The Experience of Studying the Holocaust: My Own View

Abstract

In the article, the author reflects on the problem of the practical lack of research into the Holocaust in the USSR. The Nazi genocide against the Jews was practically hushed up: for almost 45 years after the end of the war, not a single special work on this topic was published. At the same time, in general works of this direction, in particular, those devoted to the analysis of the occupation regime, at best, a few facts of the murder of Jews were cited. At the same time, the special attitude and nature of the Nazis’ actions against them were not recognized. The occupiers and their accomplices allegedly exterminated not Jews, but Soviet citizens.

In the author’s opinion, such an attitude to the tragedy of the Jewish people in the USSR was nothing more than a manifestation of anti-Semitism, which was condemned in words, but in fact tacitly encouraged. This was especially noticeable from the late 1960s, when the then Soviet leadership sided with the latter in the military conflict between Israel and the Arab countries.

In the late 1980s, during the so-called perestroika, the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the study of the Holocaust became less strict, but even then the editorial boards of scientific journals continued to treat the topic of the Holocaust with apprehension.

The author was the first Soviet historian who managed to publish, albeit abroad, articles on the Holocaust, and also the first Soviet historian who began, despite the de facto ban on this topic, to study the Holocaust.

Thus, the study of the Holocaust in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union shows that this is an extremely important topic and how much researchers still need to find out in order to present the picture of Nazi crimes against Jews, against humanity, as broadly as possible.