Constructing Interethnic Conflict and Cooperation: Why Some People Harmed Jews and Others Helped Them during the Holocaust in Romania

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Dumitru ◽  
Carter Johnson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
The State ◽  
Cooperative Relationships ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Interethnic Conflict ◽  
Interethnic Relationships

The authors draw on a natural experiment to demonstrate that states can reconstruct conflictual interethnic relationships into cooperative relationships in relatively short periods of time. The article examines differences in how the gentile population in each of two neighboring territories in Romania treated its Jewish population during the Holocaust. These territories had been part of tsarist Russia and subject to state-sponsored anti-Semitism until 1917. During the interwar period one territory became part of Romania, which continued anti-Semitic policies, and the other became part of the Soviet Union, which pursued an inclusive nationality policy, fighting against inherited anti-Semitism and working to integrate its Jews. Both territories were then reunited under Romanian administration during World War II, when Romania began to destroy its Jewish population. The authors demonstrate that, despite a uniform Romanian state presence during the Holocaust that encouraged gentiles to victimize Jews, the civilian population in the area that had been part of the Soviet Union was less likely to harm and more likely to aid Jews as compared with the region that had been part of Romania. Their evidence suggests that the state construction of interethnic relationships can become internalized by civilians and outlive the life of the state itself.

State as Transgressor: Šilingas versus the State—A Case Study

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-150
Author(s):  
Svaja Vansauskas Worthington
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Travel Guide ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Baltic

The usually cheerful Insight Travel Guide to the Baltic States offers this synopsis of the Baltic situation:Their independence was sentenced to death by the Nazi–Soviet Pact [the secret 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact] just before World War II. The pact envisaged the Baltic States would be parceled out between them, but it was overtaken by events with Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 … Among few other people did the Soviet mill grind finer than in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania … The final injustice was the permanent imposition of Soviet rule and Stalinist terror. Anyone a visitor meets today in the Baltics is likely to have a relation who was sent to Siberia or simply shot.

scholarly journals The Ambivalent State: Determining Guilt in the Post-World War II Soviet Union

Slavic Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 606-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Exeler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Occupation ◽  
Second World ◽  
Soviet Population

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the search for alleged traitors took place in each country that had been under foreign occupation. The most active country in this regard was the Soviet Union. This article analyzes how the Soviet authorities dealt with people who had lived in German-occupied territory during the war. It discusses divergent understandings of guilt, and examines means of punishment, retribution and justice. I argue that inconsistencies in Moscow’s politics of retribution, apart from reflecting tensions between ideology and pragmatism, resulted from contradictions within ideology, namely the belief that the war had uncovered mass enemies in hiding, and the belief that it had been won with the mass support of the Soviet population. The state that emerged from the war, then, was both powerful and insecure, able to quickly reassert its authority in formerly German-occupied areas, but also deeply ambivalent about its politics of retribution.

scholarly journals The Jews in Finland and World War II

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 157-166
Author(s):  
Tapani Harviainen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Winter War

In the years 1989–1944 two different wars against the Soviet Union were imposed upon Finland. During the Winter War of 1989–1940 Germany remained strictly neutral on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact&&Great Britain and France planned intervention in favour of Finland. When the second, so-called Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1041, Finland was co-belligerent of Germany, and Great Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941. De jure, however, Finland was never an ally of Germany, and at the end of the war, in the winter 1944–1945, the Finnish armed forces expelled the German troops from Lapland, which was devastated by the Germans during their retreat to Norway. Military service was compulsory for each male citizen of Finland. In 1939 the Jewish population of Finland numbered 1 700. Of these, 260 men were called up and approximately 200 were sent to serve at the front during the Winter War.

Polish Sovietology in the Lead-up to the Cold War

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
Richard Pipes
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

After the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, some of the closest study of the new Communist regime and Soviet state was conducted by Polish scholars, whose country had a long history of troubled relations with Russia. Polish scholars had long been studying the Tsarist regime, but the advent of Soviet rule forced major adjustments. Some of the literature that emerged in Poland about the Soviet Union was perceptive, but other works were warped by anti-Semitism and an obsession with alleged Bolshevik-Judeo conspiracies. By the time of World War II, a substantial body of expertise about the USSR had accumulated in Poland. The war and the subsequent establishment of Soviet hegemony largely brought an end to this tradition, which could not truly be revived until after 1989.

scholarly journals REVISING THE HOLOCAUST

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUTH BETTINA BIRN
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
German Society ◽  
German Population ◽  
The Road ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Radical Revision

Hitler's willing executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. London: Little Brown and Company, 1996. Pp. x+622. £20.Questions about the motives of the perpetrators and, by implication, the causes of the Holocaust, have long been in the forefront of academic or non-academic discussions of the Nazi period – from the time of contemporary observers to the present day. A wide range of possible responses to these questions has been put forward, drawing on concepts from a variety of disciplines, such as history, psychology, sociology or theology. Daniel Goldhagen's book on the motivation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust claims to be a ‘radical revision of what has until now been written’ (p. 9). This claim is made on the book-jacket and by the author himself. His thesis can be summarized as follows: Germany was permeated by a particularly radical and vicious brand of anti-Semitism whose aim was the elimination of Jews. The author defines this as ‘eliminationist anti-Semitism’. This viral strain of anti-semitism, he states, ‘resided ultimately in the heart of German political culture, in German society itself’ (p. 428). Medieval anti-Semitism, based as it was on the teachings of the Christian religion, was so ‘integral to German culture’ (p. 55) that with the emergence of the modern era it did not disappear but rather took on new forms of expression, in particular, racial aspects. By the end of the nineteenth century ‘eliminationist anti-Semitism’ dominated the German political scene. In the Weimar Republic, it grew more virulent even before Hitler came to power. The Nazi machine merely turned this ideology into a reality. The course of its actualization was not deterred by anything save bare necessity: ‘the road to Auschwitz was not twisted’ (p. 425). When the ‘genocidal program’ was implemented along with the German attack on the Soviet Union, it was supported by the general German population, by the ‘ordinary Germans’ – the key phrase of the book – who became ‘willing executioners’. They had no need of special orders, coercion or pressure because their ‘cognitive model’ showed them that Jews were ‘ultimately fit only to suffer and to die’ (p. 316).

Let's Perform a Miracle: The Soviet Yiddish State Theater in the 1920s

Slavic Review ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-397
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Veidlinger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of

The history of the Soviet Yiddish State Theater (Gosudarstvennyi evreiskii teatr, or Goset) provides an illuminating glimpse into the life of Jewish entertainers and the position of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. While Solomon Mikhoels, the theater's star actor and director from 1929 until 1949, is well known for his role in chairing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II, and for becoming the first victim of Stalin's anti-Semitic purges with his 1948 execution, little research has been conducted on the theater to which he dedicated his life. Art and theater historians have evaluated the theater's aesthetic approach to selected productions, and Mikhoels's contemporaries have provided anecdotal glimpses into that artist's life by writing biographies of him, but there has not yet been an attempt to assess the theater's relationship to the state during its heyday or to place the theater within the context of Soviet culture of the 1920s.

Was There a Soviet Policy for Evacuating the Jews?: The Case of the Annexed Territories

Slavic Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben-Cion Pinchuk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Population ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Baltic

As a result of the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and Northern Bucovina in 1939-40, the Soviet Union was left with the largest Jewish population in Europe. Given this large population, the fact that the Soviet Union had the greatest number of Jews who survived World War II has aroused the interest of researchers and drawn attention to the role of Soviet policy in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. Some of the reasons for the survival of Jews in Soviet-annexed territories seem obvious. In contrast to other European countries, only part of the USSR was occupiéd by German armies. Therefore, Jews could find refuge in the unoccupied regions. This simple and generally sufficient explanation is not the only one which has been offered, however. Some Western scholars have argued that the Soviet government had a specific policy designed to rescue Jews from the danger of annihilation. Soviet propaganda, particularly that aimed at Western audiences, maintained that millions of Jews owed their lives to Soviet rescue operations during the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Buryatia in the Days of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45: Documentary Evidence

2021 ◽  
pp. 633-639
Author(s):  
Alexander A. Ivanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
The State ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Republic ◽  
State Plan

The review is dedicated to the collection “Buryatia in the days of the Great Patriotic War: 1941–45,” compiled from documents stored in the fonds of the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatia (GARB). The publication includes over 400 documents revealing various aspects of the republic inhabitants’ activities in the wartime. Documents are grouped into two sections. The first section mostly contains previously unpublished record keeping materials: decisions of local bodies of Soviet power at various levels, extracts from meetings of party committees, resolutions of rallies, reports on fulfillment and overfulfillment of state plan for supplying industrial and agricultural products, as well as appeals of workers and collective farmers to the Central Committee of the CPSU (B) and to J. V. Stalin personally. Some documents reveal the scale of uncompensated assistance provided by the residents of Buryatia, who gave money, livestock, and personal belongings to the state Defense Fund. Of interest is published correspondence with the command of partisan detachments, formed in part from residents of the republic, reports on trips to the front with labour gifts, and other documents. The second section contains sources of personal provenance: diaries and correspondence of military personnel called to the front from the republic and letters from the inhabitants of Buryatia to the army. Among the documents in this section there are excerpts from the diary of the Hero of the Soviet Union V. B. Borsoev, which is being published for the first time in this volume. The author describes the first period of World War II, the difficulties in supplying the warring army, the inability of the Red Army to fight and that of the commanders to control the troops. Front-line letters from soldiers and officers to their relatives and friends tell of the exploits and everyday life of the warring army, of the desire to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible and to return to peaceful life in the republic. The letters of the Kozulin brothers – Ivan, Alexei and Alexander, tankers who died in 1941–42, will undoubtedly attract the readers’ attention. The documents of the collection create a holistic picture of life and production activities of the population of Buryatia in the days of the war, reflect the complex and dramatic process of the regional economy restructuring for the needs of the country's defense, convey the labour heroism of industrial and agricultural workers and creative intelligentsia of the republic. The materials of the book recreate a true picture of those events, greatly enrich our knowledge on the life of the population of Buryatia in 1941–45, and, undoubtedly, serve as a valuable source for historians and for those interested in the topic.

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