Black Earth(158)

The ghettos became Eichmann: Husson, Heydrich, 253. Cf. Müller, Der Feind, 107–10.

This was the latest surprise Planning for Madagascar: Kershaw, Fateful Choices, 447.

When Hitler understood that Quotations: Lukacs, Last European War, 105; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 133. 31 July 1940 preparations for attack on USSR instead: Müller, Der Feind, 216–21; Megargee, War of Annihilation, 22.





5. Double Occupation


During the war Arendt, Eichmann, 240; see also Arendt, Origins, 22. It is interesting to note that the scholars who were most influential in the foundation of Holocaust studies did not themselves use east European languages, including Yiddish. Hilberg’s parents spoke Polish but he did not. Friedl?nder hails from Prague but does not use Czech. No major historian of the Holocaust learned an east European language after 1989, even as a vast wealth of sources became available and new secondary literatures emerged. Some of the consequences of this are the subject of my “Commemorative Causality.”

Like succeeding historians Arendt, Origins, 447. See also Bloxham, Final Solution, 283.

In 1939, when Hitler On state destruction by proxy, cf. Stein, Adolf Hitler, 99. Hitler on Soviet practices: Mein Kampf, 320. On Himmler: Kühnl, Der deutsche Faschismus, 329.

The Germans found the conditions See Levin, Lesser of Two Evils, xi. A body of sociological literature supports the kindred thesis that strong local institutions prevent crime. See Lafree, “Social Institutions,” 1349, 1367.

When the Germans and the Soviets Numbers from Morris, “Polish Terror,” 759. This subject is treated in Snyder, Bloodlands, chaps. 2 and 3. See also Gurianov, “Obzor,” 202; Nikols’kyi, “Represyvna diial’nist’,” 337–40; Martin, “Origins.”

In 1938, Stalin In the Ukrainian NKVD, for example, sixty of the ninety ranking officers were Jewish in 1936. Zolotar’ov, “Nachal’nyts’kyi sklad,” 326–31. Other figures from Gregory, Terror, 63. Stalin achieved here one of his great political successes, the consequences of which are still felt today. Ethnic operations that he ordered were blamed on Jews, because Jews were among the officers who carried them out; but immediately thereafter Jewish officers were purged from the NKVD. Thus, people who oppose communism but do not wish to oppose Stalin, the Soviet Union, or Russia can always combine it with antisemitism; this opportunity for National Bolshevism or east European fascism was opened then, and remains open today.

It was this NKVD See Gross, Revolution from Abroad, 37–44, and Carynnyk, “Palace,” 266–67; and for primary sources HI, Anders Collection, 209/1/4835; 209/6/5157; 209/6/2411; 209/6/4724; 209/7/4112; 209/7/799; 209/7/6601.

Against this backdrop Calm after chaos as policy: “Komandiram, Komissaram, i Nachpolitorganov Soedinenii,” 24 September 1939, CAW, VIII. 800.7.15; as experienced: HI, Anders Collection, 209/13/3960. Majorities: G?owacki, Sowieci, 292; Khlevniuk, Gulag, 236.

Unlike the Germans Total figure from Deportatsii pol’skikh grazhdan, 29. 139,794 and percentages: Hryciuk, “Victims 1939–1941,” 184, 191; Wnuk, Za pierwszego Sowieta, 13, 372.

One of the individuals Herling, World Apart, 39, 65, 131, 132. On spontaneity, see Arendt, Origins, 438.

From the Soviet perspective Quotations: Cienciala, Lebedeva, and Materski, Katyn, 118, 140.

In April 1940 For Strasman: Korboński, “Unknown Chapter,” 375. For the Engelkreis, Brandwajn, and Proner families, see Spanily, Pisane mi?o?ci?, 49, 112, 387.

With one exception Social background and Blokhin: Cienciala, Lebedeva, and Materski, Katyn, 25, 124. Deportation of families: Goussef, “Les déplacements,” 188; Jolluck, Exile, 15 and then passim on the experience of women; Cienciala, Lebedeva, and Materski, Katyn, 173–74. Strasman: Korboński, “Unknown Chapter,” 375. Jewish neighbor helps: Spanily, Pisane mi?o?ci?, 187. Janina Dowbor, a daredevil glider and parachutist, was the one woman. She trained as a pilot in 1939, and enlisted in the Polish air force reserve. Her plane was apparently shot down by the Germans. After parachuting to safety, she was arrested by the Soviets as a Polish second lieutenant. On 21 or 22 April 1940, she was shot at Katyn, and buried along with 4,409 men.

There was also continuity On the Great Terror in Moscow: Schl?gel, Terror und Traum, 602; Baberowski, Der rote Terror, 195.

The Soviets, at least some Moral sublimity: Fest, Das Gesicht, 162. For further reflections on similarity and difference, see Snyder, Bloodlands.

In western and central Frank quotation: Longerich, Unwritten Order, 47.