Pioneers and Partisans: An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia : An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

The Nazi regime and local collaborators killed 800,000 Belorussian Jews, many of them parents or relatives of young Jews who survived the war. Thousands of young girls and boys were thus orphaned and struggled for survival on their own. This book is the first systematic account of young Soviet Jews' lives under conditions of Nazi occupation and genocide. These orphans' experiences and memories are rooted in the 1930s, when Soviet policies promoted and sometimes actually created interethnic solidarity and social equality. This experience of interethnic solidarity provided a powerful framework for the ways in which young Jews survived and, several decades after the war, represented their experience of violence and displacement. Through oral histories with several survivors, video testimonies, and memoirs, Anika Walke reveals the crucial roles of age and gender in the ways young Jews survived and remembered the Nazi genocide, and shows how shared experiences of trauma facilitated community building within and beyond national groups. Pioneers and Partisans uncovers the repeated transformations of identity that Soviet Jewish children and adolescents experienced, from Soviet citizens in the prewar years, to a target of genocidal violence during the war, to a barely accepted national minority in the postwar Soviet Union. "Thousands of young Jews were orphaned by the Nazi genocide in the German-occupied Soviet Union and struggled for survival on their own. This book weaves together oral histories, video testimonies, and memoirs produced in the former Soviet Union to show how the first generation of Soviet Jews, born after the foundation of the USSR, experienced the Nazi genocide and how they remember it in a context of social change following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The 1930s, a period when the notions of interethnic solidarity and social equality were promoted and a partly lived reality, were formative for a cohort of young Jews. Soviet policies of the time established a powerful framework for the ways in which survivors of the genocide understood, survived, and represent their experience of violence and displacement. The book demonstrates that the young Soviet Jews' struggle for survival, and its memory, was shaped by interethnic relationships within the occupied society, German annihilation policy, and Soviet efforts to construct a patriotic unity of the Soviet population. Age and gender were crucial factors for experiencing, surviving, and remembering the Nazi genocide in Soviet territories, an element that Anika Walke emphasizes by investigating the individual and collective efforts to save peoples' lives, in hiding places and partisan formations, and how these efforts were subsequently erased in the construction of the Soviet war portrayal. Pioneers and Partisans demonstrates how the Holocaust unfolded in the German-occupied Soviet territories and how Soviet citizens responded to it. The book does this work through oral histories of atrocities and survival during the German occupation in Minsk and a number of small towns in Eastern Belorussia such as Shchedrin, Slavnoe, Zhlobin, and Shklov. Following particular individuals' stories, framed within the broader historical and cultural context, this book tells of repeated transformations of identity, from Soviet citizen in the prewar years, to a target of genocidal violence during the war, to barely accepted national minority in the postwar Soviet Union"-- Provided by publisher The Nazi regime and local collaborators killed 800,000 Belorussian Jews, many of them parents or relatives of youngJews who survived the war. Thousands of young girls and boys were thus orphaned and struggled for survival on their own. This book is the first systematic account of young Soviet Jews' lives under conditions of Nazi occupation and genocide.These orphans' experiences and memories are rooted in the 1930s, when Soviet policies promoted and sometimes actually created interethnic solidarity and social equality. This experience of interethnic solidarity provided a powerful framework for the ways in which young Jews survived and, several decades after the war, represented their experience of violence and displacement.Through oral histories with several survivors, video testimonies, and memoirs, Anika Walke reveals the crucial roles of age and gender in the ways young Jews survived and remembered the Nazi genocide, and shows how shared experiences of trauma facilitated community building within and beyond national groups.__Pioneers and Partisans__ Oral Histories With Jews In The Former Soviet Union Reveal That Age And Gender Are Crucial Factors For Experiencing, Surviving, And Remembering The Nazi Genocide In Soviet Territories. These Memories Of Atrocities And Survival During The German Occupation Reflect Complex Negotiations Of Jewish And Soviet Identities And Highlight How Shared Experiences Of Trauma Facilitate Community Building Within And Beyond National Groups. Maps -- On Methodology : Oral History And The Nazi Genocide -- Between Tradition And Transformation : Soviet Jews In The 1930s -- The End Of Childhood : Young Soviet Jews In The Minsk Ghetto -- Suffering And Survival : The Destruction Of Jewish Communities In Eastern Belorussia -- Fighting For Life And Victory : Refugees From The Ghettos And The Soviet Partisan Movement -- Of Refuge And Resistance : Labor For Survival In The Zorin Family Unit -- Conclusion: Soviet Internationalism, Judaism, And The Nazi Genocide In Oral Histories. Anika Walke. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover Pioneers and Partisans Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration and Geopolitical Terminology Maps Introduction 1 On Methodology: Oral History and the Nazi Genocide 2 Between Tradition and Transformation: Soviet Jews in the 1930s 3 The End of Childhood: Young Soviet Jews in the Minsk Ghetto 4 Suffering and Survival: The Destruction of Jewish Communities in Eastern Belorussia 5 Fighting for Life and Victory: Refugees from the Ghettos and the Soviet Partisan Movement 6 Of Refuge and Resistance: Labor for Survival in the “Zorin Family Unit” Conclusion: Soviet Internationalism, Judaism, and the Nazi Genocide in Oral Histories Notes Sources Index