Teaching About the Holocaust in the Soviet Union: Dark History, Bitter Memories

Catalog description

In this course we will explore a crucial point in the history of the Holocaust and the geographical context in which it took place, the implementation of the Final Solution Plan on the soil of the Soviet Union, in both its pre-1939 and pre-1941 boundaries. This stage in the history of the Holocaust, popularly known in recent decades as the Holocaust by Bullets, though critical to a solid grasp of the Holocaust's evolution, has for many years been sidelined by scholars in the West for reasons that will be explored in the course. Beginning with the consolidation of Soviet Power in the former tsarist territories and concluding with the end of the Cold War, the course will offer a study of the Holocaust's impact on Soviet society in general, and its Jewish minority in particular. The course will also deal with the question of postwar memory and its construction: how the Holocaust was represented in Soviet art and culture during and after the war.