The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 2015

This well-produced volume contains revised versions of five papers about Soviet Jews during World War II that were presented at an international conference at New York University in 2008, four other articles, and three translated memoirs. Part I deals with histories and includes essays by Mordechai Althuler (Israel), Joshua Rubenstein (us), Oleg Budnitskii (Russia), Gennady Estraikh (us), and Arkadi Zeltser (Israel). Employing as always an impressive range of sources, Altshuler concludes that "for a fair number of Jewish [Red Army] combatants, the direct encounter with the Holocaust, on the one hand, and the eruption of anti-Jewish hatred, on the other, brought about a change in their attitude toward their own ethnic identity." Their previously strong faith in the Soviet dogma that there was no Jewish national identity was "seriously undermined," "at least at the subconscious level." It seems to me that this conclusion is plausible but has little support in the sources, and quite some evidence to the contrary. Altshuler himself acknowledges that Pravda correspondent Lazar' Brontman and "many" others saw nothing special in the massacres of Jews. Altshuler writes also that the Soviet regime during World War II continued to deny that a Jewish nation existed. In contrast, Joshua Rubenstein in his text says that the public calls by Jews such as Ilya Ehrenburg meant that the denial was over. Rubenstein argues a point that is rapidly gaining support: "it is a falsification of the historical record to claim that the press did not cover [the Holocaust] at all." He also argues that Ehrenburg was special, for this man who tried hard to alert the world "may well have been the first person, outside of the German High Command, to grasp the full magnitude of the Holocaust." Rubenstein's observations are followed by translations of Ehrenburg's key publications on the topic: "To the Jews" (August 1941), "Jews" (November 1942), "The Triumph of a Man," on the poet Abram Sutzkever (April 1944), "On the Eve" (August 1944), and "To Remember" (December 1944). All texts were already available in English elsewhere, but it is useful to have them here together. Oleg Budnitskii analyzes the diaries written by Jewish Red Army soldiers. They wrote them despite a ban (which never seems to have been formalized, in an official document). It is surprising to find that the ban remained "quite open to interpretation." In the case of the military interpreter Irina Dunaevskaia, for instance, Soviet military counterintelligence warned her not to disclose

After the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Soviet media institutions fulfilled their major prewar role as a propaganda tool. The portrayal of German anti-Jewish policies fell largely within this function if only because such reports could not be authenticated as long as the enemy remained in control of Soviet territories. Therefore, they were likely regarded by many Soviet people as merely one more Soviet propaganda spin. Among them there were a Jewish family of the Ginsburgs from the South Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Soviet media can be credited in no small measure with disseminating awareness of true German intentions towards Jews that ultimately reverberated with the Ginsburgs and moved some of them to evacuate while others considered leaving. However, the critical information on the proximity of the German forces was frequently unavailable or distorted. The impact of the messages emanating from Soviet media depended on whether they accorded with the mindset of their consumers such the Ginsburgs and whether these consumers were able and willing to verify media content from other sources, mainly from rumors coming from refugees. In cognizance of the family’s fear of Soviet censors and their desire not to upset each other overall, the penetration of Soviet media notions is noticeable in 1941.

European Review of History-revue Europeenne D Histoire, 2012

2019

European Review of History Revue Europeenne D Histoire, 2012

Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2012

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