Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Oxford Oral History Series

First monograph based on oral histories with Holocaust survivors in the former USSR.
Illuminates the understudied question of how young Soviet Jews responded to the Holocaust.
Careful analysis of the dynamics of remembering in the post-Soviet context makes a strong case for the legitimacy of oral histories.
Skillfully weaves together oral histories, video testimonies, and memoirs produced in the former Soviet Union.

Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Description

Thousands of young Jews were orphaned by the Nazi genocide in the German-occupied Soviet Union and struggled for survival on their own. This book weaves together oral histories, video testimonies, and memoirs produced in the former Soviet Union to show how the first generation of Soviet Jews, born after the foundation of the USSR, experienced the Nazi genocide and how they remember it in a context of social change following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

The 1930s, a period when the notion interethnic solidarity and social equality were promoted and a partly lived reality, were formative for a cohort of young Jews. Soviet policies of the time established a powerful framework for the ways in which survivors of the genocide understood, survived, and represent their experience of violence and displacement. The book demonstrates that the young Soviet Jews' struggle for survival, and its memory, was shaped by interethnic relationships within the occupied society, German annihilation policy, and Soviet efforts to construct a patriotic unity of the Soviet population. Age and gender were crucial factors for experiencing, surviving, and remembering the Nazi genocide in Soviet territories, an element that Anika Walke emphasizes by investigating the individual and collective efforts to save peoples' lives, in hiding places and partisan formations, and how these efforts were subsequently erased in the construction of the Soviet war portrayal.

Pioneers and Partisans demonstrates how the Holocaust unfolded in the German-occupied Soviet territories and how Soviet citizens responded to it. The book does this work through oral histories of atrocities and survival during the German occupation in Minsk and a number of small towns in Eastern Belorussia such as Shchedrin, Slavnoe, Zhlobin, and Shklov. Following particular individuals' stories, framed within the broader historical and cultural context, this book tells of repeated transformations of identity, from Soviet citizen in the prewar years, to a target of genocidal violence during the war, to barely accepted national minority in the postwar Soviet Union.

Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Oxford Oral History Series

Preface
Note on transliteration
Maps
Introduction
Chapter 1: On Methodology: Oral History and the Nazi Genocide
Chapter 2: Between Tradition and Transformation: Soviet Jews in the 1930s
Chapter 3: The End of Childhood: Young Soviet Jews in the Minsk Ghetto
Chapter 4: Suffering and Survival: The Destruction of Jewish Communities in Eastern Belorussia
Chapter 5: Fighting for Life and Victory: Refugees from the Ghettos and the Soviet Partisan Movement
Chapter 6: Of Refuge and Resistance: Labor for Survival in the "Zorin Family Unit"
Conclusion: Soviet Internationalism, Judaism, and the Nazi Genocide in Oral Histories
Sources

Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Oxford Oral History Series

Author Information

Anika Walke, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis

Anika Walke is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Oxford Oral History Series

Reviews and Awards

"This book offers a rich, multilayered look at that region and era, also bringing to light the part played by women and children. Recommended for academic Holocaust collections." - Hallie Cantor, Association of Jewish Libraries

"outstanding ... Pioneers and Partisans is an excellent contribution to the history and memory of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, a book whose author has pondered thoughtfully the ethical and political implications of her scholarship. It addresses complex theoretical concerns without sacrificing narrative flow. That is a difficult task for any author, and Anika Walke has accomplished it beautifully." - Emil Kerenji, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

"Written well and with clarity, this book is well worth reading. It contains many interesting observations and provides much information that helps us understand the Holocaust in Belorussia." - Arkadi Zeltser, ournal of Soviet & Post-Soviet Politics & Society

"Walke's study is a valuable contribution to the social history of the Holocaust." - Leonid Rein, American Historical Review

"The book can be recommended for oral historians and anthropologists who wish to strengthen their methodology, since it gives a fascinating example of how interviews may be used. Pioneers and Partisans will also be of interest to a broader audience, as it is a highly professional account with a significant emotional component." - Volha Bartash, Oral History Review

"The biggest strength of Anila Walke's work is her detailed analysis of the interaction between experience and memory in a context that, in terms of the politics of memory, is highly charged. She manages to embed the experience of the Holocaust in the overall life story of her interviewees and places it in a distinct geographical space. At the same time, she manages to give a voice to precisely those victims, whose traumatic experiences and losses had been marginalized in their home country for decades." - Kerstin Baur, Sehepunkte

"Anika Walke's book is an important contribution to the study of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and the history of Belarusian Jewry." - Andrej Kotljarchuk, H-Net

Pioneers and Partisans

An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia

Anika Walke

Oxford Oral History Series

From Our Blog

When everywhere is a grave: remembering WWII casualties in Belarus

On 22 June 2015, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko opened a new memorial complex at the site of the former extermination camp Maly Trostenets near Minsk. Between 1941 and 1944, German occupants and their helpers interned and killed up to 206,500 people in this camp and in the nearby forest of Blagovshchina.

Posted on September 20, 2015

Read the blog post