Jews, Partisans, and Ethnic Strife in Belarus during the Second World War

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in Eastern European Jewish Studies The Professor Bernard Choseed Memorial Fellowship and the Natalie and Mendel Racolin Memorial Fellowship Admission: Free

The extremely costly Soviet victory in World War II became a legitimizing myth and a justification for the Soviet regime until its demise in 1991. It remains so for Belarus, which continues to call itself the “Partisan Republic.” Of about a quarter of a million Soviet guerilla fighters or partisans who fought during the Second World War, perhaps 15,000 were Jews, and most fought in Belarus. When we peel away the official Soviet and Belarusian glorification of the partisans, we can observe serious social and ethnic problems in the partisan ranks, especially in regard to Jews. After the war, Jewish partisans drew radically different conclusions from their experiences and went in very different directions—emigration, repatriation to Poland, or reaffirmation of Soviet patriotism.  

About the Speaker

Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. His publications include A Century of Ambivalence: the Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present (1988; 2001), Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: an Uncertain Ethnicity (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2012), and, as editor, The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel and Germany (Rutgers University Press, 2016).