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Our friend and frequent contributor, Dr. Leonid
Smilovitsky, recently informed us
that, The Black Book with Red
Pages, by Vladimir Levin and David Meltser, a study of the
Holocaust in Belarus
originally published in Russian in 1996, has been translated into
English. The English-language
version (The Black Book With Red
Pages: Tragedy and Heroism of Belorussian Jews, by David Meltser
and Vladimir Levin) was published
this year by Vestnik Information Agency,
10846 Sandringham Road,
Cockeysville, MD.
Information about the availability of the English-language
book will be posted on the Belarus Special Interest Group e-mail list as
soon as possible.
We are pleased to present Dr. Smilovitsky’s review of
the original Russian-language version, published in Jews in Eastern Europe, No 1 (35),
1998, pp. 72-77. We thank Dr. Arkadii Zeltser and the publishers for permission to reprint this review.
© This
article is copyrighted by the publishers of Jews in Eastern
Europe, and Dr. L. Smilovitsky.
Reprinting or copying of this
article is not allowed
without prior permission from the copyrightholders.
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The Holocaust of the Jews in Belorussia:
A View from America
by Leonid
Smilovitsky, Ph,D.,
Diaspora
Research Center,
Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of the Humanities, Tel
Aviv University
Review of: V. Levin and D. Meltser, Chernaia
kniga s krasnymi stranitsami (The black book with red pages), Baltimore,
1996 - 573 pp
The historiography of the Holocaust has
now been enriched with this valuable new study in Russian. This large volume
was compiled by two authors who immigrated to the United
States in the early 1990s. In Belarus,
Vladimir Levin was a writer and journalist; David Meltser was a professor of
history at the Belorussian State
University.
One of the reasons for the
appearance of this book is the growth of interest of Jewish émigrés in their
own recent past, including the Holocaust. There have been a few works that
have, to varying degrees, dealt with this topic. Several major contributions
have been made by scholars in Israel,
who have studied both the Holocaust in Belorussia
and Jewish participation in the resistance to the Nazis (1).
In the early 1990s, Jewish topics began to be treated by Jewish
historians in Belarus
itself (2), although Belorussian historians basically continued to remain
silent about the Nazi destruction of Jews as Jews (3) (rather than as Soviet
citizens or as Belorussians). Such circumstances made the publication of the
present work imperative.
According to the authors'
estimates, if one includes Jewish refugees from Poland,
Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Belorussian SSR on the
eve of World War II. They were its most educated segment and played a
significant role in the Party and government bureaucracies, as well as in
economic and professional life. In the 1930s, many Belorussian Jews were
among the victims of Stalin's purges.
The authors' perspective
is that the annihilation of the Jews during World War II was not simply part
of a Belorussian tragedy but rather one of its central aspects. Furthermore,
it was in Belorussia,
at the beginning of their Drang nach Ostend,
that the Nazis first put their mechanism for the mass murder of Jews into
operation.
Although the authors refer
to their work as a popular historical one, it should more accurately
described as a collection of testimonies and documents with an introduction
and commentaries. Of particular value are its generalizations and
conclusions. New material includes 96 accounts of eye-witnesses to the
Holocaust, many of whom were found and interviewed in the United
States. The book contains a preface and
nine chapters.
As a background to the main
topic, the first chapter surveys 600 years of Jewish settlement in Belorussia,
including the contribution of Jews to economic life and their relations with
the other peoples there. The story continues up to the twentieth century,
with the participation of Jews in the revolutionary movement and in the
transformation of Belorussian life in the inter-war period.
The next chapter deals with the eve and the onset of the Holocaust
itself. It includes documents about Nazi policy on the annihilation of the Jews
in Eastern Europe and in Belorussia
in particular. There are excerpts from orders of German commanders, reports
of extermination units, and detailed statistics on the number of victims from
1941 to 1944. Such data is provided for 181 locations (previously information
was available for 163). (4) There is
also a detailed account of Soviet policy on the eve of the German invasion
and the first months of the war. In the process, they present an extremely
negative portrait of Panteleimon Ponomarenko, (5) the head of the Communist Party in Belorussia,
whom they refer to as "Stalin's gauleiter in Belorussia."
The chapter titled
"Anatomy of Genocide" discusses the methods of mass murder,
including the use of collaborators from the local population and from Ukraine,
Poland, and
the Baltics, as well as Soviet POWs. It is followed by an account of the Minsk
ghetto, which held 100,000 Jews, established by the Nazis as the largest
ghetto on Soviet territory (within the 1939 borders). In addition to
presenting the research of others on this much-studied topic, Levin and
Meltser added material of their own -- for example, about Moshe Gebelev, one
of the leaders of the Minsk
underground (obtained from his daughter, who now lives in Buffalo,
New York).
A striking chapter
presents brief accounts of the destruction of Jewish communities. In addition
to the well known ones like Grodno
(44,000 Jews), Brest (34,000), Vitebsk,
and Mogilev (20,000 each), we
learn about smaller ones like Rechitsa (3,000), Smilovichi (2,000), Lelchitsy
(685), Kublichi (200), Uvarovichi (149), and Cherniavka (60). Another tragic
chapter follows-about the fate of Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Belorussia.
The majority of them did not survive. There are also accounts of the struggle
for existence of some survivors who, a half-century later, are still marked
by the experiences they had as children.
A tiny ray of light is
cast by stories of non-Jews who risked their own lives and those of their
families to save Jewish lives. That such heroes were few is indicated by the
fact that the authors were unable to write more than five pages about
them. Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial
Authority in Jerusalem has confirmed only 136 of these “righteous among
the nations” in Belorussia (6).
The last two chapters relate to Jewish
resistance to the Nazis during the war and the silence about this topic in
Soviet historiography after the war. Levin and Meltser present evidence of
various kinds: lists of Jewish partisans, military honors lists, combat
reports, excerpts from contemporary letters, and descriptions of military
operations. They adduce names of Jewish commanders and commissars, heads of
partisan units, and fighters with the Red Army. Such information is clearly
intended to counter the myths of Jewish cowardice and avoidance of military
service.
Although Levin and
Meltser are right in principle, one may argue with some details. For example,
they claim that there were 30,000 Jewish partisans in Belorussia, of whom a
third perished. These figures considerably exceed those given by Israeli
historians Yitzhak Arad (7) and Shmuel Krakowski, Shmuel Spektor, and others
(8). As I discuss below, Levin and Meltser do not indicate the sources for
their estimates. This fault is repeated and is a serious weakness of their
work, since it makes it difficult to check their conclusions.
Also in relation to
Jewish partisans, there is one specific reference to a source which is
problematic. This concerns a major issue -- the question of official Soviet
anti-Semitism. More than once, the authors refer to a supposed radio message
by Ponomarenko to the commanders of partisan units in Belorussia, allegedly
ordering them not to accept into their ranks Jews who had escaped from Nazi
ghettos. Such a serious claim requires careful substantiation. It is not a
question about anti-Semitism among the partisans; this is well known (9).
However, no such Soviet order has yet been found. What is beyond doubt is
that on June 24, 1941, the Party and government leadership headed by
Ponomarenko, fled Minsk without setting up any organized underground to
oppose the Nazis (as was done in other locations). With the aid of an
informer, the Nazis succeeded in uncovering the spontaneous underground that
was centered in the Minsk ghetto.
The author of this review
found a document in the National Archive of the Belarus Republic, dated
November 20, 1942. It was the text of a radio message sent by Ponomarenko
from Moscow to all partisan units and brigades in Belorussia. The message
referred to efforts by German intelligence in Minsk to infiltrate agents into
the partisans' ranks. In order to prevent this, the partisans were forbidden
to have contact with representatives of any underground formations or
organizations whatsoever from Minsk and to arrest any of them that aroused
suspicion." (10) This document contains no reference to the nationality
of the German intelligence agents or any other reference to Jews.
Also open to question is
the authors' view about the alleged harm caused by the September 1943 attempt
on the life of the German puppet ruler in Belorussia, Wilhelm Kube, by the
underground, which is claimed to have led to the liquidation of the last
10,000 Jews in the Minsk ghetto the following month. Such logic could be used
to condemn any partisan operation, since they could all be used as pretexts
for Nazi reprisals. It is also based on the extremely dubious premise that
the Nazis would not, in any case, have murdered all the Jews they could.
One historical inaccuracy
should also be noted. The term "Vlasovtsy" ("Vlasov's
men") is used to refer to Soviet POWs whom the Nazis used in their
extermination units. Gen. Andrei Vlasov (11) headed the Committee to Save the
People of Russia. In November 1944 he gathered 30,000 Russian soldiers, who
subsequently formed the basis of his army, which fought for the Germans
against the Soviets until April-May 1945 (12). It was not possible for the
"Vlasovites" to carry out reprisals against Soviet partisans in
Belorussia, since the latter had already been liberated by the Soviets by
July 1944. Like Soviet historians, Levin and Meltser incorrectly apply the
term to all Soviet POWs who were German collaborators, including those from
Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus (13).
A final reservation concerns the authors' estimates of Jewish victims
(pp. 90-94). Their total -- 700,390 for 157 locations --appears to be too
high. As noted earlier, they fail to provide sources for this figure. The
head of the partisan division of the Belarus State Museum of the Great
Patriotic War cites a figure of 376,851 victims in 103 locations (14). A
higher figure, 455,100 for 139 locations, is given by Vladimir Adamushko,
chairman of the committee on archives and files of Belarus (15). However, the
figures given by the latter two archival experts need adjustment. They do not
include several categories of Jewish victims: those killed in jails and POW
camps, Jewish partisans and underground resistance members, those killed in
forests and rural areas, and those who succeeded in concealing their identity
but were killed nevertheless. Finally, their estimates do not include
Belorussian Jews killed during service in the Red Army.
Despite the above qualifications, this Black Book with Red Pages
does succeed in presenting a comprehensive account of the Holocaust in
Belorussia. It has taken half a century for much of the relevant
documentation and testimony to appear. This period of time has also allowed
the book's compilers to gain perspective on material made available earlier.
In short, this work can help Holocaust historians of the new generation,
including those in Israel, deal with a number of questions that still await
answers.
Notes
1. L. Eckman, The Jewish Resistance in Lithuania and White Russia
during the Nazi Occupation, 1941-1945 (New York, 1997); J. Turonek, Bialorus
pod okupacija niemiecka (Belorussia under the German Occupation)
(Warsaw-Wroclaw, 1989); N. Tec, Defiance, the Bielski Partisans: the Story
of the Largest Armed Rescue of Jews by Jews during World War II (New
York, 1993); Evrei Belarusi: Istoriia i kul'tura-sbornik statei (Jews
of Belarus: History and culture, a collection of articles), Vol. 1 (Minsk,
1997); Lucjan Dobroszycki and Jeffrey Gurock, eds., The Holocaust in the
Soviet Union and the Sources of the Destruction of the Jews in the
Nazi-Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941-1945 (Armonk, N.Y., 1993);
Mordechai Altshuler, "Al ha-sho'ah bi-vyelorussia ha-rnizral;1it:
Qeta'im rni-protoqol shel mishpat neged poshe'im Nazim be-Minsk"
(Documentation of the Holocaust in Eastern Belorussia. Yalkut Moreshet 48
(1990), pp. 151-160; Y. Arad, ed., Unichtozhenie evreev SSSR v gody
nemetskoi okkupatsii 1941-1944: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (The
destruction of the Jews of the USSR during the years of the German
occupation, 1941-1944: Collection of documents and materials) Jerusalem,
1996; Yakov Tsur, "Mahkane ha-hashmadah Maly Trostinez" (The Maly
Trostinets death camp) , Yalkut Moreshet 59 (1995), pp. 31-52; Shmuel
Spektor and Bracha Freundlich, Lost Jewish Worlds: The Communities of
Grodno, Lida, Olkieniki, Vishay, Jerusalem, 1996); Yehoshua Jaffe and
Yitzhak Alperovitz, eds., "Be-geto Novogrudok u-va-tenu'ah
ha-partizanit" (In the Novogrudok ghetto and the par-tisan movement)
(Tel Aviv, 1988); Moshe Kalchheim, ed., Be-qomah zequfah, 1939-1945: Peraqim
be-toledot ha-lehima ha-partizanit be-ya'arot Naroch (Standing tall,
1939-1945) (Tel Aviv, 1991); Shalom Cholawski, "Mahteret u-partizanim
mi-geto Slonim" (Underground and partisans from the Slonim ghetto), Massuah
23 (1995), pp. 185-188.
2. For a survey of works published in
Belarus, see L. Smilovitsky, "Revival of Historiography of Belarus'
Jews, 1992-1995," Shvut 3(19), pp. 209-219.
3. M. Kastsiuk, I. Ignatsenka, U. Vyshinski, et al., eds., Narysy
gistoryi Belarusi (Survey of the history of Belarus), Vol. 2 (Minsk,
1995), pp. 297-300; B. Sachanka, eds., Belarus': Entsyklapedychny davednik
(Belarus: Encyclopedic handbook (in Belorussian), Minsk, 1995, p. 791).
4. Researchers at the Belorussian
Scientific Research Center for Documentation, Archaeography, and Archival
Matters provided information on 70 ghettos; researchers at the Belorussian
State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, on 139; and Emanuil
Ioffe, of the Pedagogical University in Minsk, on 163. See, respectively: U.
Mikhniuk, Niametska-fashystski genatsyd na Belarusi, 1941-1944 (The
German-fascist genocide in Belarus, 1941-1944) (Minsk, 1995), p. 292; R.
Chernoglazova, ed., Tragediia evreev Belorussii v gody nemetskoi
okkupatsii, 1941-1944: sbomik materialov i dokumentov (The tragedy
of the Jews of Belorussia during the years of Ger-man occupation, 1941-1944:
collection of materials and documents) (Minsk, 1995), pp. 169-179; E. Ioffe, Stranitsy
istorii evreev Belarusi (pages of the history of the Jews of Belarus)
(Minsk, 1996), p. 116.
5. Panteleimon Ponomarenko
(1902-1984)-Soviet Party and government official. Ponomarenko became first
secretary of the CC CP of Belorussia in 1938. From 1939 to 1961 he was a
member
of theCC CPSU. From 1942 he was chief of staff (with the rank of
lieutenant general) of the partisan movement of the USSR. In 1944 Ponomarenko
became a secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of the USSR; in 1948-1953
he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
6. "Righteous among the nations of
the world"-an honorific bestowed by the State of Israel on non-Jews who
risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Since 1962 this honor
has been conferred by a commission headed by the president of Israel's
Supreme Court, in coordination with a special division of Yad Vashem. See: L.
Smilovitsky, "Righteous Gentiles, the Partisans, and Jewish Survival in
Belorussia, 1941-1944," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11(3)
(1997), pp. 301-329; Daniel Romanovskii; "Kholokost v Vostochnoi
Belorussii i Severo-zapadnoi Rossii glazami neevreev" (The Holocaust in
Eastern Belorussia and Northwest Russia in the eyes of non-Jews), Vestnik
evreiskogo universiteta v Moskve 2(9) (1995), pp. 93-103.
7. Arad gives the figure of 25,000-30,000 Jewish partisans for all
of the German-occupied Soviet Union {see Arad, Unichtozhenie evreev SSSR, p.
25).
8. The latter give the figure of
15,000-20,000 Jewish partisans for the territory of Ukraine, Belorussia,
Volhynia (Western Ukraine), and the Baltics {S. Krakowski, S. Spektor, Evrei
v boiakh s natsikstskoi Germaniei vo vtoroi mirovoi voine (Jews in the
fight against Nazi Germany during World War 2) Jerusalem, 1995, pp. 35-37).
9. L. Smilovitsky, "Antishemmiyut
bein ha-partizannim be-belorusiya" {Anti-Semitism among the partisans in
Belarus), Yalkut Moreshet 59 {1995), pp. 53-62; idem, "Yehudim
u-folanim ba-tenuah ha-partizannit ha-belorussit, 1941-1944" (Jews and
Poles in the Belorussian partisan movement, 1941-1944), ibid. 63 {1997), pp.
83-100.
10. Natsional'nyi Arkhiv Respubliki
Belarus', f. 4085, op. 1, do 1, pp. 21-22.
11. Lt. Gen. Andrei Vlasov (1900-1946) began serving in the Red Army
in 1919. In 1937-1939 he was military and political advisor to Chang
Kai-shek. In 1941 he headed the unsuccessful defense of Kiev and participated
in the successful defense of Moscow. In June 1942, when he was deputy
commander of the Northwest Front, he was captured by the Germans.
Subsequently he fought with the Germans as commander of the Russian
Liberation Army. After the war, he was convicted of treason by a Soviet court
and hanged.
12. For more about the Vlasovites, see:
B. Dvinov, Vlasovskoe dvizhenie v svete dokumentov (The Vlasov
movement in the light of documents) (New York, 1950); Sh. Shtrikfel'd, Protiv
Gitlera i Stalina (Against Hitler and Stalin) (Moscow, 1994).
13. A. Shneer, Plen: Kak i pochemu
bolee 5 millionov soldat i ofitserov Krasnoi Armii okazalis' v natsistskom
plenu, 1941-1945 (Captivity: How and why over 5 million soldiers and
officers of the Red Army fell prisoners to the Nazis, 1941-1945) (Jerusalem,
1997), pp. 24-31.
14. R. Chernoglazova, ed., Tragediia
evreev Belorussii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941-1944: Sbornik
materialov i dokumentov (The tragedy of the Jews of Belorussia during the
Great Patriotic War, 1941-1944: Collection of materials and documents)
(Minsk, 2nd ed., 1997), pp. 127-137.
15. V. Adamushko, Mestsy prymusovaga
utrymannia gramadzianskaga nasel'nitstva na chasova akupiravanai terytoryi
Belarusi u gady Vialikai Aichynai vainy. Davednik (places of
concentration camps of the civilian population on the temporarily occupied
territory of Belorussia during the years of the Great Patriotic War: a
handbook [in Belorussian]) Minsk, 1996, pp. 8-13, 20-25, 34-36, 39-44, 49-54.
63-65.
Copyright © 2005 Belarus SIG
and the publishers of Jews in Eastern Europe
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