German Occupation Regime Research Articles

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ УВІЧНЕННЯ ПАМ’ЯТІ ЖЕРТВ НАЦИСТСЬКОГО ТЕРОРУ НА ХАРКІВЩИНІ У ВОЄННИЙ ТА ПОВОЄННИЙ ЧАС

The aim of the work. The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of commemorative initiatives and building of monuments connected with the commemoration of victims of Nazi terror on the territory of the Kharkiv region. The article explains the specifics of honoring the memory of different groups of victims of Nazi terror on the territory of the Kharkiv region in wartime and in the post-war period. The methodological base consists of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, systematic approach) along with special historical ones (historical-comparative, historical-systematic). The principles of scientificity, objectivity, and historicism are also applied. The scientific novelty of the research is defined by the fact that the author conducted for the first time a comprehensive study of commemorative initiatives of victims of Nazi terror on the territory of the Kharkiv region. Conclusions. During 1941–1945, the Kharkiv region was controlled by the German Military Administration. The German occupation regime established in the Kharkiv region led to numerous deaths among civilians and prisoners of war. The people's initiative served as the first step in commemorating the victims of war. Further, the state assumed control over the building of monuments. Works of monumental art became the instruments for the distribution of Soviet myths about «The Great Patriotic War». The official Soviet ceremonial model of commemoration was characterized by an intrusive cult of internationalism, heroism, Soviet patriotism, and self-sacrifice. The authorities stayed indifferent to people, keeping no record of victims and depersonalizing the dead. Due to the fatal defeats of the Red Army, the Kharkiv region lost about half a million citizens, but it wasn't highly ranked in the national narrative about the war. The state demonstrated discriminatory methods for commemoration of certain categories of the dead. Some of them were represented in the memorial space, and others were deprived of their rights. First of all, this concerned victims of mass terror – Jews, orphans, and prisoners of war. Only with the collapse of the communist regime and the independence of Ukraine these categories of victims of Nazi terror got the opportunity to convey their own vision of war to the general public.

The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower

Reviewed by: The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower Anika Walke Wendy Lower. The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. 301 pp. In 1986, Soviet investigators examined the participation of local residents in violence orchestrated by the German occupation regime in Miropol, then UkrSSR. In the subsequent trial, three men were convicted of shooting fellow Soviet citizens. Two of the men were executed, another one, who had been seventeen years old at the time of the crime, was sentenced to lengthy imprisonment. In major parts, the trial and conviction were based on witness statements and exhumations at the murder site. Little historical research was available at the time to illuminate the situation in Miropol. There were no photos of the crime. Such evidence had not been necessary to identify the perpetrators. Rather, the diligent work of an investigator, Major Mikola Makareyvych, provided justice for the victims. Recently, historian Wendy Lower added photos to the file and thus underwrote the conviction. She also offers a new perspective on the crime that first of all concerns the victims—Jews whose collective and personal identity had remained obscure throughout. What allowed her to do so? In 2009, Lower was given the photograph of an execution and began to research its origins, with the express aim to “unmask the killers and restore some kind of life and dignity to the victims” (6). Over many years and based on research in several countries, she was able to track down the perpetrators: Ukrainian policemen, German customs guards, and members of the SS. Information about the victims, however, remains inconclusive; the names and lives of the woman and two children who are falling into the ravine at their feet are unknown. And yet, the search, as documented in the book, is not a failure. Lower is to be commended for developing a concise and accessible narrative of the Holocaust in eastern Europe, specifically in German-occupied Soviet territories, built around an in-depth study of the image. The book draws on Lower’s expertise in the subject matter and speaks to and with several strands of Holocaust research that have gained traction in recent years: the study of visual evidence; increased attention to issues of perpetration and collaboration in the German-occupied areas, especially in the East; efforts to identify the many unknown mass graves created by the Einsatzgruppen massacres of Jews, Roma, and others; attention to the spatial and environmental legacies of the genocide; and a critical examination of postwar justice and retribution. The eight chapters are not explicitly structured according to these themes, though one can identify pertinent questions as guiding the sections of the book. In the attempt to “break the frame around the crime scene” (6), Lower’s study is situated in a long line of efforts to decode and interpret photographs for their content and meaning and to use them to uncover deeper historical truths. She succeeds in doing so, developing a microhistorical study of the events of October 12, 1941, in Miropol, identifying German and Ukrainian perpetrators and the Slovakian photographer. She also offers a detailed and disturbing description of [End Page 238] the effects of mass burial on soil in forested areas that make it at once difficult and possible to identify the sites of killing. At the same time, the main conclusion of the book, that “atrocity photographs can become unifying, ethical calls to action and justice, if we choose to look” (171), seems commonplace since Susan Sontag’s ruminations in Regarding the Pain of Others (2003). Most contentious for scholars of the Holocaust and other genocides will be chapter 5, “The Search for the Family.” Lower writes, “Here we see the genocide at its extreme: the final moment when uniformed gangs of men like this one annihilate women and children” (11), and she argues that Jews were “killed in small family groups and therefore [saw] and [felt] the suffering of loved ones, including parents viewing the destruction of their own children. This is perhaps the most extreme assault that the genocidaire inflicts” (12). She rightly emphasizes the agony that family members underwent as they...

Activities of the OUN Underground and the UPA Fighters in the Territory of Crimea during World War II (1941—1944) in Ukrainian Historiography

The article highlights the issues of the underground activities of the OUN underground and the UPA fighters during the Second World War in Ukrainian historiography. The program and ideological documents of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) are analyzed in relation to their vision of the role and place of Crimea in the geopolitical strategies of the future independent Ukrainian state. It is noted that back in the 20s–30s of the 20th century ideologists of the nationalist movement developed geostrategic concepts in which Crimea occupied a key place as a certain outpost of the Black Sea region, which cannot be conceded under any circumstances. It is noted that in these documents Ukrainian nationalists considered Crimea as the main base of the Ukrainian naval forces and the Ukrainian merchant fleet.It was established that Ukrainian nationalists began to implement their plans and own ideas in the conditions of the German-Soviet war, which is reflected in the works of Ukrainian historians and direct participants of those events. It is noted there that already at the beginning of July 1941, the first derivative groups of the OUN went to the central Ukrainian lands, from where they planned to take over all ethnic Ukrainian lands, creating their own authorities and administrations on them, and Crimea was one of their destinations. Accordingly, the OUN (Melnik’s supporters) and OUN (Bandera’s supporters) created special Crimean groups that were to move directly to the peninsula. In the autumn of 1941, the first groups of the OUN managed to enter the territory of the peninsula. At that time, the German occupation regime began repression against the members and supporters of the OUN, so the derivative groups moving to the Crimea were under the threat of exposure and physical destruction.It is noted that in Ukrainian historiography there is a widespread opinion, supported by the documentary base and eyewitness accounts, that Simferopol became the center of activity in Crimea. Separate structures of the OUN were also created in Dzhankoi, Yalta and other cities of the peninsula. Being persecuted by the German repressive authorities, Ukrainian nationalists were still able to gain a foothold in Crimea and start systematic organizational work, which consisted in creating a network of supporters, activities of cultural, educational and religious structures.It was established that in the conditions of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the temporary occupation of part of the Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, comprehensive and unbiased coverage of the above-mentioned topic is a relevant and necessary matter today.

Перестройка работы УНКВД по Курской области накануне немецкой оккупации

Importance. Interest in the events of the Great Patriotic War is reinforced both by the complexity and inconsistency of modern processes taking place in Russia and the world, and by the insufficient degree of study of certain topics of this historical period in the country’s modern history. Topics related to the activities of the state security agencies of the USSR are traditionally not studied in detail in historical science. The purpose of study is to reconstruct the historical events that preceded the invasion of German troops into the territory of the Kursk Region, one of the largest regions of the Central Black Earth Region. Research methods. The study is based on declassified archival materials of the Directorate of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Kursk Region. The materials of the fourth department of the NKVD in the Kursk Region for May–December 1941 are studied. Results and Discussion. The German aggression against the USSR put before the state and party bodies, both in the whole country as a whole, and at the regional level, the need to restructure all spheres of the country’s life. The features and directions of restructuring the activities of territorial bodies of state security, regional and district party and state bodies on the eve of the German invasion of the territory of the region are studied. Specific measures are considered that were carried out and planned for implementation as the German troops approached the borders of the Kursk Region. Considerable attention is paid to the creation of fighter battalions, the organization of partisan detachments, the deployment of a reconnaissance, agent and sabotage network in the rear of the German troops as they move towards the Kursk Region. Conclusion. As subsequent events showed, the preparatory measures played a big role in organizing a fairly effective resistance to the German occupation regime in almost all areas of the Kursk Region throughout the entire period of the German occupation of the Kursk region in November 1941 – August 1943.

External and own «strangers»: Belorussian history textbooks about the German occupation regime and Belorussian collaborators during the great patriotic war

The article explores how the «strangers» are represented in the modern school textbooks on the history of Belorussia. The period of the Great Patriotic War has been chosen for analysis, because it is the event that is most seriously presented in historical memory. The Great Patriotic War is used by the Belorussian propaganda to form a modern sense of patriotism. The «strangers» during the war are divided into two types: «external strangers» — Germany, the Wehrmacht, the occupation authorities, and «own strangers» — persons who collaborated with the occupation regime, collaborators. In the Belorussian textbooks of the latest generation, which are currently being used in schools, there are images of «external strangers». The «external strangers» are presented as the organizers of the genocide of the civilian population, seeking to destroy the established situation. The textbooks reflect the struggle of Belorussians with the «external strangers». However, in the Belorussian textbook published in 2019 there is no mention of the «own strangers» — Belorussians who collaborated with the occupation regime. This information was presented in the textbooks of the previous generation. The Belorussian collaboration was assessed negatively. The current state of affairs can be partly explained by the foreign policy situation. Since 2014 the Belorussian authorities have been actively resisting Russian-Belorussian integration. The government has eased pressure on the Belorussian opposition, which has begun to actively support the official authorities in resisting integration. The Belorussian opposition uses the same symbols used by the Belorussian collaborators during the war. First of all, the white-red-white flag. For some time, the official authorities did not need the symbols of the opposition to be associated with collaboration. However, in August 2020, mass protests against the results of the presidential elections burst out in Belorussia. The main symbols of those protests were white-red-white flags. The authorities had a need to discredit the white-red-white flag by pointing out that it was actively used by the Belorussian collaborators. The textbook returned the mention of the «own strangers» of the war, as well as the mention of the kind of symbols that the «own strangers» used at that time.

КЛЮЧОВІ ІСТОРИЧНІ НАРАТИВИ ФОРМУВАННЯ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ УКРАЇНЦІВ У ПРОПАГАНДИСТСЬКОМУ ДИСКУРСІ НІМЕЦЬКИХ ОКУПАЦІЙНИХ ЗОН УКРАЇНИ (1941–1944 рр.)

The purpose of the study: to identify information arrays, that reconstructed and interpreted the historical past of Ukrainians, based on the source analysis of the content of German occupation periodicals, thus forming an appropriate model of historical memory, in fact, turning the Ukrainian people into a historical process. The methodology and methodology of research involves a combination of the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency, as well as historical criticism of the selected basic reconstructions of the past of Ukrainians widely promoted in the occupation period. The study systematizes various publications in the occupation periodicals, highlighting their thematic blocks, specific content, forms of presentation of the standard information materials, which, contrary to the strategic visions of the Third Reich leadership, were directed at the formation of the historical memory of Ukrainians. The author, on a systemic and comprehensive level, investigated the information potential of the main periodicals that were published in all occupation zones of Ukraine, namely: the District «Galicia», the Reichskommissariat «Ukraine» and the Military Zone of Occupation. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the first in modern domestic historiography complex selection of the model of historical memory of Ukrainians, which was formed during the establishment of the German occupation regime. A detailed analysis of the information potential of the content of occupation periodicals indicates that the historical past of Ukrainians was interpreted in terms of the gravity of state tradition and the constant struggle against external enemies. The basic information and thematic blocks that were used in all the occupation zones of Ukraine were the reproduction of the history of Kievan Rus’, Khmelnytsky region and liberation movements of the Cossack era. At the same time, an exclusively negative image of neighboring Moscow and Poland was formed. The internal enemy of Ukraine was declared to be the Jews, against whom the Ukrainians fought in the same way as they fought the Poles and Russians. The events of 1917–1920, when the Ukrainian state perished and was torn apart by neighboring Poland and Bolshevik Russia, were voiced in the context of betrayal by the democratic countries of Europe. The construction of a new national identity for Ukrainians in the context of their spiritual, psychological, historical, cultural, economic, and territorial unity, as well as the reinterpretation of the historical past, consolidated society at that time. This important process for Ukrainians was carried out in unison with the history of the people’s unceasing struggle for their own statehood and their desire to achieve synodality. By successfully manipulating historical facts, German propagandists actually reformatted the historical memory of Ukrainians, programming for the future, constructing and correcting national identity markers that even the following Soviet occupation of the country was unable to erase. However, the historical narrative widely promoted in periodicals downplayed regional differences and social contradictions of Ukrainian society, represented its internal national unity, and was presented equally in all German occupation zones of Ukraine.

Genesis of the Second World War in Contemporary Polish Historical and Political Discourse

The Second World War has undoubtedly left a deep scar on the historical memory of the Polish people. The hardest ordeal for the Polish Republic was the military confrontation with Nazi Germany, which resulted in the loss of statehood and the horrors of the German occupation regime. As a result of World War II, Poland lost almost 40% of its national wealth and about 6 million of its people. The issue of political interpretations of historical events in contemporary Polish historical and political discourse is of particular importance. Reflected in educational literature, it is no less important than the positions set out in academic journals. Yesterday's schoolboy and student today is a minister's assistant and an officer, tomorrow a minister and a general. At the same time, there is no certainty that they will again turn to systemic education. One should also take into account the current status of the Polish Republic, its fundamental economic achievements and the apparent desire for an independent line in the European Union. All this makes the dialogue actual even in the current extremely difficult conditions.

Economic Policy of the German Occupational Authority in the Kolomyia Region (According to the “Vollia Pokuttya” Newspaper 1941 – 1944)

This article examines the main aspects of the economic policy of the German administration within the Kolomyia region during 1941-1944. On the bases of „Vollia Pokuttya“ news, the directions of Germany economic governance in the agrarian and trade commercial sector were singled out. The economic policy pursued by the German occupation authorities in the Kolomyia region vividly reflected the general trend of expansionist use of industrial and human potential in the district of Galicia. This led to acts of disobedience and sabotage of grain supplies by the peasants and a harsh reaction from the authorities. Nazi officials pursued a similar policy in the cities. By allowing the resumption of business and cooperatives, the Germans hoped to gain the loyalty of local residents. However, support could not be achieved, as de facto control over the above institutions continued to be exercised by various governmental economic groups, which included all existing industrial organizations, craft associations, and consumer cooperatives. Mobilization and organization government measures concerning the departure of the population for job to the Reich were illuminated, and also described their life conditions and social-legal status. In particular, the goal of agricultural and handicraft courses, which operated in Kolomyia’s county, was analyzed. The paper highlights that the organization of professional education was suitable for pragmatic considerations of the Nazi administration, as military failures give the power a push to attract local population to spend active agricultural life. This study is the first attempt of complex assessment of economic policy of the German occupation regime in the mentioned terrains. Therefore, the results of this paper are important both for the further development of historical regionalism and in the context of studies devoted to the Second World War

ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО ВИЗВОЛЬНОГО РУХУ В КРИМУ У 1941–1943 РОКАХ: ВІД ІДЕОЛОГІЧНОГО ОБҐРУНТУВАННЯ ДО ПРАКТИЧНИХ КРОКІВ

The article examines the Crimean aspect of the Ukrainian liberation movement. The program and ideological documents of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists regarding their vision of the role and place of Crimea in the geopolitical strategies of the future independent Ukrainian state are analyzed. The second part of the article is devoted to the deployment of Ukrainian nationalist structures on the Crimean peninsula, the peculiarities of their work under German occupation and relations with certain national groups, including the Crimean Tatars. Even in the interwar period, the ideologues of Ukrainian nationalists developed geostrategic concepts in which Crimea occupied a key place, as a certain outpost of the Black Sea region, which under no circumstances can be inferior. Accordingly, these documents proved the ideas of historical and physical-geographical unity of mainland Ukraine with the Crimea from the times of Kievan Rus, the Cossacks and modern history. In the future vision, Ukrainian nationalists viewed Crimea as the main base of the Ukrainian navy and Ukrainian merchant navy. The issue of the Navy and Crimean ports occupies a special place in these documents. Ukrainian nationalists were able to begin to implement their plans and implement their own ideas during the German-Soviet war. As early as the beginning of July 1941, the first OUN marching groups moved to the central Ukrainian lands, from where they planned to seize all ethnic Ukrainian lands, creating their own bodies of power and administration, and Crimea was one of their key destinations. Respectively, the OUN (B) and the OUN (M) created special «Crimean» marching groups, which were to move directly to the peninsula. In November 1941, the first OUN groups managed to enter the territory of the Crimea. At that time there was a split in relations between the German occupation regime and Ukrainian nationalists, German repressions against members and supporters of the OUN began in the summer of 1941, so marching groups to the Crimea were under threat of exposure and physical destruction. Simferopol became the center of OUN activity in Crimea. Separate OUN structures were also established in Dzhankoi, Yalta, and other cities on the peninsula. Under persecution by the Gestapo and the SD, Ukrainian nationalists were still able to gain a foothold in the Crimea and begin systematic organizational work, which consisted of established networks of sympathizers and agents, volunteer and cultural structures. This article will be of interest to those who are interested in the activities of the Ukrainian liberation movement, OUN groups and the history of Crimea during the German occupation.

‘To Speak for Those Who Cannot’: Masha Rol’nikaite on the Holocaust and Sexual Violence in German-Occupied Soviet Territories

Masha Rol’nikaite’s diary and novels, published in Soviet times, offer a unique perspective on German-occupied Lithuania, yet her oeuvre is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. The books give a vivid account of the destruction of Jewish families and their survival, and of gendered and sexual violence against Jewish and non-Jewish women, effectively confronting a double layer of silence and taboo that unnamed the destruction of Soviet Jewry and of sexual violence for decades. Furthermore, the author explores how female survivors struggled to live on with the repercussions of Nazi violence and the ethical quandaries they had been exposed to during war and occupation. Foregrounding individual experiences, Rol’nikaite traces the breakdown of communal and familial networks in the face of extraordinary violence as well as its aftermath. Her work is firmly grounded in personal experiences, suggesting that the writer consciously blurs the line between historical and literary representation. The fictionalization of the genocide of the Jewish population and of brutal sexual assaults challenges Soviet portrayals of the war that focused on military confrontation, victory, and rebuilding. The article draws on Rol’nikaite’s oeuvre, several interviews with her, archival material as well as newer scholarship on the destruction of Soviet and Lithuanian Jewry and sexual violence and its perception, to illustrate and contextualize Rol’nikaite’s emphasis on interlocking violence that shaped the lives of young Jewish women under the German occupation regime.

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНО-ПРОПАГАНДИСТСЬКА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ ОУН(Б) І УПАСЕРЕД НАСЕЛЕННЯ ОКУПОВАНОЇ ТЕРИТОРІЇ УКРАЇНИ

The article deals with the issues of the anti-German information and propaganda activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera) (further OUN (B) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (hereinafter — UIA) among the Ukrainian population during the Second World War (June 1941–1944). Responding to archival documents, the author notes the three main periods in the deployment of the anti-German information and propaganda activities of the OUN and the UIA. The first period — from June 1941 to the September conference of the OUN in 1941. The second period — from September 1941 to February 1943, in particular, to the third conference of UNO. The third period — from February 1943 until the final liberation of Ukraine from German invaders in 1944.The author highlights the main tasks of the anti-German information and propaganda activities of the OUN (B) and the UIA among the population of the occupied Ukraine. He concludes that, aspiring to oppose the German occupation regime, the underground of the OUN (B) and the UIA during the war created their own propaganda network, established a mass production of printed publications, solved the problem of propagandists, conducted active verbal propaganda, and introduced a new type of mass campaign — propaganda raids of the UIA.However, the anti-German propaganda of the OUN (b) and the UIA during all the time of its management had its own peculiarities that distinguished it from other propagandistic directions of Ukrainian nationalists.Despite the tangible advantage of the enemy in propaganda, OUN (B) and UIA persistently and consistently propagandised their ideas. The content of their propaganda activities was consistent with each specific stage of the OUN and UIA struggles, taking into account the peculiarities of national environments that were disseminated through informational and propaganda activities.

Neither Hitler nor Quisling: The Ragnarok Circle and Oppositional National Socialism in Norway

From 1935 to 1945, Ragnarok was the most radical national socialist publication in Norway. The Ragnarok Circle regarded themselves as representatives of a genuine National Socialism, deeply rooted in Norwegian soil and intrinsically connected to specific virtues inherent in the ancient Norse race. This combination of Germanic racialism, neo-paganism, and the cult of the ‘Norwegian tribe’, led them to criticize not only all half-hearted imitators of National Socialism within Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling, but also Hitler’s Germany when its politics were deemed to be in violation of National Socialist principles. In Germany they sought ideological allies within the Deutsche Glaubensbewegung before the war, and the ss during the war. But their peculiar version of National Socialism eventually led to open conflict with Nazi Germany, first during the Finnish Winter War and then in 1943, when several members of the Ragnarok Circle planned active resistance to Quisling and the German occupation regime.

Latvia’s Pērkonkrusts: Anti-German National Socialism in a Fascistogenic Milieu

Aside from equating it with Hitlerism, there have been few scholarly attempts to define national socialism and specify its relation to the broader category of fascism. This article posits that national socialisms are a sub-genus of fascism, where the distinguishing feature is an ultaranationalism based on a palingenetic völkisch racism, of which anti-Semitism is an essential element. Thus, national socialism is not just mimetic Hitlerism, as Hitler is not even necessary. National socialist movements may even conceivably be opposed to the goals and actions of Hitlerism. To test this definition, the case of Latvia’s Pērkonkrusts [Thunder Cross] movement is analysed. Based on an analysis of its ideology, Pērkonkrusts is a national socialist movement with a völkisch racialist worldview, while also being essentially anti-German. The case study even addresses the apparent paradox that Pērkonkrusts both collaborated in the Holocaust, and engaged in resistance against the German occupation regime.

Sursum Corda: the underground press in occupied Belgium, 1914–1918

Sursum Corda studies the underground press in occupied Belgium during the First World War. No other European occupied territory, in 1914–1918, produced such an intensive underground discourse. The article links this exceptional proliferation to the circumstances of Belgium's entry into the war, viz. the violation of neutrality and the civilian massacres of 1914. These issues, which galvanized a sense of national identity, were stressed by the underground press to deny legitimacy to the German occupation regime. This underground press was sustained by ad hoc networks of people from the urban middle classes, most of them Catholic. The German occupation regime, in its quest for legitimacy, spent considerable effort dismantling these networks. Underground press activity, at its most intense in 1915, sank to a very low pitch in 1917–1918. This was not only due to hardened repression and material difficulties but also due to a sense, among the occupied population, of the diminished (though never completely expired) relevance of the message of the underground press.

Between recruitment and forced labour: the radicalization of German labour policy in occupied Belgium and northern France

The deportation and forced labour of Belgian and northern French civilians in the fall and winter of 1916/1917 is one of the darkest chapters of the history of the German occupation regime behind the Western Front. The forced conscription of civilian labourers was part and parcel of the radicalization of labour policies in the occupied Eastern and Western territories – albeit a radicalization which was subsequently rescinded. Only the exceptional circumstances of war explain this shift from a labour policy centred on voluntary enrolment to ever-more coercive practices. The forced mobilization of civilian labour in the occupied territories, but also its failure, can be interpreted in the context of the First World War's ‘totalizing’ tendencies.

'Menschenbassin Belgien'. Anwerbung, Deportation und Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg

Jens Thiel describes the theme of his new book as belonging to ‘the darkest chapters in the history of the German occupation regime in Belgium during the First World War’ (p. 9) His subject is the deportation of roughly 60,000 Belgians from the Generalgouvernement to work as forced labourers in Germany, and of a similar number drafted into the newly-created Zivil-Arbeiter-Bataillonen in the army operational and staging areas of the western front. The deportations to Germany lasted for a few months, from October 1916 to February 1917, and were halted due largely to strong international and domestic protests. The deportations to the war zones continued until the end of the war, however, and involved exposure to even greater hardships and dangers. This confirms the findings of previous studies which have shown that the ‘totalizing’ aspects of modern warfare, including violence against civilians, were more evident the closer one got to the front line (p. 18).

Coming Home? Jews in Postwar Paris

‘Möbel-Aktion’ was the name given to the Third Reich’s policy of seizing the contents of Jewish homes in occupied Western Europe. After hundreds of thousands of Dutch, Belgian and French Jews fled antisemitic persecution, many of their homes were pillaged and their domestic belongings seized for shipment to the East to furnish German homes. But by the spring of 1944, with the war going badly and trains urgently needed for other purposes, this project was abandoned, leaving behind substantial quantities of furniture, clothing, dishes and other household items. This article analyses, from the point of view of both the returnees and the state, the structure put in place by the French provisional government in autumn 1944 to attempt to reunite returnees with their possessions. Using the archives generated by these processes, supplemented by juridical texts and memoirs, this article demonstrates how refugees narrativized their losses and rights and the emotional, psychological and political uses to which refugees put these requests for restitution. This moment is particularly important because it is one of the few, until very recently, in which the French state acknowledged, however obliquely, the particular experience of the Jewish victims of the German Occupation and Vichy Regime.

Collaboration in a “Land without a Quisling”: Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II

Astonishingly, we still do not have a history of collaboration in Poland during World War II. Klaus-Peter Friedrich shows that the building blocks for such a history already exist, however. They are scattered throughout the contemporary Polish press and studies on the Nazi occupation regime. Examples include institutionalized cooperation (Baudienst, Polish Police), ethnically defined segments of the population (Volksdeutsche), informal support of Nazi projects on ideological common ground (anti- Semitism and anticommunism), and the stance of the Polish peasantry as well as the Roman Catholic Church. Friedrich concludes that collaboration eludes study because of a mental image according to which ethnic Poles were the foremost victims of the occupiers and heroically resisted them. Questionable views of national self-interest keep Polish society from coming to terms with the past. Nevertheless, debates on “Polish collaboration” continue to recur—as they have since 1939.

A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920, and: Pohromi v Ukraïni, 1914–1920: Vid shtuchnykh stereotypiv do hirkoï pravdi, prikhovuvanoï v radians'kykh arkhivakh (review)

Reviewed by: A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920, and: Pohromi v Ukraïni, 1914–1920: Vid shtuchnykh stereotypiv do hirkoï pravdi, prikhovuvanoï v radians´kykh arkhivakh Eric Lohr Henry Abramson , A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. xix + 255 pp. ISBN 0916458-88-1 (clothbound); 0916458-87-3 (softcover). $34.95 and $18.95. Volodymyr Serhiichuk , Pohromi v Ukraïni, 1914–1920: Vid shtuchnykh stereotypiv do hirkoï pravdi, prikhovuvanoï v radians´kykh arkhivakh. Kiev: Vyd-vo im. O. Telihy, 1998. 544 pp. ISBN 966-7018-17-2. These two books significantly contribute to the historiography of one of the most violent periods in both Jewish and Ukrainian history, which culminated in the bloody pogroms of 1919 that claimed at least 50,000 Jewish lives.1 The pogroms and violence are not of course the only issues in relations between Ukrainians and Jews during this period, but they have been the focus of historical research and debate ever since, especially in long and contentious polemics over the issue of Ukrainian nationalists' responsibility for the massacres. Study of this difficult period in Jewish-Ukrainian relations has been hampered in two ways. First, Russian and Ukrainian archival sources were generally inaccessible throughout the Soviet era. Second, and at least as important, both scholarship and popular discussions often tended toward acrimonious mutual accusations and polemics among Ukrainian, Jewish and Soviet historians.2 According to Henry Abramson, the 1926 assassination in Paris of prominent Ukrainian revolutionary leader Symon Petliura proved to be a historiographical watershed. The trial of Petliura's assassin, Shalom Schwartzbard, created an international sensation, as the defense attorney used the trial as a forum for accusing Petliura of responsibility for the 1919 pogroms. The Paris jury acquitted [End Page 427] Schwartzbard and the trial deeply influenced both popular perceptions and scholarship for decades.3 "Since both Ukrainian and Jewish historical scholarship were mobilized to provide evidence at the trial," according to Abramson, many works "published after 1926 have followed, in the main, the arguments presented by either the prosecution or the defense instead of carefully examining the historical record" (Abramson, 172). The idea that Ukrainian nationalists, and especially the Ukrainian hero Petliura, were the main instigators of the pogroms was favored by Soviet authors eager to discredit Ukrainian nationalists. That scholarship prompted many Ukrainian authors to respond defensively. Serhiichuk's book continues this polemical tradition, presenting a brief for the Ukrainian defense consisting of 195 documents from 18 different regional and central Ukrainian archives, a 56-page introductory essay and brief introductions to documents for each year from 1914 to 1920. He openly and unequivocally states his thesis in the last line of the general introduction: "Here on our land, external forces destroyed the Jews, and then blamed it all on us." Following this argument, he presents a highly selective set of documents which show how the Imperial Russian Army, the German occupation regime in 1918, the Bolsheviks, and the Whites participated in pogroms and encouraged anti-Jewish sentiments in Ukraine. In addition, he provides evidence showing that Jews were not the only ones to suffer from pogroms and violence. It is perhaps no surprise that few of his documents show Ukrainians committing pogroms or violence, but rather, when Ukrainians are mentioned, it is only in cases when they helped Jews. In fact, one could read the entire collection and never suspect that the most serious existing statistical study of the pogroms in 1919 attributes 40% of all the pogroms against Jews to the troops of the Ukrainian Directory under Petliura's command.4 According to Nakhum Gergel, while all regular and irregular troops in Ukraine during the period engaged in pogroms, the regular troops of the Directory were responsible for more pogroms than independent bands of troops, twice as many as the Whites, four times as many as the Reds, and 15 times as many as the Poles. By simply ignoring instances of Ukrainian involvement in pogroms, Serhiichuk seriously undermines the credibility of his argument. Moreover, the introduction selectively cites only the most partisan contributions to the historiography, creating an exaggerated picture of...