Mitenko Alena. Stavropol, 11 grade. MBOU school № 2. Arsgir, "The Tragedy in Arsgirskaya Balka"

Winners: "Works by Students'

1. Gukov Arseny. Orel, 4th year student FGBOU Institution "State University - BPIC", "Denial of the Holocaust - Comparative Analysis of the Experience."

2a. Marysheva Yulia. Moscow, graduate of the Russian State University for the Humanities, "The Problem of the Holocaust in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee."

2b. Antonova, Svetlana. Moscow, 3rd year student IAAS. Moscow State University, "Reflection of the Holocaust in the Materials of the Russian and Hebrew Israeli Press."

3. Skokova Nadezda. Ukraine, Student third year of the National University "Ostrog Academy", "The Holocaust in Volhyn during the German Occupation."

Winners:"Works by Teachers"

1. Strygina Marina. Samara, MBOU school № 42, "Chocolate Bar" - Cartoon

2. Rudy Oleg. Ukraine, Khmelnitsky, School № 7, multimedia project "Memory of the Holocaust - Path to Tolerance"

3. Luchinina Olga. Kirov, school-depth study of specific subjects № 9, "The Lesson of Tolerance, on the International Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust."

Winners: "Art Works"

1. Panfilova Valeria . Sverdlovsk region, Polevskoy, 10 grade. MBOU Polevskoy urban district "School № 17", "Unconquered ..."

2. Beltueva Maryam. Ivanovo, 9 grade. MBOU "Gymnasium № 36 Ivanovo". "The Holocaust - Babi Yar - Haibach."

3. Nikolaeva Elizabeth. 10 grade, MBOU "school № 12 named Hero of the Soviet Union I. Malikov," "The irreversibility of what happened."

2. Pariiskaya Tatiana. Kostroma. 11 grade. School № 13 of R.A Naumov, Buy city. "Doom."

28 / Moscow. Memorial evening devoted to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

January 28. Moscow. Memorial evening devoted to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It was held on January 27 in the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers.

A former intelligence officer, Yuri Rivas-Korobkov, one of the first to enter the camp in the 60th Army of the 4th Ukrainian Front, shared his memories in a unique film “Documents of the Liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army.” A fragment from a new documentary film by Galina Yevtushenko, "Dodik," (about ghetto and partisan Semyon Dodik) was also shown. The hero of the film was present. The evening was also attended by the president of the Russian Jewish Congress, Yuri Kanner, Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, research director of the Higher School of Economics, Yevgeny Yasin, and the German, Israeli, and U.S. Ambassadors to Russia.

Israeli Ambassador Dorit Golender awarded medals of Righteous among the Nations (posthumously) to their direct descendants living in Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, and Togliatti.

It was followed by the ceremony of awarding the winners of the XI Annual International Competition of teachers, pupils, and students, "The Holocaust: Memory and Prevention."

Such memorial evenings have been held on this date in Moscow every year since 1995. It is organized by the Foundation and the Center for the Holocaust, with the participation of the Government of Moscow, the Israeli Embassy in Russia, the Russian Jewish Congress and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

27 / "To remember and pass the baton to future generations the memory ..."

January 27. Hadera. "To remember and pass the baton to future generations the memory ..."

25 / Moscow. School Conference "Holocaust: Memory and Warning", dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 25. Moscow. School Conference "Holocaust: Memory and Warning", dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On January 25 work began at the Museum of the Holocaust and Jewish Heritage Memorial synagogue REK on Poklonnaya Hill toward the XII International Conference school "Holocaust: Memory and Warning", dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance  Day.

The conference featured presentations, essays, and creative works of students. Conference participants came from various regions: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, Arkhangelsk, Pskov Oblast, Stavropol Krai and the Republic of Mordovia.

There was an awards ceremony on January 27 at the Central House of Writers for the winners of the competition. (The competition received 900 entries from 55 regions of Russia and 9 foreign countries).

Our books

The Righteous among Nations. The Righteous in Russia: 1941-1945. Package of documents and teaching recommendations for the 9th to 11th class. I.A. Altman and D.I. Poltorak (eds.). Moscow: “Russkoe Slo

The Righteous among Nations. The Righteous in Russia: 1941-1945. Package of documents and teaching recommendations for the 9th to 11th class. I.A. Altman and D.I. Poltorak (eds.). Moscow: “Russkoe Slovo” Publishing House, 2011. 56 pp.
The package consists of two parts.

The first part includes documents and eyewitness reports, cards and photographs, 31 reports either by the rescuers or the rescued people and a description and photos of the Righteous’ medals and documents.

The second part, presented in form of a brochure, offers methodological recommendations for the use of the package.

The volume includes documents and photographs featuring the most outstanding stories of how Russian citizens saved Jews. They are followed by documents describing the rescued Jews who lived or still live in Russia and covers all Russian regions occupied during the war: the Central region, North-West, and the Caucasus.

The project was supported by grants of the President of the Russian Federation and the Claims Conference.

We cannot remain silent: Students and university students on Holocaust. D.I. Poltorak and I.A. Altman (eds.). Eighth edition. Moscow: Center and Foundation Holocaust, MIK, 2011. 144 pp.

We cannot remain silent: Students and university students on Holocaust. D.I. Poltorak and I.A. Altman (eds.). Eighth edition. Moscow: Center and Foundation Holocaust, MIK, 2011. 144 pp.

The reader contains contributions of the winners of the Ninth International contest of works on Holocaust consisting of research papers, essays and drawings. They were created by students from schools and universities representing 6 regions of Russia, as well as students from Ukraine and Belarus. It includes results of interviews of Holocaust victims and eyewitnesses, research in archives, thorough study of literature and independent philosophical and literary approaches. The reader addresses researchers dealing with WWII, teachers, and students from schools and universities.

The project was supported by grants of the President of the Russian Federation and the Claims Conference.

Frieda Michelson. I survived Rumbula. Moscow 2011.

Frieda Michelson. I survived Rumbula. Moscow 2011.

The book is an account of the annihilation of the Jews of Riga during WWII in what is one of the Nazi's and their collaborators' most brutal crimes on the occupied Soviet territories. The mass murder near the Rumbula forest is with out a doubt on the same level as other places of human tragedy such as Babi Yar, Paneriai and the Kaunas Ghetto.

«I survived Rumbula» is based on the personal memories of one the only two survivors who miraculously survived the shooting of the Jews of Riga. In two large-scale operations in late 1941 nearly all 30 000 inhabitants of the Riga Ghetto were murdered. The chances of a successful escape were almost zero. But Frieda Michelson did survive and so did the memory of the atrocities. To forget these events is impossible, even if one tries to. In the sixties she wrote down her memories in her mother tongue Jiddish. These served as literary inspiration for David Silberman's book in Russian language that was recently released in fourth edition. Due to the comparatively small number of copies, the book is mainly known within Latvia.

Silberman was born in 1941 in the town of Preili, Latvia. His family managed to leave their home before the arrival of the Wehrmacht. During his time in Riga in the 1960ies he actively fought for the rights of Jews in the USSR – a goal for which he risked severe repressive measure towards him by the Soviet government.  In 2004 a memorial monument for the victims of the Holocaust was built in Pereili thanks to the financial means provided by David Silberman.

Yitzhak Arad. In the Shadow of the Red Banner: Soviet Jews in the War against Nazi Germany. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, The International Institute for Holocaust Research; Gefen, 2010. 384 pp.

   The claim that Jews did not contribute sufficiently in the war effort of their host country, or to put it otherwise, stayed in the rear instead of fighting, is not new and was never limited to Russia. Suffice it to mention the accusations made against German Jewry during the First World War and its aftermath at the official level and in public opinion. In the Tsarist Empire such charges were especially pronounced during the First World War when they were made by the country’s military and civil authorities.

The situation in the Soviet Union during the Second World War was different. Soviet government never accused its Jewish citizens of sitting on the fence. Yet, Soviet public opinion was permeated to no small extent by such accusations. This came partly from traditional centuries-long perception of Jews as a nation that did best to refrain from getting involved in fighting. Much more perilous, however, was the Nazi propaganda claim that attempted to inculcate in the Soviet population the idea of Jewish cowardice and of their sending non-Jews to fight for Jews.

In a way, it seems to me that Nazi propaganda succeeded, at least partly, in this respect. That Soviet Jews excelled on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviet-German war in 1941-45 came to be known in the USSR, was known to masses of Soviet Jews by virtue of the fact that very many of them served in the army, worked in military plants, and, to a smaller extent, were involved in anti-German activities in the occupied territories. Yet, apart from a circle of those with whom Jews fought and worked to achieve the victory over Nazi Germany, this was far from being clear to many in the midst of the Soviet population.

Furthermore, the fact that many Soviet Jews, whether in the occupied territories or in those under Soviet control, struggled and were “not led to slaughter like cattle” remained for years far from being clear to Western and Israeli audience. This had to do with the main Holocaust narrative underlining suffering and martyrdom. In Israel, Jewish heroism was largely associated with the Warsaw ghetto uprising. But the main reason why this knowledge escaped the attention of Western and Israeli public was “Iron curtain”. During the Cold War, the overwhelming trend in Holocaust research was to downplay the affinity of Soviet and Jewish interests in the Second World War. Only the fall of the USSR made it possible for Holocaust scholars to acknowledge high profile fighting of Jews on the Soviet side or alongside the Soviet side. And Yitzhak Arad, himself a Jewish fighter who fought on the Soviet side against the Nazis, and who rose to prominence in Israel both as a public figure and a leading Holocaust historian, is probably the ideal one to chronicle the heroic saga of Jews who struggled “under the Red banner” against Nazi Germany.

Arad’s account is truly panoramic, multidimensional account and encompasses, to borrow his own words, “the broad spectrum of Jewish activities during the war in their entirety: the army, the underground, the partisans, the battle waged by the prisoners of war for survival and the development and manufacture of weapons” (p. xvii).

The volume provides a solid background describing the developments in Eastern Europe from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The author then studies meticulously the participation of Jews in fighting in the ranks of the Red Army on the fronts, in the branches (including medical corps, political administration, air forces, navy, and intelligence) throughout the entire war period.  Part two covers Jewish participation in the war industries. Arad then turns to depicting the Nazi occupation of the Soviet territories and the activities of varied partisan movements operating there. This serves him as a background for the Jewish armed resistance in the occupied territories (underground in ghettos -- the subject where the book is particularly strong -- and fighting in forests) described in the next chapters.

One of the delights of this volume is the verve with which its author knowingly describes the Jewish fighting. He does not write in numbers -- although his conclusions rely heavily on statistics, Arad admits that in too many cases such data are controversial or simply unavailable – but describes in details hundreds of examples of Jewish heroism.

In the Shadow of the Red Banner corresponds to no small extent with previous books by Yitzhak Arad, in particular with his “History of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union” (two volumes in Hebrew and one volume in English). In my opinion, part of this background information, could be omitted from the present volume, without jeopardizing its integrity.

I feel a certain amount of discomfort because in such a big (in all senses) book Yitzhak Arad did not tell us explicitly how he gauges Jewish contribution to the Soviet military effort, below the average, at the average, or over the average. Nor did he provide a clue to the question that haunted me: why did the Jews fight the way they did? Was it only fighting against the Nazis because understandably, they had no choice? If so, what about the first period of the war, when the news of German mistreatment of Jews did not reach Jewish soldiers and civilians?

Despite my concerns and questions, In the Shadow of the Red Banner, offers a rich and comprehensive history of Jewish contribution to the Soviet victory. The author should be particularly praised for a wide range of sources in several languages and an updated bibliography. In short, this is a wonderful and well-written study of a critically important case that continues to have impact both for the Jewish audience and beyond its borders.

D-r Kirill Feferman,
Martyrdom and Resistance 37, 3 (January-February 2011).
 

We can not remain silent – pupils and students about the Holocaust (7th edition)

The collection includes Russian scientific papers, essays and drawings by students from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, who won the 7th International writing and drawing competition to commemorate the Holocaust. Another section of the book contains selected speeches and presentations of the International Youth Conference on Holocaust remembrance. Many works are based on interviews with victims and witnesses, careful research in archives, as well as new historical and philosophical theses. The collection is aimed primarily at historians, teachers, students and pupils.
 We can not remain silent – pupils and students about the Holocaust (7th edition), written by I.A. Altman, Prokudin DV, eds: Center Foundation and „Holocaust“ in 2010, 176 p., ISBN 978-5-87902-223-0

 

25. November / „Preserve my letters“ (Russian: „Сохрани мои письма...“) – Presentation of the second edition

  On the basis of more than 1000 letters, diaries and photos from the archives of the Holocaust Center in 2007, the first collection of Soviet-Jewish memories of the Second World War was published. Due to this book, the archive of the center was substantially complemented with new personal documents. They include among other things, letters and diaries of many well-known writers, poets, scholars and war heroes. The anthology includes also some other letters from other museums and archives. The documents examplify the events from the beginning to the end of the war. The book is not only intended for historians, but also to the wider readership.

„Preserve my letters… A collection of Jewish letters from the time of the Great Patriotic War (2nd edition). Eds: IA. Altman, LA Terushkin, IV Bordskaya; text and foreword by IA Altman, 2010, 328 p., ISBN 978-5-87902-222-3

 Natalie Belsky
University of Chicago
Sokhrani Moi Pis’ma…:Sbornik pisem evreev perioda Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny [Save my Letters: Collection of Jewish letters from the period of the Great Patriotic War]
Vypusk 2
Comp: Il’ia Altman, Leonid Terushkin, Irina Brodskaia
Foreword: Il’ia Altman
Moskva: Tsentr i Fond ‘Holocaust’, 2010

This important volume is the second installment of a collection of letters penned by Soviet Jews during the Great Patriotic War which has been compiled and published by Moscow based Russian Holocaust Center. It is an incredible testament to the Center’s painstaking efforts in collecting and bringing together family archives. In fact, as the introduction indicates, many of the letters and diaries featured in the present volume have been acquired by the Center just over the 2.5 years since the publication of the first volume.  The volume brings to light a vital body of sources that reveal a great deal about Soviet Jewish life during the war years.

The bulk of the collection consists of letters sent by Soviet Jewish soldiers at the front to their families in the rear. Their stories give the reader a glimpse of everyday life at the frontlines. They describe the living conditions servicemen had to contend with and the responsibilities that they shouldered. Moreover, the soldiers offer incredible accounts of their experiences in battle and reflect upon their thoughts during those critical moments when their lives seemed to hang by a thread. Surrounded by the enemy with bullets whizzing by inches above his head, Aleksandr Abramovich Anikst contemplated the landscape all about him – the trees, the ground, the sky, and the ant unhurriedly climbing the tree trunk: “I lay on the fallen autumn leaves, holding in front of me the self-loading rifle on the ready. Squeezing it in my hands and concentrating on what lay ahead, I thought: is this really the end? And I could not believe that….A tree trunk stood right in front of me, behind which I planned to hide in case of danger. A brown ant crawled along its uneven bark.” (p. 85). Along with the letter writers, the reader celebrates victories and laments the setbacks of the Red Army. Though the letters are largely personal, they convey the patriotism of the soldiers, their commitment to liberating their homeland from the Nazis, and, to some extent, their dedication to the Soviet project. We hear about their disappointments about the progress of the war, expectations of future developments, and, most of all, hopes for victory and a bright future ahead.

One of the many benefits of the collection is the inclusion of accounts from men and women who served in different capacities and in different zones. The collection features accounts from artillerymen and navy men, seasoned commanders and teenage recruits, war correspondents and medics, and even the director of a jazz orchestra that entertained soldiers at the front. The diversity of the authors allows the reader to get a multi-faceted view of the events and appreciate the distinct perspectives of the participants. Deeper insight into the daily routines of Soviet Jewish soldiers at the front is provided by excerpts from several diaries. This is truly a unique source that gives the reader a sense of the daily tribulations soldiers faced and the rhythm and pace of their days and weeks on the frontlines. While soldiers certainly tried to be optimistic in their letters home in order to assure their loved ones of their well-being, diary entries can be trusted to be more candid about the grim realities of life. Diaries also allow us to examine the changing tide of the war effort and the transformations within the authors themselves. At the same time, we must pause before assuming that these materials are either objective or representative of the perspective of the ‘typical’ Jewish soldier. First of all, while many letters were carried to their destinations by fellow soldiers who were traveling to the rear, soldiers still had to contend with the possibility that their letters and diaries would fall into the hands of censors. Thus, they had to be careful about the kind of information they shared. Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that letter and diary writers are a self-selecting group – descriptive and well-written letters like the ones included in the collection could only have been written by soldiers who were relatively well-educated. Furthermore, the collection privileges letters from urbanites who had been living in cities in the RSFSR (particularly Moscow and Leningrad) and eastern Ukraine in 1939. The reason for this is simple – letters would only have survived if their recipients were fortunate enough to not fall under Nazi occupation. Most of the letters were written to family members who had evacuated to the East; evacuation initiatives largely targeted the cities and were most successful in the RSFSR, and eastern Ukraine and Belorussia (the western regions of the Soviet Union, where significant populations of Jews lived, were occupied so quickly that it often did not allow for effective evacuation).
 Concern about loved ones and consternation over lack of information of their family’s whereabouts is a main theme in the correspondence.  Most soldiers regarded service at the front as both a duty and an honor, but they often felt frustrated at their inability to support their families. Far away from the frontlines, soldiers’ wives, parents and children often confronted a great deal of deprivation as well. Soldiers’ letters reflect their concern that, with men at the front, their families would find it difficult to make ends meet; many soldiers tried to send as much of their earnings home as possible. Of course, the separation caused not only material troubles but also emotional tribulations. Among the most memorable letters within the collection is Solomon Mendelevich’s birthday greetings to his daughter whom he has never met because she was born after he left for the front:  “It is possible to send birthday greetings in a letter to a friend, an acquaintance, a relative. But it is very difficult to send birthday greetings in a letter to my own one and only daughter, whom I have not even seen.” (p. 235) An interesting and important component of the present collection are letters from evacuated family members to soldiers at the front which describe their harrowing journey East and their uncertain existence in unfamiliar lands. It is important to bear in mind that it was not only soldiers who were constantly on the move, but their families as well. Displacement coupled with poor postal service meant that many did not receive tidings from relatives for weeks and months at a time. In many cases, elaborate networks of contacts were devised to facilitate the flow of information. Stationed in Leningrad, lieutenant Mikhail Binevich found that most of his relatives and friends had left the city for various destinations. Eager to re-establish family ties, he writes to his wife: “in short, I decided to become the connecting link between all you refugees.” (p. 89). Family correspondence both to and from the front help us gain a better understanding of the many facets of Soviet Jewish experience during the war years. One of the most fascinating aspects of the correspondence are soldiers’ accounts of the Red Army’s liberation of the occupied territories of Ukraine and Belarus and its offense into Poland and Germany. With a mixture of heartbreak and resentment, the liberators describe the devastation that they find in the western Soviet republics. For many, the pain is even more acute for these are the places where they had been born and raised. In November of 1943, Pavel Kopysitskii writes to his wife that his unit is liberating Ukrainian territory and that “local residents, who were under German occupation, tell us terrible things. The regions where they [the German forces] were able to entrench themselves are completely destroyed – the homes are burned down and the youth has been deported into slavery in Germany” (p.144). Once they enter Poland, the troops describe their encounters with local peoples and the amazement at the incredible (in comparison!) living conditions that they find there. For many, it is the first time in three years of war that they are able to sleep in a proper bed and enjoy delicacies. The diary of medic Abram Shevelev records his impressions of the three foreign lands that he has visited during his tour of duty– Bessarabia, Romania and Hungary. Shevelev describes the cities and towns through which his unit has passed, the attitudes of local peoples, their culture and habits (pp. 264-5). For many servicemen and women, it was difficult to even conceive of the incredible journey they had traversed during the years of the war. As Bela Zel’bet writes to her loved ones, “Did any one of us even think about finding ourselves so far away from our familiar places? In my childhood, I dreamt of entering German towns as a traveler, now I enter them as a master [khoziain]” (p. 210)  
 As they made their way to the West, Soviet soldiers confronted the gruesome realities of the Holocaust. In town after town, they found out that the Jewish population was gone and heard the tragic accounts of how Jews had been rounded up and either shot or sent to death camps in Poland. For Jewish soldiers, this news was particularly horrifying. Passing through Briansk, Lev Tsukerman learned of the fate of his relatives who had stayed behind under Nazi occupation. Writing to his parents (who had evacuated to Siberia), he recounts his eerie and heartbreaking experience there: “I was at the home of Chaim Eisef Shapiro on Sovetskaia st., no. 67, where grandfather and his family lived in the ghetto, I sat on the couch where grandfather had slept, and I was served breakfast at the table where our family had supped for the last time in Briansk, on November 6, 1942” (p. 261). At the same time, for many soldiers, their Jewish identity was a key motivating factor that pushed them to fight even harder to repay the Nazis for their crimes against the Jewish population. In a letter to his parents from the spring of 1943, Iakov Zaslavskii writes, “we must firmly avenge the Germans. And I especially, as I am a Jew” (p. 200).  

Still, it is important to mention that discussion of the Holocaust and references to one’s Jewish identity are relatively few and far between. There might have been several reasons for this, such as the lack of information about the catastrophe that had hit the Jewish population. The Soviet press was by and large unwilling to admit the Nazi targeted attack on Soviet Jewry and tended to group everyone under the heading of Soviet victims of Nazism. Secondly, the fear of censorship as well as the growth of anti-Semitism at the front may have encouraged soldiers themselves to avoid discussing their Jewish identity. Lastly, the fact that the majority of the letters come from well-educated, urban members of the intelligentsia would indicate that many of the letter writers were not observant and practicing Jews.     

Undoubtedly, this volume will become an invaluable resource for both historians and non-specialists alike for it offers readers a privileged view of the everyday lives of the Soviet Jewish servicemen who sacrificed so much in order to secure a victory over Nazism. It will enable readers to appreciate the mentality of Soviet Jewish soldiers – their  day-to-day concerns, preoccupations and hopes. Among the many volumes on the war that deal with epic battles and military strategy, this collection will fill an im

Indiana University Press is pleased to announce the recent publication of:

The Unknown Black Book
The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories

Edited by Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman

Introductions by Joshua Rubenstein, Ilya Altman, and Yitzhak Arad
Translated by Christopher Morris and Joshua Rubenstein

"These accounts from those who saw what happened convey what we cannot learn from official documents about the nature of this vast criminal enterprise, in which hundreds of thousands were transformed into monsters . . . and millions of others became helpless, dehumanized, mutilated, and finally forgotten victims." —Wall Street Journal

The Unknown Black Book provides a revelatory compilation of testimonies from Jews who survived open-air massacres and other atrocities carried out by the Germans and their allies in the occupied Soviet territories during World War II—Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Crimea. These documents are first-hand accounts by survivors of work camps, ghettos, forced marches, beatings, starvation, and disease. Collected under the direction of two renowned Soviet Jewish journalists, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, they tell of Jews who lived in pits, walled-off corners of apartments, attics, and basement dugouts, unable to emerge due to fear that their neighbors would betray them, as often happened.

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
496 pp., 20 b&w illus., 2 maps
paper 978-0-253-22267-1 $24.95
For more information, visit:

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?isbn=978-0-253-22267-1

For Instructors:
If you are interested in adopting this book for course use, please see our exam copy policy:

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/information.php?info_id=122&meid=122

SOVIET JEWISH STEPCHILD von Kiril Feferman

July 14, 2009. Dr. Kiril Feferman's fascinating book analyzes the Soviet Union's treatment of the Holocaust from 1941-1964 through the litmus text of the Babi Yar massacre of 1941. "In the West, while we are familiar with the concept of Holocaust denial, the Soviet concept of Holocaust suppression is quite foreign to us," explains Feferman, Yad Vashem lecturer, researcher, and overall expert on the Former Soviet Union, the Holocaust, and the Second World war. Feferman attempts to answer such questions as: Why and how did the Soviet views towards the extermination of Jews aim at avoiding Nazi accusations that that the Soviets were fighting a Jewish war ? Why the Holocaust did not fit in the simplistic, black-and-white Soviet mindset of "he who is not with us, is against us ? Finally, Why the Bolsheviks, who never had any scruples about the many millions of Soviet civilians they themselves killed, were forced to accept over time that the Holocaust had to be treated differently than other, related topics? Feferman does a masterful job of answering these questions and many more in this carefully
researched, fascinating work.

The text

www.hugendubel.de/cat/soviet_jewish_stepchild/kiril_feferman/isbn13_9783639149807.aspx

"Antisemitism- The Generic Hatred: Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal"

  The book is now published in Russian- language. It was edited and co-edited by Shimon Samuels, Mark Weitzman and Ilya Altman and the tributes for this version are from:
 -President Dimitri Medvedev
-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -The late Patriarch Alexei II-Foreign Minister and Chair of Russian National Commission of UNESCO, Sergei Lavrov

-St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvieienko

-Former President Mikhail Gorbachov
-Former Minister of Minorities Valeri Tishkov
-Father Vyacheslav Chaplin, Spokesman of the Patriarch of the Russian
Orthodox Church

The book was launched under the co-auspices of the Russian Holocaust Centre, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Verbe et Lumiere-Vigilance and the UNESCO.
It was presented at various locations:

--The Central Synagogue of Moscow chaired by Jewish Community

Chairman, Leopold Kaiymovskiy

--The RIA- Novosti Press agency

-The official Moscow Holocaust Commemoration ceremony at the Central
House of Literature in Moscow

- The Herzen Pedagogical University of St. Petersburg at a seminar on

the Holocaust (UNESCO Chair in Education in the Multicultural Society
also attended). The session was chaired by Vice-Rector Sergei Shilov.

-The Interfax Press agency of St. Petersburg

-In a meeting with St Petersburg's Governor, Valentina Matveienko, at
the Smolny Palace. The Governer announced to the press, who were present
at the meeting, the purchase of 700 copies of the book for high
schools in St. Petersburg.

New books in the library of the Russian Research and Educational Center

The library of the Russian Research and Educational Center is regularly enriched with new international books, dealing with the theme of the holocaust on the occupied territories of the USSR.

  

Due to the German book “Holocaust in Litauen” (Böhlau Verlag, 2008), the book “The Shoah in Ukraine”, edited by Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower (published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) can be found in our library now.

For the Ukraine was home to the largest population of Jews in the Russian Empire, it was one of the most important centers of Jewish life and culture, destroyed by the holocaust. Until yet, less is known about this part of the holocaust history and the book tells us more about lives and deaths of not only Jews, but Poles, Russians, Romanians and many more in this part of Europe