From Silence to Justification?: Moldovan Historians on the Holocaust of Bessarabian and Transnistrian Jews

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Solonari
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
June July

The Holocaust was one of the major experiences of the populations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, of those European countries that were either part of the Axis or occupied by Nazi Germany. This was certainly the case for the inhabitants of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Transnistria. These regions remained under Romanian administration from June/July 1941 to spring/summer 1944. The Soviets had seized Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. These territories were then reoccupied (“liberated”) by the Romanian and German armies after the German attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941. From 1941 to 1944 they were Romanian provinces ruled by separate highly centralized administrations. Transnistria (meaning literally “territory across the Dniester” in Romanian), which lies between the Dniester and Bug rivers, though never formally incorporated into Romania, was ruled by the Romanians during this period under the agreement with Hitler. Romanian authorities deported practically all Jews from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to Transnistria, accusing them of both treason and collaboration with the Soviets in 1940–1941 during the Soviet occupation and hostility towards the Romanian state in general. Some Roma, together with other “hostile elements” from other Romanian provinces, were also deported to Transnistria.

scholarly journals INFORMATION CONFRONTATION OF NAZI GERMANY AND THE USSR IN HISTORIOGRAPHY

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-62
Author(s):  
Oksana Salata
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The United States ◽  
Information Policy ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Second World

The second world and its constituent German-Soviet wars became the key events of the 20th century. Currently, the study of domestic and foreign historiography in the context of the disclosure of the information policy of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the information confrontation of the Nazi and Soviet systems of information and psychological infl uence on the enemy population is relevant. Thanks to the work of domestic and foreign scholars, the attraction of new archival materials and documents, the world saw scientifi c works devoted to various aspects of the propaganda activities of Nazi Germany, including in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Among them are the works of Ukrainian historians: A. Podolsky, Y. Nikolaytsya, P. Rekotov, O. Lysenko, V. Shaikan, M. Mikhailyuk, V. Grinevich; Russian historians M. I. Semiaryagi, E. Makarevich, V. I. Tsymbal and G. F. Voronenkova. An analysis of scientifi c literature published in Germany, England and the United States showed that the eff ectiveness and negative eff ects of German information policy are revealed in the works of German historians and publicists O. Hadamovsky, N. Muller, P. Longerich, R. Coel, et al. Along with the works devoted to armed confrontation, one can single out a study in which the authors try to show the information technologies and methods of psychological action that were used by the governments of both countries to infl uence the consciousness and the moral and psychological state of their own population and the enemy’s population, on the results of the Second World War. Most active in the study of Nazi propaganda and information policy of the Third Reich, in general, were the German historians, in particular E. Hadamovskie , G. Fjorsterch and G. Schnitter, and others. The value of their work is to highlight the process of the creation in 1933–1945 of the National Socialist Party in Germany of an unprecedented system of mass manipulation in the world’s history, fully controlled by the Nazi leadership of the information space. Thus, an analysis of the works of domestic and foreign scholars shows that the information confrontation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was extremely powerful, since both warring parties possessed the most up-to-date information and ideological weapon. Unfortunately, today there is no comprehensive study of this problem that could reveal all aspects of the information confrontation in the modern information world.

Israel's Moment

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herf
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Cold War

Israel's Moment is a major new account of how a Jewish state came to be forged in the shadow of World War Two and the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on new research in government, public and private archives, Jeffrey Herf exposes the political realities that underpinned support for and opposition to Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In an unprecedented international account, he explores the role of the United States, the Arab States, the Palestine Arabs, the Zionists, and key European governments from Britain and France to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland. His findings reveal a spectrum of support and opposition that stood in sharp contrast to the political coordinates that emerged during the Cold War, shedding new light on how and why the state of Israel was established in 1948 and challenging conventional associations of left and right, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and racism and anti-racism.

Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Yiddish Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

For many centuries Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world: right up to the Second World War, the area was home to over 40 per cent of the world's Jews. Yet the history of their Jewish communities is not well known. This book recreates this lost world, beginning with Jewish economic, cultural and religious life, including the emergence of hasidism. By the late eighteenth century, other factors had come into play: with the onset of modernization there were government attempts to integrate and transform the Jews, and the stirrings of Enlightenment led to the growth of the Haskalah movement. The book looks at developments in each area in turn: the problems of emancipation, acculturation, and assimilation in Prussian and Austrian Poland; the politics of integration in the Kingdom of Poland; and the failure of forced integration in the tsarist empire. It shows how the deterioration in the position of the Jews between 1881 and 1914 encouraged a range of new movements as well as the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. It also examines Jewish urbanization and the rise of Jewish mass culture. The final part, starting from the First World War and the establishment of the Soviet Union, looks in turn at Poland, Lithuania, and the Soviet Union up to the Second World War. It reviews Polish–Jewish relations during the war and examines the Soviet record in relation to the Holocaust. The final chapters deal with the Jews in the Soviet Union and in Poland since 1945, concluding with an epilogue on the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia since the collapse of communism.

The Soviet Legacy in Thinking about Fascism

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-42
Author(s):  
Marlene Laruelle
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Soviet Legacy ◽  
Second World

This chapter goes back in time to look at the Soviet construction of the Russian term fashizm and some of the ambiguities that the Soviet society cultivated toward the term and its historical personification, Nazi Germany. It recalls that the term fascism (fashizm), in Soviet times, belonged more to an emotional than to an analytical lexicon. The chapter also discusses Russia's history and Russians' memories of the Second World War, called the Great Patriotic War in Russian (Velikaia otechestvennaia voina) and Victory Day (Den´ pobedy). It reviews how the cult of war is intimately linked to the Brezhnev era and provided the context in which commemoration of the Great Patriotic War was institutionalized as a sacred symbol of the Soviet Union, a confirmation of the soundness of the socialist system and the unity of its peoples. The chapter then argues that the very solemnity of Soviet anti-fascism, and its centrality to the country's political identity constitute the fundaments inherited from Soviet times on the basis of which the notion of fascism is operationalized in today's Russia. Ultimately, the chapter further elaborates the three main sources of the Soviet's cryptic fascination with Nazi Germany and source of knowledge about fashizm: the Nazi propaganda, criminal culture, and cinema and culture.

Upside-Down History

2001 ◽  
pp. 377-380
Author(s):  
Jerzy Tomaszewski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust

This chapter reviews an article by David Cymet, entitled ‘Polish State Antisemitism as a Major Factor Leading to the Holocaust’. The article was published in Britain in the Journal of Genocide Research. The chapter considers a number of peculiarities and mistakes present in the article. It questions the sources drawn by the article to expound its thesis. Moreover, the chapter analyses the article's thesis that the views and deeds of Polish antisemites influenced the Nazi policy of genocide in Germany, occupied Poland, and other countries. It argues that the German authorities in occupied Poland were not under the influence of Poles. Indeed, while there were rare cases of individual Polish politicians offering to co-operate with Germany against the Soviet Union, these proposals met with no response.

Estonia

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-132
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
The Soviet Union

The independent Republic of Estonia was attacked and formally annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. It was subsequently invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941 until Soviet troops re-entered the country in 1944. At the end of the war, virtually every member of Estonia’s small prewar Jewish community had been murdered, deported, or had fled the country. Estonia’s independence was restored in 1991, and post-Communist Estonia passed restitution laws that applied generally to private and communal immovable property confiscated during the Communist era. Estonia endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

Recent Public Discourses on Anti-Jewish Violence in Moldovan History, 1991–2019

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
Anastasia Felcher
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Local Media ◽  
Public Recognition ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
Anti Jewish

Abstract Efforts to commemorate the victims of the 1903 Chişinǎu (Kishinev) pogrom and the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria have achieved varying degrees of success in the Republic of Moldova. Gaining public recognition for these experiences has proven a convoluted process. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the local Community has led an enduring memorialization campaign, which has steadily evolved with the shifting political climate. Though Community representatives have at times had a fraught relationship with Moldovan officials, they have continuously sought official acknowledgment of their efforts. This article analyzes how both the government and the Jewish Community have handled memory in public spaces and the local media of Chişinǎu.

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