Language:
English
Year of publication:
2003
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
17,1 (2003) 1-30
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
War crime trials
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
During and after World War II Soviet authorities conducted numerous war crimes trials against both German and Soviet defendants (the latter were tried as Nazi collaborators). The first wave of trials was held in 1943-44, and the second in 1945-46 at the same time as the Nuremberg Trials. Argues that although the Soviet war crimes trials were held with clear political and ideological objectives and resembled the staged political trials of the 1930s, they accorded fully with Soviet juridical norms, and Soviet legal strategy conformed to that of Western military tribunals. Despite their shortcomings, the material from these trials can serve as a source of valuable information on the Holocaust in the USSR. In contrast to the wartime wave of trials, the second wave (e.g. trials held in Smolensk, Minsk, Riga, Kiev, and Nikolayev) dealt substantively with the Nazi genocide of Jews in the USSR. Defendants, eyewitnesses, and survivors revealed the horrors of ghettos, camps, and mass executions. Moreover, the trials revealed the active participation of the German civil administration, the Order Police, and the rear army units in the Holocaust.
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