Orphaned, Destitute, Erased: Zhytomyr Jews and the German-Soviet War

We are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Tobias Wals as part of the public series "Let's Have a City".

In Zhytomyr, one of the historical centers of Jewish culture, a large community of Jews survived the Second World War. Many of those who found themselves under German occupation became victims of the Holocaust. However, thousands managed to survive in the evacuation and in the ranks of the Red Army. Most of them returned to the devastated Zhytomyr: according to the 1959 census, Jews made up 14 percent of the population. However, this was not the same community that had lived in the city before the war. In a matter of years, Jewish traditions, religion, and language had almost completely disappeared. Zhytomyr Jews turned into secular Russian-speaking Soviet citizens. 

In the lecture, the researcher will analyze how this gap became possible. Obviously, genocide and war played a key role, but how exactly remains an open question in the literature. In his study, Tobias Waltz focuses on the intertwining of three “groups of experience” that together encompass the entire postwar Jewish population: those who survived the occupation; those who returned from evacuation; and those who served in the Red Army. Using oral history and archival documents, the researcher reconstructs up to 80 personal biographies. 

The argumentation is based on three theses. First, the first weeks of the war were crucial, as it was mainly young and integrated Jews who fled from the Germans. The old and traditional tended to stay and perished in the Holocaust. Secondly, the experience of war itself had an assimilating effect on Jews, particularly on both sides of the front. Under occupation, they had to ‘pass themselves off’ as non-Jews in order to survive. On the home front and in the army, isolation, and anti-Semitism also forced Jews to Russify. Thirdly, assimilation was consolidated after the war, when Jews faced widespread anti-Semitism from both the population and the Soviet regime.

The lecture will be held in Ukrainian.

Gallery: Olya Klumyk