Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow: A Guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive, David E. Fishman, Mark Kupovetsky, and Vladimir Kuzelenkov, eds. (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press [dist. University of Chicago Press] in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Jewish Theological Seminary, 2011), xiv + 291 pp., cloth $30.00

Abstract

The end of the Cold War brought about a major turning point in the historiography of the Holocaust. Drawing on documents from newly-opened archives in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, scholars have expanded their research on many fronts. But while numerous studies over the last twenty years focus primarily on the German perpetrators and their collaborators, historians have realized the dangers of objectifying the victims (as the Nazis did) and increasingly have turned to Jewish history and culture in order to understand better the victims' responses. Therefore, “it is no longer acceptable for general histories of the Holocaust to overlook the fact that the victims were real people with emotions and varying responses to persecution,” as Dan Stone asserts in his recent historiography.1 The holdings of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA) described by David Fishman, Mark Kupovetsky (professors of Jewish studies), and Vladimir Kuzelenkov (director of the RGVA) attest to the diversity and richness of European Jewish culture before it was nearly destroyed by the Germans in World War II, and may aid researchers restore the proper balance between the perspectives of perpetrators and their victims.