Introduction

Introduction

Many questions drive a person to study the Holocaust. These questions are
numerous and mostly unanswerable. Among them are questions about God and where
he was during the Holocaust, why he abandoned the Jews, and whether what
happened during the Holocaust could take place again. Did modern warfare
technology show people a glimpse into the human potential of evil doing (Bauer,
1980)? How could the appearance of Adolf Hitler lead to the murder of most of
European Jewry? How thousands of peaceful Germans, who otherwise would not
intentionally harm another human being, could have contributed heavily to the
execution of the Holocaust (Langer, 1995)?

More than a hundred years ago about five million Jews resided in the territory
of the Russian Empire. The Russian and later Soviet Jews lived through some of the
most dramatic and traumatic events known to modern history. They had experienced
two world wars, revolutions, never ending anti-Semitic pogroms, political liberation,
and governmental repression. Culturally, Russian Jews have contributed
monumentally to the Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian
literature. When permitted by Soviet authorities, they contributed to the field of
science and technology, industry, art, scholarship, and fought in the wars. For their
multiple achievements they encountered a mix of praise and anti-Semitic persecution
(Gitelman, 1988). After the end of WWII Jews, Jewish identity and Jewish history
were silenced. They became a taboo (Rohdewald, 2008).

Their own identities were frequently challenged in the process. Some put aide
anti-Semitic discrimination and dedicated their lives to the communist regime even
though the Soviet regime rarely allowed them to forget they were Jews. Others
ultimately rejected their country of birth and sought to move to other lands. Some
sought to shed their Jewishness and assimilate into the dominant Russian culture
while others have attempted to hold on to it and explore pro-Zionist ideas (Gitelman,
1988). Regardless of their position, the Soviet authorities had consistently
discriminated against the Jews-not permitting them to forget that they were Jews in a
non-Jewish country.

Until recently, demographic and sociological data pertaining to Soviet Jews in
the era between WWI and WWII have been dependent on the materials published in
USSR (Altshuler, 1998). Censorship was extensive in the Soviet Union up until the
1990s. The numerous documents relevant to the Jewish life and the Holocaust, such
as the numbers of Jews dead, as well as witness accounts were not available to the
public. Survivors were discouraged from sharing their experiences, the Holocaust was
downplayed, and survivors’ testimonies were non-existent (Gitelman, 1997). Sixtythree
years after the end of WWII there continues to be a lack of knowledge about the
fate of Soviet Holocaust survivors.

It is known that about one third of the Jews massacred in the Holocaust were
Soviet citizens, yet they remain the most unknown population (Gitelman, 1993). The
number of the Soviet Jews massacred in the Holocaust are estimated between 2.5
million and 3.3 million (Altshuler, 1998). The exploration of Jewish history and
culture by Jews was not permitted in USSR until the 1990’s, which was particularly
destructive since no other country lost as many Jews as the Soviet Union (Gitelman,
1990).

In recent years, specific scholarship about the Holocaust in the USSR began to
emerge in the fields of history, political science and economics. For example, “The
Holocaust and Colonialism in the Ukraine” (Lower, 2005), “Ghettos in the Occupied
Soviet Union: The Nazi ‘System’” (Dean, 2005), “Soviet Jewish War
Photojournalists Confront the Holocaust” (Shneer, 2005), “Jewish-Belorussian
Solidarity in World War II Minsk” (Epstein, 2005), “Yizker Bikher as Primary
Sources for the Study of Ghettos in the German-Occupied Soviet Union” (Koss,
2005), and “The Fate of Soviet Soldiers in German Captivity” (Otto, 2005). Though
these studies are of extreme importance, since they bridge the gap in the Soviet
Holocaust scholarship, one crucial factor is missing. The voices of the survivors, the
people who experienced these events, are not there. This is mainly because survivors
from that area are exceptionally rare. Not many survived the Holocaust, some still
reside in the former-Soviet Union, and those who live in the West rarely have had the
opportunity to share their accounts.

Language is another important factor standing in the way of learning about
Soviet Jewish Holocaust survivors. In the US it is difficult, but possible, to locate
Soviet Holocaust survivors. It is not easy to collect their testimonies, however,
because many of them do not speak English. This may in part explain why there are
only eight testimonies of Soviet Holocaust survivors at the Washington DC United
Holocaust Memorial Museum which are in English.

Soviet Jewish Holocaust survivors are difficult to find and are often unwilling
to share their stories. Many learned not to speak about their experiences because they
feared the repercussions from the Soviet government and this appears to continue to
be the case even after they have left the Soviet Union.

To summarize, Soviet authorities treated the Holocaust in the Soviet Union
very differently than governments in the rest of the world (Gitelman, 1990). The
events of the Holocaust were downplayed by the Soviet authorities and survivors
were silenced (Gitelman, 1997). The Soviet government systematically suppressed
any evidence of the Holocaust from the public (Altshuler, 1987). The materials about
the Soviet Holocaust appearing today are aimed at educating future generations.
Some survivors are cautious to speak about their experiences to this day. Some
survivors who moved to the US are willing to share their experience, but cannot do so
because they do not speak English. With the opening of Soviet archives, more
information becomes available about the fate of the Soviet Jews in the Holocaust.
Testimonies of Soviet Holocaust survivors, however, continue to be scarce