Antisemitism in the Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944: The Case of Belorussia

Abstract

��� For many Jews in Belorussia, the partisan units fighting the Nazis were the only hope for survival or revenge. But many partisans harbored antisemitic attitudes and related to Jews accordingly. The official leadership of the partisan movement did little to prevent or stop this. After the war the Soviet authorities kept silent on the subject, and only the recent opening of archives has permitted historians to learn more about the experiences of Jews who fought in or interacted with the partisan movement. How the partisans in Belorussia during the Soviet-German war regarded the Nazi policy of genocide toward the Jews has remained a neglected theme throughout the entire postwar period, primarily due to Soviet suppression of Jewish issues. Historians in the West were the first to raise the question, but their lack of access to Soviet archives and reliable statistics hampered their research. After the end of the war, a “conspiracy of silence” surrounded the issue of partisan-Jewish relations. The Soviet leadership categorically denied that there had been any antisemitism in partisan circles, for that would have been a breach of “proletarian internationalism” and a refutation of the claim that the Soviet people had attained national unity under the leadership of the Communist Party. After the war Soviet Jews were afraid to remind others of the tragedy that had