Dr. Arkadi Zeltser

Jews or Soviets? Identity Challenges Faced by Jewish Soldiers in the Red Army when they Encountered the Holocaust

“I had been at the front for quite some time and had seen all kinds of gruesome sights, but nothing can compare to what I see here. The dead bodies are piled up three meters high in deep ditches. Nobody knows the number of the dead – there must be as many as there were people in Liady. Here lie babies, children, and old people – all the Jews of Liady…”  So wrote Vladimir Pomerantsev, an officer in the Red Army and a former correspondent of a Yiddish newspaper, to the editors of the... Continue reading

How Soviet Jewish Soldiers Met the Challenges of War

When Major Isaak Chizhik was asked if he was scared of the danger he was facing, he replied: "Believe me: I don't want to die. I have three sons. But I don't want people to say that Jews are cowards." Continue reading

The Subject of “Jews in Babi Yar” in the Soviet Union in the Years 1941–1945

Studies by Karel Berkhoff, Mordechai Altshuler, and Dov Ber Kerler1 have shown that the topic of the Holocaust was present in the Soviet media to a far greater extent than was previously assumed. In addition to information about Jewish deaths that was conveyed through newspapers and eyewitness accounts, the interpretation of data and the interpersonal exchange of knowledge and opinions played a particularly important role in understanding the Holocaust. In numerous instances Soviet Jews had no... Continue reading