Holocaust Memory and Censorship in the Soviet Union

Holocaust Memory and Censorship in the Soviet Union

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Soviet Union

Holocaust survivors' writings

Jews--Soviet Union--History

Jews--Persecutions--Soviet Union

Censorship--Soviet Union

Soviet Union--Ethnic relations

This collection brings together rare and endangered materials documenting the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Soviet territories and the fraught history of Jewish memory under the Soviet Union. Centred on the 1946 English-language edition of The Black Book: The Nazi Crime Against the Jewish People, the collection includes a wartime photograph of its editors, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, and a Yiddish poem and audio recording by Itsik Fefer. These objects—texts, images, and sounds—reflect a brief moment of affirmation for Jewish identity and anti-fascist resistance, later swept away by state repression, censorship, and historical erasure. The collection aims to support research, education, and remembrance, offering a window into the struggles of preserving memory in the face of both destruction and censorship.

Lila Whitehead

August 2025

In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted (InC‑EDU); see https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ for details.

English, Yiddish

Soviet Union; 1939-1945