Microhistories of Memory: Remediating the Holocaust by Bullets in Postwar West Germany

By Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska

The West German novel, radio play, and television series Through the Night (Am grünen Strand der Spree, 1955–1960), which depicts the mass shootings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II, has gradually regained popularity in recent years. Originally circulated in postwar West Germany, the Holocaust representations embedded in this multi-medium work have shaped cultural memories up until today. Using numerous archival sources, Microhistories of Memory presents three comprehensive case studies to explore production, reception, and circulation of cultural memories, demonstrating the power of informal communication and providing behind-the-scenes insight into postwar memory culture in West Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805393986

Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska

Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska is research fellow at the German Historical Institute Warsaw and associate professor at the University of Lodz. She is co-author of the monograph Bilder der Normalisierung. Gesundheit, Ernährung und Haushalt in der visuellen Kultur Deutschlands, 1945–1948 (De Gruyter, 2017), among others. Her other publications include contributions to Memory Studies, The Public Historian, and the German Studies Review.

Book preview

Microhistories of Memory

Worlds of Memory

Editors:

Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia

Aline Sierp, Maastricht University

Jenny Wüstenberg, Nottingham Trent University

Published in collaboration with the Memory Studies Association

This book series publishes innovative and rigorous scholarship in the interdisciplinary and global field of memory studies. Memory studies includes all inquiries into the ways we – both individually and collectively – are shaped by the past. How do we represent the past to ourselves and to others? How do those representations shape our actions and understandings, whether explicitly or unconsciously? The ‘memory’ we study encompasses the near-infinitude of practices and processes humans use to engage with the past, the incredible variety of representations they produce, and the range of individuals and institutions involved in doing so.

Guided by the mandate of the Memory Studies Association to provide a forum for conversations among subfields, regions, and research traditions, Worlds of Memory focuses on cutting-edge research that pushes the boundaries of the field and can provide insights for memory scholars outside of a particular specialization. In the process, it seeks to make memory studies more accessible, diverse, and open to novel approaches.

Recent volumes:

Volume 13

Microhistories of Memory: Remediating the Holocaust by Bullets in Postwar West Germany

Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska

Volume 12

De-Commemoration: Removing Statues and Renaming Places

Edited by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

Volume 11

Weaponizing the Past: Collective Memory and Jews, Poles, and Communists in Twenty-First Century Poland

Kate Korycki

Volume 10

The Right to Memory: History, Media, Law, and Ethics

Edited by Noam Tirosh and Anna Reading

Volume 9

Towards a Collaborative Memory: German Memory Work in a Transnational Context

Sara Jones

Volume 8

Carnivalizing Reconciliation: Contemporary Australian and Canadian Literature and Film beyond the Victim Paradigm

Hanna Teichler

Volume 7

Nordic War Stories: World War II as History, Fiction, Media, and Memory

Edited by Marianne Stecher

Volume 6

The Struggle for the Past: How We Construct Social Memories

Elizabeth Jelin

Volume 5

The Mobility of Memory: Migrations and Diasporas across European Borders

Edited by Luisa Passerini, Milica Trakilović and Gabriele Proglio

Volume 4

Agency in Transnational Memory Politics

Edited by Jenny Wüstenberg and Aline Sierp

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/series/worlds-of-memory

MICROHISTORIES OF MEMORY

Remediating the Holocaust by Bullets in Postwar West Germany

Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska

Translated by Alexander Simmeth

Published in 2024 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

English-language edition

© Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska 2024

German-language edition

© Walter de Gruyter GmbH 2022

Originally published in Germany as

Mikrogeschichten der Erinnerungskultur: Am grünen Strand der Spree und die Remedialisierung des Holocaust by bullets

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Saryusz-Wolska, Magdalena, author. | Simmeth, Alexander, 1973– translator.

Title: Microhistories of memory : remediating the Holocaust by bullets in postwar West Germany / Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska ; translated by Alexander Simmeth.

Other titles: Mikrogeschichten der Erinnerungskultur. English

Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2024. | Series: Worlds of memory; volume 13 | Includes bibliographical references, filmography, and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023021760 (print) | LCCN 2023021761 (ebook) | ISBN 9781805391791 (hardback) | ISBN 9781805391807 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Scholz, Hans, 1911-1998. Am grünen Strand der Spree. | Scholz, Hans, 1911–1998--Adaptations. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in mass media. | Massacres in mass media. | Collective memory in mass media.

Classification: LCC PT2638.O7245 A69373 2024 (print) | LCC PT2638.O7245 (ebook) | DDC 833/.914--dc23/eng/20230725

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023021760

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023021761

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80539-179-1 hardback

ISBN 978-1-80539-398-6 epub

ISBN 978-1-80539-180-7 web pdf

https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805391791

For Maria and Helena

You are both great!

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Prologue. Orsha 1941

Introduction. Why Three Stories on Through the Night?

Chapter 1. First Story: Actors and Institutions

Chapter 2. Second Story: Authenticity and Affects

Chapter 3. Third Story: Media and Technologies

Conclusion. Dead Ends in Memory Culture

References and Sources

Filmography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

0.1. Destruction of Orsha, view of the riverbank, probably 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection.

0.2. Destruction of Orsha, view from the railroad track, 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection.

0.3. Destruction of Orsha. Only chimneys left after the wooden houses had burned down, 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection.

0.4. The Jewish cemetery in Orsha, 2020. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

0.5. Hand-drawn plan of the Orsha ghetto by Paul Eick, Minsk Trial, 9 January 1946. © FSB Archives, Moscow.

0.6. House in Engels Street on the former site of the Orsha ghetto, 2020. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

0.7. Memorial for the victims of Orsha, 2020. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

1.1. Soldiers in front of the wardroom in Orsha, probably 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection.

1.2. The wardroom in Orsha, probably 1941. The decoration on the wall in the background may have been painted by Hans Scholz. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection.

1.3. Work on the radio adaptation for SWF public radio, 1956. Actors in the frame story (from left to right): Wolfgang Hofman, Hans Scholz, Else Hackenberg, Heinz Klingenberg, Ludwig Cremer. © SWR/Hans Westphal, 1956. Source: SWR Historical Archives Baden-Baden (SWR Historisches Archiv Baden-Baden).

2.1. View from the railroad embankment onto the area of the mass execution, 2020. Behind the trees, the terrain descends into the Orschitza valley. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

2.2. Recording for the first part of the radio play Through the Night at SWF public radio in Baden-Baden, 1956. From left to right: Else Hackenberg (secretary), director Gert Westphal (Dr. Brabender), and author and actor Hans Scholz (Schott). © SWR/Hans Westphal, 1956. Source: SWR Historical Archives Baden-Baden (SWR Historisches Archiv Baden-Baden).

2.3. Wilms’ view through the camera while taking a picture of his comrade Hans Hapke. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.4. The Jewish boy in Góra Kalwaria. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.5. Wilms hides on the way to the firing squad. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.6. Ruins in Orsha. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.7. Children playing war. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.8. The arrival of the transport. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.9. Piles of victims’ shoes. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.10. The psychopathic SS man in command of the mass execution. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.11. Armbands of the Latvian executioners. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

2.12. Jürgen Wilms at the pit. Screenshot from Am grünen Strand der Spree (NWRV, 1960, dir. Fritz Umgelter).

3.1. Pages from the initial manuscript of Through the Night, with handwritten markings by Hans Scholz, 1954. © Robert Hans Scholz, n.d. Source: Hans Scholz Archive, Archives of the Academy of Arts.

3.2. Hans Scholz at the typewriter, 1956. Taken for the purpose of the Fontane Prize award ceremony. © Fritz Eschen, 1956. Source: SLUB Dresden/Deutsche Fotothek.

3.3. Scan from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 June 1956, p. 2.

3.4. Script of the first episode of Through the Night; additions to the footage of the SS man at the execution site, 1959. © Fritz Umgelter Archiv, Archives of the Academy of Arts Berlin.

3.5. Coverage of SWF public radio in 1956. SWF 1956/57, Report (Geschäftsbericht), p. 56. © SWF, 1956/57.

3.6. Record containing the Jockey Bounce. Photo by the author.

3.7. Ad of the Leica II camera, 1932. © Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim. Source: Europeana.com.

3.8. Scan from Tagesspiegel, 29 May 1960, p. 5.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgments are a memory medium. They are about remembering the many people behind any academic work. In May 2014, I heard about Through the Night—then in the German wording Am grünen Strand der Spree—for the first time. Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus from the Humboldt University in Berlin mentioned the television miniseries during his lecture on West German media history. His claim that Through the Night had already addressed the Holocaust in 1960 was at odds with my knowledge about coming to terms with the Nazi past in Germany; it prompted me to look into the matter.

In 2015, I started working at the German Historical Institute Warsaw (GHI) with a project on the reception of historical films. The analysis of Through the Night was to be included as one of three case studies. Over time I found more and more sources, and decided to give up the other case studies. Fortunately, I could easily implement my plans and follow the sources as they arose—I am very grateful to the director of the GHI, Miloš Řezník, for his trust and flexibility. During a research stay at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam (CCH) in 2018, I collected most of the archival material. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship at the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) in Mainz in 2019/20 enabled me to analyze the sources and write large parts of the initial manuscript.

In the background of many historiographical works, there are archive staff members who support the research process. Helga Neumann from the Archives of the Academy of Arts in Berlin opened up the newly received estate of Hans Scholz. Cara Grube from the archives of the Hoffmann und Campe publishing house showed their documentation to me. Jana Behrendt from the Historical Archives SWR Baden-Baden provided me with the radio play and related material in an uncomplicated manner. The cooperation with Petra Wittig-Nöthen from the Historical Archives WDR was equally efficient. The reconstruction of the ‘liquidation’ of the ghetto in Orsha would not have been possible without the commitment of the archivists at the Ludwigsburg branch of the German Federal Archives and the Munich State Archives. The staff of the Federal Archives in Berlin and Freiburg, the Berlin State Archives, the German Literature Archives in Marbach, the German Diary Archives in Emmendingen, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the FSB Archives in Moscow, and the Yahad-in Unum organization all provided me with access to additional sources. I received further support from numerous librarians at the State Library in Berlin, the university libraries in Mainz and Lodz, as well as the libraries of the GHI, CCH, Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, Deutsche Kinemathek, and Topography of Terror in Berlin. To finish my research, I had planned a trip to Orsha, but this could not take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the tense political situation in Belarus; however, the Belarusian photographer Andrei Liankevich explored the place for me with his eyes and camera.

During my work on first the German and then the English version of this book, I also received great support from my colleagues. Sabine Stach encouraged me to tell the story of Through the Night three times from three different perspectives; Katrin Stoll explained the specifics of the Holocaust by bullets to me; Felix Ackermann provided his expertise on Belarusian history; Andrea Huterer translated the Russian sources into German; Artur Koczara helped me edit the illustrations; Tomasz Załuski and Karol Jóźwiak found time for exchanges about the material basis of memory culture; and Roma Sendyka and the staff of the Research Center for Memory Cultures in Cracow presented new research perspectives on the Holocaust to me. At the CCH, I was able to discuss my project with Frank Bösch, Christoph Classen, Hanno Hochmuth, Achim Saupe, Annette Vowinckel, and Irmgard Zündorf, among others. My time there coincided with the stay of Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, who at the time was researching the media representations of Latvians’ participation in the Holocaust. This connection helped me to fill an important gap in my project. Although not at the CCH, but still in Potsdam, Helmut Peitsch gave me important information on the cultural and literary life of the 1950s. During my fellowship at the JGU in Mainz, I received generous support from Gabriele Schabacher and Alexandra Schneider. The discussions in their seminars opened up new dimensions of media theory for me. From Mainz, Astrid Erll’s Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform was just ‘around the corner.’ There I was able to discuss the concept of ‘subcutaneous memory.’ In the meantime, I presented the project at numerous conferences, workshops, and seminars. Their participants, some of whom are still anonymous to me, inspired me with comments and questions. Special thanks go to the reviewers of the German edition, Judith Keilbach and Wulf Kansteiner, for their careful reading and important impulses.

In 2022, the German monograph Mirogeschichten der Erinnerungskultur. Am grünen Strand der Spree und die Remedialisierung des Holocaust by bullets finally appeared. Having received positive feedback from my first readers, I took the opportunity to publish the book in English also. I am indebted to Alexander Simmeth, who translated it from German. Jeffrey K. Olick, Aline Sierp, and Jenny Wüstenberg have my gratitude for accepting the book for inclusion in their Worlds of Memory series at Berghahn Books, where Amanda Horn was responsible for the smooth and pleasant editorial process.

My husband and daughters accompanied me through research and writing with a great deal of patience. They traveled with me in the footsteps of Through the Night, and tolerated the moves and the changes of schools associated with the long periods of research abroad. Although already tired of my fascination with Through the Night, they welcomed the idea of the translation, which again entailed my absence. Dear Emil, dear Maria, and dear Helena, I am extremely grateful for your support and participation in this project. It would not have been possible without the three of you.

Warsaw, January 2023

ABBREVIATIONS

Prologue

ORSHA 1941

The Wehrmacht units of the 18. Panzerdivision (18th Tank Division) reached the Belarussian city of Orsha on 16 July 1941 (Vinnitsa 2011, 300), less than a month after the start of ‘Operation Barbarossa’ and the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Within a few days Orsha was largely destroyed (figures 0.1–0.3). The main targets were a bridge over the Dnieper River and a large train depot at the railway junction where the lines from Minsk to Smolensk and from Vitebsk to Mogilev meet, both part of the strategically important railroad connections between Berlin and Moscow, and between Leningrad and Odessa, respectively. Parallel to the railroad lines ran two important trunk roads, also crossing in Orsha. Before World War II, Orsha had about thirty-seven thousand inhabitants, almost eight thousand of them Jews (Vinnitsa 2011, 698; Smilovickij 2000, 191). The Jewish population had especially increased during the 1920s and 1930s, mainly as a result of the industrial development of the city and hence its overall growth. With the exception of a few farmers, doctors, and teachers, the majority of the Jewish population worked in skilled trades.

Up to the mid-1930s, the Jewish children attended two Jewish schools, which were shut down in the course of Soviet measures against religion (Spector and Wigoder 2001, 944). The start of the ‘Operation Barbarossa’ made numerous Jewish inhabitants flee eastwards into the Soviet Union (Felgina 2003; Irum 2000). On only the first day of the occupation of the city, the Germans killed Chain-Jankel’ Ronkin by hanging—he was the first Jewish victim in Orsha (Vinnitsa 2011, 300), but in the following three years, several thousand Jews were murdered. Only a few of them are listed in the Yad Vashem Central Database by name (Yad Vashem n.d. b); most victims are unknown, as is the exact number of Jewish survivors. The Russian historian Gennady Vinnitsa accounted for only sixteen survivors, and they had either joined partisans or had been rescued by their neighbors (Vinnitsa 2011, 304). Two Orsha residents were later awarded the title of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ by Yad Vashem. Some Jewish refugees returned to Orsha after the war, at least partly reviving Jewish culture in the city (Figure 0.4).

Figure 0.1. Destruction of Orsha, view of the riverbank, probably 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection. Every effort has been made to identify the original photographers as well as the individuals on the photographs but they are not traceable.

Figure 0.2. Destruction of Orsha, view from the railroad track, 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection. Every effort has been made to identify the original photographers as well as the individuals on the photographs but they are not traceable.

Figure 0.3. Destruction of Orsha. Only chimneys left after the wooden houses had burned down, 1941. © Anonymous, n.d. Source: private collection. Every effort has been made to identify the original photographers as well as the individuals on the photographs but they are not traceable.

Immediately after the Germans had occupied the city, they installed two large camps for captured Soviet POWs, the so-called Durchgangslager 203 (Transit Camp 203) and Hauptlager 353 (Main Camp 353) (Kohl 1995, 149–50).¹ Two other POW camps were built in the immediate vicinity of Orsha. Until 1943, the city remained an important base for the Heeresgruppe Mitte (Army Group Center) under the command of the 286. Sicherheitsdivision (286th Security Division) (Romanovsky 2009, 1711)—a unit regularly involved in mass executions of Soviet Jews (Beorn 2014, 64–91; Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung 1996, 122). From September 1941 to 1943, Einsatzgruppe 8 had a subcommand stationed in Orsha consisting of roughly twenty members of the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) and the 3. Polizei Reservebatallion (3rd Reserve Police Battalion) (Landgericht München 1977, 677; Wehmeier 1962, Interrogation, 464). The city was also part of the operational area of Sonderkommando 7b (Special Task Force 7b) for some time (Kohl 1995, 268–69).²

The establishment of a Judenrat (Jewish Council) was among the first measures taken by the German occupation forces. An accountant named Každan was appointed as its chairman (Vinnitsa 2011, 301). The Germans also introduced a curfew, demanding that Jews leave the streets earlier than all other inhabitants, as well as an extremely restrictive food distribution system. According to a later testimony of the administrative employee A. Skakun, a Russian working for the German administration, food was only distributed to Jewish residents if there was any left over after the Russian residents had bought it (Černoglazova 1997, 172; Rozenberg 2012, 48).³ Another eyewitness from a neighboring village reported that Jews had to pay the Germans for food and survival; as soon as they ran out of assets, they were executed (Yahad-In Unum 2011, Interview, 00:26).

Figure 0.4. The Jewish cemetery in Orsha, 2020. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

At the end of August and the beginning of September 1941, the Germans expelled the Jewish residents of Orsha from their homes and forced them into a ghetto (Vinnitsa 2011, 301; Koch 1995, 268). The ghetto was located on Engels Street in the northeastern part of the city (Vinnitsa 2011, 304). Some contemporary witnesses reported a second ghetto (Spector and Wigoder 2001, 944), which, if true, could explain existing discrepancies between the number of Orsha Jews before the occupation and the estimated number of eventual Jewish victims. However, so far the reports have not been confirmed through archival documents or field research. Even the exact location of the supposed second ghetto remains unknown (Vinnitsa 2011, 304).⁴

The topography of the ghetto on Engels Street, however, is well known. From the east it bordered the Orschitza River, while a barbed wire fenced it off from the west (Figure 0.5). The map that the deputy commander of the city, Hauptmann (Captain) Paul Eick, drew after the end of the war depicts thirty-nine buildings including residential houses, barns, and stables (Romanovsky 2009, 1710). Other sources mention only twenty to twenty-five structures, probably referring to isolated farms with several buildings (Černoglazova 1997, 171; Smilovickij 2000, 190). Between August and November 1941, two to three thousand Jews crowded into this very small area of approximately 0.25 square kilometers (Vinnitsa 2011, 303–4; Rozenberg 2012, 50; Ioffe and Knatko 2002, 241).⁵ Therefore, depending on the calculation, between 50 and 150 people had to share one of the buildings—most of them small, wooden, one-story buildings (Figure 0.6). Many Jews died from cold and hunger every day (Arad 2009, 187); each individual received a daily ration of ten to fifteen grams of flour and only a small portion of potatoes, often even less (Černoglazova 1997, 171). As mentioned above, the Jews additionally had to hand over money, jewelry, and valuables to the local commander of the occupation forces (Černoglazova 1997, 172; Rozenberg 2012, 47; Smilovickij 2000, 190).

Figure 0.5. Hand-drawn plan of the Orsha ghetto by Paul Eick, Minsk Trial, 9 January 1946. © FSB Archives, Moscow.

In August 1941, even before the subcommand in Orsha had been established, the first mass executions took place. A unit of Einsatzgruppe B, transferred from Smolensk, murdered fourty-three Jews for their alleged participation in sabotage and communist agitation (Vinnitsa 2011, 301; Klein 1997, 159; Romanovsky 2009, 1712). In September, more mass executions followed (Romanovsky 2009, 1711; Landgericht München 1977, 669). Like in most early cases in the occupied Soviet Union, the Germans executed Jews under the pretext of ‘fighting partisans’ (Baumeister 1962, Interrogation, 984; Reuss 2017, 40–41; Beorn 2014, 81). Roughly 200 to 800 Jews were killed in October (Curilla 2006, 440–41); these executions reportedly took place in a hollow near the riverbanks of the Dnieper and along Sovietskaya Street (Vinnitsa 2011, 302). On 19 November 1941, Eick and the chief of the local Sicherheitsdienst inspected the ghetto, and the following day they ordered members of several German military units to seal it off (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung 1996, 122; Rozenberg 2012, 50). On 26 and 27 November, the ghetto was finally ‘liquidated’, the Nazi jargon for the mass murder of all surviving inhabitants.

Figure 0.6. House in Engels Street on the former site of the Orsha ghetto, 2020. © Andrei Liankevich, 2020.

Some historians have mentioned the early mass executions in Orsha, mainly because they were a subject of the Munich trials against the leadership of Einsatzkommando 8. However, research on the final ‘liquidation’ of the ghetto has been patchy. A possible reason is the sources: the Ereignismeldungen UdSSR (Operational Situation Reports USSR) lack any information on the ‘liquidation,’ and the interrogation protocols from the Munich trials merely contain isolated references. It was only after Hans Graalfs, a member of Einsatzkommando 8, had been sentenced to three years in jail for accessory to murder at the Kiel Regional Court in April 1964 (Landgericht Kiel 1978) that a certain Willy Kirst, who had served on the Eastern Front in Kesselwagenkolonne 706 (Tank Car Platoon 706), contacted the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg.⁶ Kirst detailed the mass executions of the Jews from the ghetto in November 1941, but as the verdict had already been passed, the investigators did not pursue the matter any further. The massacre remained unpunished.

As the ‘liquidation’ of the Orsha ghetto is hardly mentioned in the sources, the Yad Vashem Online Guide of Murder Sites of Jews in the Former USSR (Yad Vashem n.d. a) only provides information about the crime scene without mentioning a date or even an estimated number of victims. More information can be found on the website about European memorials maintained by the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation,⁷ but it exclusively follows Gennady Vinnitsa’s findings. Only the first so-called Wehrmachtausstellung (Wehrmacht Exhibition) in 1995 gives more detail (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung 1996, 122–23),⁸ such as Paul Eick’s testimony in the Minsk Trial in 1946. It suggests that he ordered an Obersturmführer (a Nazi paramilitary rank) named Reschke to ‘liquidate’ the ghetto (Zeidler 2005). Although Reschke was indeed the commander of the subcommand in Orsha, Hauptsturmführer Hans Hermann Koch claimed during the very same trial to have been in charge of the ‘liquidation’ himself (Koch 1995, 268–69). This discrepancy is relevant because Reschke’s subcommand was under the command of Einsatzkommando 8, while Koch commanded Sonderkommando 7b. Although the credibility of the defendants’ testimonies in the Minsk Trial has been questioned (Zeidler 2005), the fact that at least parts of both units were stationed in Orsha makes it entirely possible that they cooperated.

Sources on the Orsha massacre are few, scattered, and sometimes contradictory. As in numerous other accounts on the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet Union, documents related to the Soviet and West German criminal investigations and court proceedings against the perpetrators provide the bulk of the information. In 1946, at the end of the Minsk Trial, both Eick and Koch were sentenced to death; and in the early 1960s, the Munich and Kiel state courts in West Germany handed down verdicts of accessory to murder against the leadership of Einsatzkommando 8. Four of the defendants received sentences of up to nine years in prison.

Today, however, disagreement has grown on how to deal with court-related sources. Christopher Browning claims, for instance, that perpetrator testimony can be helpful for certain research foci and under certain conditions (Browning 2003, 10–12). Jan Tomasz Gross, in turn, is much more skeptical of perpetrator testimony: in his paradigmatic study on the mass murder of the Jews in the Polish town of Jedwabne, he argues that the greatest weight should be attributed to the voices of the victims (Gross 2002, 92–93). This is perfectly reasonable in the well-documented case of Jedwabne, but less so in the occupied Soviet Union, as only very few Holocaust survivors could give testimony. And there are no sources that describe the Orsha massacre from a Jewish perspective.

Thus, testimonies of ‘bystanders’—leaving aside the problems of Raul Hilberg’s category—can be particularly helpful. A considerable part of research on the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet Union is based on such testimonies. The example of witness Willi Kirst shows, however, that many representatives of the German forces on duty also considered themselves witnesses: The SS member complained that members of our unit observed the mass executions (Kirst 1965, Letter, 2225). The phenomenon of observing the mass executions raises questions about whose perspective should be given more weight when reconstructing the history of the Holocaust,⁹ especially when using files from criminal investigations. To what extent should we believe testimonies of individuals who sought to avoid prosecution? Well aware that the perpetrators usually tried to justify their behavior, I confront their statements with other available sources—as far as it is possible.

My description of the Orsha massacre is based on the chronological sequence of the execution—from sealing off the ghetto to the disposal of the dead bodies. It is one of thousands of similar terrible massacres of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union (Pohl 2015, 37); however, in German memory culture it is overshadowed by other aspects of the Holocaust. While the mass murders in death camps, concentration camps and several large ghettos have been researched in detail and are core aspects of cultural memory, any details about the mass executions in Eastern Europe are largely unknown. In this context, I follow the approach of ‘making visible’ the crimes as called for by Katrin Stoll and Alexandra Klei, who demand the identification of the German perpetrators and their local helpers, and scrutiny of the material condition (Klei and Stoll 2019, 13) of the respective crime scenes, as well as the handling of the victims’ belongings and the methods employed to cover up and destroy evidence. Despite this broad approach and consulting numerous sources, a reconstruction of the historical events in Orsha remains limited in scope. Ultimately, I offer another narrative about the massacre—one that is based on statements of contemporary witnesses, observers, and perpetrators, and which therefore inevitably remains incomplete.

The Central Database of Yad Vashem provides information about some individuals murdered in Orsha in 1941. In most cases, whether they died in the ghetto or during the mass executions can no longer be clarified. Among the identified victims are entire families, such as three generations of the Aramovs and the Gershons; the database lists factory workers, train drivers and railroad workers, accountants, farmers, teachers, tailors, shoemakers, salesmen, an actress, a publisher, a nurse, a midwife, a doctor, and many others. In addition, it records a considerable number of children who were supposed to be the future of the Orsha Jews—instead they were murdered, often in front of their parents.

The ‘liquidation’ of the ghetto was ordered by Paul Eick, who called in the Sicherheitsdienst (Rozenberg 2012, 51; Černoglazova 1997, 171–72; Hamburger Institut für Sozialgeschichte 1996, 122). It was obviously not the first time the Wehrmacht had participated in a mass execution of Jews: in early November 1941, for instance, Einsatzkommando 8 had carried out a similar ‘operation’ in Gomel, about 250 km south of Orsha (Curilla 2006, 442). The statement of the subcommand leader reads as follows: I carried out the operation in the Gomel area . . . at the request or demand of the Wehrmacht units stationed there. In each case, I was asked by the commanding officers of these units to come with my command, since everything was prepared (Schulz 1959, Interrogation, 1393). In Orsha, the Wehrmacht not only participated by assisting to provide a task force, but also by sealing off and surveilling the ghetto; Eick assigned the gendarmerie of the local command as well as auxiliary guards (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung 1996, 122). According to his own testimony, he ordered additional troops after the start of the execution in order to control and supervise the execution site (Černoglazova 1997, 170; Arad 2009, 187). German police also claimed that in Orsha the Jews were taken to the execution site by the Wehrmacht (Schulz 1964, Interrogation, 1914).

Early morning on 26 November 1941, the Jews were taken out of the ghetto (Vinnitsa 2011, 303). The Sicherheitsdienst ordered the Jewish Council to inform the residents of the ghetto about an imminent resettlement (Prusin 2003, 14; Smilovickij 2000, 190). The Germans temporarily exempted about thirty families of craftsmen from the execution, only to force them into labor and execute them later (Prusin 2003, 14; Bröde 1962, Interrogation, 888). The non-Jewish residents of Orsha who later testified at the Minsk Trial reported that a small commando of fifteen men led by Eick carried out the evacuation of the ghetto (Černoglazova 1997, 171). The members of this commando as well as Eick himself claimed almost unanimously, however, that they received assistance from the local Ordnungsdienst (Wachtendonk 1958, Interrogation, 295; Wiechert, Interrogation, 1962, 451; Baumeister, Interrogation, 1962, 983; Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung 1996, 122). While these statements were most likely a rhetorical attempt to deflect blame, other witnesses also mentioned the involvement of non-Jewish residents of Orsha during the evacuation of the ghetto (Rozenberg 2012, 53; Prusin 2003, 14)—this is no surprise, as local helpers often guarded the victims and execution sites in Eastern Europe (Rein 2011, 254–306; Dean 2000, 161–67; Beorn 2014, 100).

On the day of the execution, the pits had already been dug (Černoglazova 1997, 170). The report of the Soviet commission that investigated the execution site in September 1944 records two pits, each 23 m long, 6 m wide, and 3 m deep (Oršanskoja Gorodskaja Komisija 1944, Report, 4)—about half the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Compared with photos of other execution sites in Eastern Europe, which are available in Yad Vashem and elsewhere, these pits seem to be among the largest of their kind (Yad Vashem n.d. c). Late in November 1941, the ground in Orsha was already frozen, which is why it had been necessary to dig the pits in advance (Kirst 1965, Letter, 2223; Yahad-In Unum, Interview, 2011). The sources do not reveal who performed the excavation; the Belarusian historian Leonid Smilovickij claims that Soviet POWs dug the pits a few days earlier (Smilovickij 2000, 190), but the use of explosives also seems possible—and the two methods are not mutually exclusive.

The mass execution took place behind the Jewish cemetery, which was and still is located on a small hill between the former ghetto and a railroad embankment. The site was in plain sight from afar, so no attempt was made to hide the crime. Unlike many other execution sites of the Holocaust, which were hidden in forest areas (Kwiet 2019), the ‘liquidation’ of the Orsha ghetto was generally observable. The Jews were taken to the cemetery in small lines (Prusin 2003, 14; Vinnitsa 2011, 303). According to Smilovickij, some of them were taken to the train depot, forced into freight cars, and then killed elsewhere (Smilovickij 2000, 190). His account is based on notes of Orsha resident A.F. Kasperskij, but these have been disputed (Vinnitsa 2011, 303). Although no other source confirms Kasperskij’s claims, they cannot be entirely rejected, especially as the infrastructure of mass executions in the wider Orsha area had already been fully established. Indeed, Einsatzkommando 8 used a gas truck to kill the Jews in the town of Mogilev, about 75 km away and on the same railroad line as Orsha (Reuss 2017, 45–46; Beorn 2014, 99; Beer 1987).¹⁰ It is possible that the Germans actually took a group of Jews from Orsha to that gas truck by train. Apart from that possibility, the Jews shot in Orsha in late November 1941 reached the nearby execution site by walking, as it was only a few meters behind the ghetto fence.

Several