“The Matter of Four Screws”: Holocaust Commemorations in (Post-)Soviet Russia (the Case of Rostov-on-Don)

Abstract

This chapter aims to analyze the functioning of Holocaust memory throughout post-war history using the case study of the city of Rostov-on-Don. Situated in Southern Russia, it has a historically large Jewish population in its demographic structure. A ravine on the outskirts of the city—Zmievskaya Balka—is the largest Holocaust site in post-Soviet Russia. The reconstruction of Holocaust history during the second occupation of Rostov-on-Don based mainly on official Soviet wartime sources highlights the problems of the commemoration of Holocaust victims in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Official memory on World War II “in a Soviet way” excluded specific groups of victims of the Nazis, reducing them to a single supranational category of “peaceful Soviet citizens.” The erection of memorial complexes in memory of the “Victims of fascism” in the 1960s and 1970s consolidated this memory, becoming a further obstacle to the study and remembrance of certain groups of victims, including their names and fates throughout the Soviet period. The generalization of all victims as civilians has caused memory conflicts in modern Russia at the level of the activity of Jewish communities, local historians, and public figures who are trying to restore historical justice using accessible archival sources. The example of the dismantling of the memorial plaque in Zmievskaya Balka (Rostov-on-Don) caused representatives of the Jewish community to initiate a lawsuit. Despite the installation of a new memorial plaque, memory conflict is still not settled in Rostov-on-Don. A comprehensive study of the case of Rostov-on-Don extends the findings to the state level and helps to improve understanding of the current memory culture of World War II and its victims in the Russian Federation.