NON-NIPPED MEMORY. THE HOLOCAUST IN THE SOVIET WAR MEMOIRS

Abstract

The article addresses the presentation of the mass murder of Jews during WWII in the Soviet printed production. An overall trend of ignoring the topic of the Holocaust in the Soviet media discourse is unquestioned. Yet, (non)presentation of the mass destruction of Jews in the Soviet literature, which is commonly emphasized by the researches, needs clarification. If we look at the Soviet literature on the Great Patriotic War (including fiction prose), we can trace a phenomenon described in this article through war memoirs. Alongside official ignoring of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, the whole post-war period experienced mass publishing and re-publishing of memoir books which provided direct references to the murder of Jews by the Nazis during the war. Herewith, combatants’ memoirs would often touch very briefly on the murders of Jews, but give no explanations. Such reference style implies that the authors targeted the readers’ background awareness. Detailed descriptions of Jewish discrimination, segregation, getthoisation and murder are found in the memoirs of former prisoners of war and partisans. The account of Nazi persecution of the Jews is an integral part of the stories of everyday life in the occupied territory, which often represents the major piece of the narrative. Under certain ideology, the mention of the murders of Jews was intentionally instrumentalized by the Soviet memoir writers seeking to demonstrate a criminal nature of Nazi collaborators. As can be inferred from the Soviet war memoirs, we are not supposed to simplify a clear-cut attitude of ignoring and should conceptualize the phenomenon of «non-nipped memory» in semi-official narratives. Soviet narratives, particularly war memoirs, did not highlight Nazi persecution of the Jews as a separate phenomenon; although described in detail, it was seen only as a part of the «new order». In the Soviet setting, we do encounter ignoring of the Holocaust (as a separate phenomenon), but at the same time, although with certain limitations, the memory of the mass murder of the Soviet Jews was quite actively reflected in war memoirs.