Language:
English
Year of publication:
2011
Titel der Quelle:
Cahiers du Monde Russe
Angaben zur Quelle:
52,1 (2011) 133-162
Keywords:
Jews
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Antisemitism
Abstract:
Argues that although antisemitism certainly was not eradicated by the Soviet regime in the 1920s-30s, it receded. During the German and Romanian occupation, the readiness of the population in the territories that had been part of the USSR since 1922 to resort to anti-Jewish violence was less, and the propensity to help Jews greater, than in the territories annexed by the Soviets in 1939-40. Based on survivors' accounts held in the Yad Vashem Archives, examines Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Odessa, both in the interwar period and under Romanian occupation. The survivors of older generations attest that, in comparison with the tsarist period, under the Soviets these relations improved; all the survivors attest that they did not perceive antisemitism in the 1920s-30s, either on the official or popular levels. In contrast to the annexed territories, e.g. Bessarabia, in 1941 Germans and Romanians did not succeed in inciting "spontaneous" pogroms in Odessa. Anti-Jewish violence in the city took place as part of criminal activities, or in the form of profiteering on Jewish vulnerability, e.g. as open robbery of Jews. Some professional groups, like janitors and caretakers, were more prone to betray Jews in hiding. Remarkably, many Odessans adopted the Nazi myth that the Jews were to blame for the onset of the war. Surmises that the more a person had internalized the Soviet ideology before the war, the more he or she was inclined to help Jews during the war; so, the young were more reliable than the old, and more educated people were more reliable than the less educated. The case of Odessa shows that the interwar policy of Jewish integration and the fight against antisemitism resulted in significant success.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
