Are Your Hands Covered in Jewish Blood? Jewish Red Army Soldiers Encountering the Aftermath of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union

Abstract

Soldiers and officers of the Red Army were among the first military personnel to encounter the destruction of the Ukrainian and Belarussian Jewish communities late in World War II. A significant proportion of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who served in the Red Army between 1943 and 1945 learned of the deaths of their own family members while they were in active duty. By examining the historical details and literary conventions of a small number of autobiographies and oral history interviews, the chapter discusses the range of reactions of these combatants to the destruction of their communities, from immediate retaliation to working with Soviet authorities to identify and convict collaborators. In addition, the chapter examines how a narrator’s current country of residence appears to influence the framing of his memoir.