Trauma and allegory: truthfulness in fact and fiction. Making a private archive productive

Herengracht 401 (H401), until 2019 known as Castrum Peregrini, represents the complex and intriguing history of a hermetic community of artists and scholars in Amsterdam which was formed in the years of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, 1940–1945.This article attempts to take stock on what we have learned in these ten years about the history of the place, as an indicator of memory politics. It also reflects on the hermeneutic gap of what we cannot know of H401’s history as we lack experiential knowledge of eyewitnesses. As the author argues below, the site of H401 shows how the ‘hermeneutic gap’ can offer a chance to make an archive, such as in the case of ‘the house on Herengracht 401’, productive and meaningful through the artistic practice of research.

EVENTS OF THE “SECOND BAZAAR” AND THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH ISSUE IN THE TOWN OF BAZAAR BY THE NAZI OCCUPATION AUTHORITIES

This study supplements factual data on the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the execution of the UPR army soldiers by Bolshevik troops, identified in historiographic sources as the “Second Bazaar”. Another issue considered in the paper is the execution of the local Jewish population, carried out exactly on the day of commemoration of the victims of the Bazaar tragedy. The methodological basis of the study is constituted by the methods of source heuristics. By detecting, processing, and introducing a new set of archival sources – archival and criminal cases – into scientific circulation, the existing factual basis on the specified events has been expanded. The contradictory and subjective nature of the given sources also necessitates the use of appropriate methodological tools. Therefore, the method which Robin George Collingwood once described as “cross-examination on the bench” is utilized, when the historian “cross-interrogates the sources to extract information that they did not disclose in their previous testimony, or because they did not want to give it, or because they did not have it”. To fully cover and reconstruct the specified events, a descriptive method is employed. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the fact that it presents a comprehensive account of specific details of the preparation and commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Bazaar tragedy, and in fact, it is the first in modern Ukrainian historiography generalized study of the local Jewish population’s execution on the day of the Bazar anniversary. Conclusions. The events of the “Second Bazaar” have become one of the symbols of the Ukrainian national struggle for statehood, representing another tragic page in the history of the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples. Further research might be conducted to personalize the members and sympathizers of the OUN, participants of the commemoration events of the “Second Bazaar”, victims of Nazi repressions and determine the exact number of Jewish people killed.

ZHYTOMYR NEWSPAPER “THE VOICE OF VOLYN” IN THE GERMAN INFORMATION SPACE (OCTOBER 1941-1943)

This paper aims to consider the newspaper “Voice of Volyn”, published in Zhytomyr in 1941-1943, as part of the German information space during the Second World War. The methodology of the study incorporates general scientific and special historical methods alongside with the fundamental principles of historical research: historicism, scientificity, objectivity, and systematicity. The principles of historicism and scientificity have contributed to the complex representation of the history of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” in interconnection and interrelation with the events of that period. The principle of objectivity has facilitated the analysis of the discussed issue considering the objective historical regularities based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing specialized literature and sources. The principle of systematicity has allowed to obtain a holistic picture of the Zhytomyr newspaper “Voice of Volyn" as a component of the German information space on the occupied territory of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the paper is conditioned by the fact that it is the first research discussing the history of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” in the context of the German information space in 1941-1943 on the basis of a comprehensive range of historical sources. The author concludes that the activities of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” can be divided into two periods: from October to the second half of November 1941, and from the second half of November 1941 until the end of the Nazi occupation. At the first stage, under the German military administration, the newspaper was controlled by the representatives of the independence movement, who exploited the newspaper to promote their own ideas. In the second stage, after the establishment of the German civil authorities, the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” was deprived of the independence movement’s influence and turned into an important information and propaganda press organ of the occupation authorities. The newspaper “Voice of Volyn” represented three directions of German propaganda: anti-Soviet propaganda; anti-Jewish propaganda; and propaganda aimed at supporting the occupation economic activities.

Educational processes in Khmelnytsky region in the conditions of Nazi occupation (according to the materoals of the Proskuriv newspaper "Ukrainian Voice")

The article analyzes the course of educational processes in Khmelnytskyi region during the Nazi occupation. The main source for the preparation of the investigation was the materials of the newspaper "Ukrainian Voice", published in Proskuriv from 1941 to 1943. The content of the publications, contained in this magazine, is characterized, the attention is paid to the personalities involved in its publication. It is shown that many of the posts had a pronounced propaganda orientation. The education system in the region is characterized. Statistics on the number of schools in the Khmelnytskyi region, as well as student performance indicators are presented. It was found that in the field of schooling in the specified period there were a lot of problems: unsatisfactory condition of school premises, low attendance of students and lack of textbooks. It is proved that the authorities made significant efforts for the proper organization of the educational process - carried out repairs, imposed fines on parents who did not allow children to attend classes. Changes in school curricula after the establishment of the occupation administration in the region were observed. Emphasis is placed on the activities of the Medzhibizh Library. It is established that the school education system was used for the purpose of ideological influence on the local population. The activity of vocational education institutions in Khmelnytskyi region is analyzed. Features of their functioning are described. It is proved that the vast majority of them were represented by short-term courses and vocational schools. Based on newspaper materials, the features of the entrance campaigns in this period are analyzed. The level of material and technical support of educational institutions is characterized. Attention is paid to the activities of the Ukrainian Industrial Society in the field of education. The Kamianets-Podilskyi Teachers’ Institute was an important center for training teachers for schools in the Khmelnytskyi region during that period. Its role as an educational center in the region is highlighted. The number of students of this institution has been established. It is found out that obtaining a professional qualification at that time was usually paid. It is proved that in vocational education institutions specialists were trained in those sectors of the economy whose human resources were the most valuable in terms of their further exploitation in favor of the Third Reich.

The Nazi Occupation of Theaterwissenschaft

Theaterwissenschaft was first developed as an academic field in Germany. In Berlin, Max Herrmann pursued a sociological and iconological approach; in Cologne and in Munich, Carl Niessen and Artur Kutscher followed an ethnographic and mythological direction, respectively. With the Nazi takeover in 1933, Herrmann was dismissed and replaced by a non-scholar, Hans Knudsen. Niessen’s open-air Thingspiel was co-opted to support Nazi ideas of Volkstum. Kutscher renounced his liberal background and joined the Party. In Vienna, Josef Gregor got the local Gauleiter to found a Central Institute for Theatre Studies that disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda. The most egregious case is that of Heinz Kindermann, who rose to be the most influential aesthetician of National Socialism, proposing a biological foundation to theatre studies and offering a racial-eugenic approach to theatre history. As this article demonstrates, in the post-war period, theatre studies sedulously avoided dealing with the Nazi interlude, where official denazification permitted these men and others to carry on teaching and publishing, winning honours and titles. It was not until the 1980s that attempts were made to confront this past. Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor Emeritus of Drama and Oratory at Tufts University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Conference on Transglobal Theatre. His most recent books include Jacques Offenbach and the Making of Modern Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Stanislavsky: A Life in Letters (Routledge, 2013); and (with Sergei Ostrovsky) The Soviet Theatre: A Documentary History (Yale University Press, 2014).

Holocaust Survivor Diaspora(s)

This chapter discusses the evolution of “Holocaust survivor diasporas” in the aftermath of World War II by examining how the experience of survival under Nazi occupation created a distinct and shared identity for those who would emerge from the war. In the early postwar period, survivors formed transnational networks on the basis of shared wartime experience, common geographical origin, and shared political agendas that were far more specific than the more general category of “Holocaust survivors” that would develop later, in the last decades of the twentieth century. Survivors and the distinct organizations they formed came to play a prominent role in both defining the categories of “Holocaust” and “survivor” and in shaping subsequent efforts at Holocaust education and memorialization.

A FORGOTTEN HERO: JAN MORAWIŃSKI (1907–1949)

Notes of a Curator at the National Museum published in 1970 in the second volume of the book Struggle for Cultural Goods is the only generally available testimony to saving the Wilanów historic monuments by Jan Morawiński, a forgotten hero from the times of WW II. Additionally priceless because of Morawiński documenting the looting of 137 paintings belonging to the pre-WW II Branicki collection at Wilanów. The above-mentioned Notes were published by the Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy after the manuscript kept in the private archive of the author’s daughter Agnieszka Morawińska. The notes, however, resemble pieces of paper torn from a notebook in which an earlier chapter is missing. The missing chapter does exist, yet for unknown reasons was omitted in the two-volume Struggle for Cultural Goods. Warsaw 1939–1945 edited by Prof. Stanisław Lorentz. The present paper is based on Morawiński’s hand-written testimony, supported by archival sources and recollections of his colleagues from the National Museum in Warsaw (MNW). From August 1939 to August 1944, Jan Morawiński, together with others, was involved in saving precious museum exhibits in the Museum building, but also throughout Warsaw. He was involved in packing the historic monuments into crates which were to help them survive the toughest times, and he helped to put out fires at the Museum, risking his own life. Moreover, he rescued the Royal Castle collections during the hardest bombing of Warsaw, transporting them to the storages in Warsaw’s Jerozolimskie Avenue. For his dedication he was awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross of the 5th class by Gen. Juliusz Rómmel. After Warsaw’s surrender, he was assigned Head of MNW’s storerooms and inventories: when Director Lorentz was absent, he acted as his deputy. In the first period of the Nazi occupation he courageously faced German officials. Furthermore, he headed the clandestine action of inventorying and documenting German destructions and plundering. The knowledge amassed in this way was extremely helpful in the restitution of the looted historic monuments, not only museum ones. He also contributed to documenting the destruction of the Warsaw Castle. Imprisoned by the Nazis, he went through Gestapo’s hands at Daniłowiczowska Street in Warsaw. Later on, he became manager of the Museum of Old Warsaw in the Old Town, at the same time acting as a guardian of the Wilanów collection. Following the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising, he participated in the so-called Pruszków Action in whose course he was badly injured.