Local memory on war, German occupation and postwar years

Abstract

AbstractThe article presents the findings of an oral history project carried out between 2001 and 2010 in the Donbass region, the main coal basin of the former Soviet Union until the 1960s. Following a narrative biographical approach, the respondents’ accounts combine their everyday life experiences during the 22 months of German occupation during World War II with their pre- and postwar experiences. Special attention is given to how the respondents dealt with Nazi rule in relation to pre- and postwar Stalinist rule, how they dealt with the crimes of both regimes and how they depicted the Germans in general. It is shown that while Soviet propaganda and historiography had for decades propagated a rather dehumanized picture of the enemy, individual narratives mention the existence of various human feelings between the occupiers and the occupied population including hatred, friendship, and sometimes even love. In some interviews, it appears that a certain refiguration of memory and a more positive evaluation of the period of occupation has taken place and stands in sharp contrast with the magnitude of German crimes and human losses in the Donbass.