The “Tombstones Affair”: On the Fate of Jewish Cemeteries in Odessa under the Romanian Occupation (1941-1944)

The newspaper article, entitled “Looting of Jewish cemeteries in Odessa,” was probably published in spring 1945. According to it, “the transportation to Bucharest, in several wagons, of tombstones taken from the graves of Jewish cemeteries in Odessa” took place. The Odessa city hall sold the tombstones to various individuals and the mayor Gherman Pântea approved Read More

The Rescue of Jews by Monks and Nuns of the Greek Catholic Church: the State and Prospects of Research

First of all, let me start with a historical digression, by way of introduction. At the start of the German-Soviet war, Galicia was occupied by Nazi Germany. In the first days of the occupation, a wave of anti-Jewish violence took place in the cities, shortly after which all anti-Jewish laws entered into force on the Read More

‘More Terrifying Than the Germans’: Information About the Holocaust from Investigation Files of Local Policemen (the Case of Kryvyi Rih)

Archive files of criminal cases are a rather specific type of historical sources. In Ukraine, they can be found either in the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv1 or in regional SBU archives in the oblast capitals. A small number of these materials have been transferred to the state Read More

“Everyone Had to Do With It, Either Through Family or Some Other Means”: Testimonies of Ukrainian Witnesses About the Holocaust in Volhynia

The Holocaust in Ukraine: contemporary historiographical trends and the need for new sources Ever since the publication of Jan T. Gross’ monograph Neighbors,1 research on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe has increasingly shifted towards the use of eyewitness accounts. This became a logical consequence of the bigger shift of the “era of the witness” since Read More

The NS-Policy of “Endlösung der Judenfrage” and the Soviet Medical Staff among the Jewish Prisoners of War in Central Ukraine

Introduction In August 2016, I took part in the 10-day seminar “Documents on the Holocaust”, held by the Federal Archive in Berlin and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI). This seminar as well as my participation in the Holocaust Summer Program in Kyiv between 1 and 12 July 2019, and the EHRI fellowships I held Read More