The Holocaust in the East: Local Perpetrators and Soviet Responses

8: A Disturbed Silence: Discourse on the Holocaust in the Soviet West as an Anti-Site of Memory

158 compared with the Soviet period, public memory of the Holocaust has been growing in importance in Eastern Europe since 1991.1 The implosion of Soviet hegemony has opened new spaces for research and debate.2 At the same time, new pressures have emerged to subordinate the Holocaust to nationalist narratives in, for instance, Ukraine.3 The post-Soviet present, however, cannot be understood without a fresh exploration of the Soviet legacy. The Soviet period did not simply impose a freeze, communicative silence, organized forgetfulness, or “mnemonical stasis .”4 Although terms like these describe one important aspect of what happened , they also obscure an equally important question. Factoring in what the Soviet period added or fostered, in addition to what it suppressed or took away, we are led to a substantial change in our view of the Soviet legacy and its persistent effects. By erasing the Soviet period, that view becomes simplified and dehistoricized. Fully restoring its history through a closer reading of its official discourse does not make the Soviet system appear more moral. As this chapter shows, Soviet contributions to memory could do at least as much damage as Soviet suppression. To advance the need for a more complex and fuller understanding of the postwar history of the memory of the Holocaust under direct Soviet rule—one that extends beyond overburdened metaphors of “freezing” and “thawing”—I employ a microscopic lens. I focus on official—that is, permitted —Soviet discourse in and about the city of Lviv in western Ukraine. At 8 a disturbed silence Discourse on the holocaust in the soviet West as an anti-site of Memory Tarik Cyril Amar a disturbed silence 159 this stage, we need a closer reading and fuller conceptualization of Soviet discourse. To limit its scope, this chapter does not systematically compare the Lviv case with other places that have similar twentieth-century histories shaped by multiethnic populations, a location between Germany and Russia, competing nationalisms, empires, totalitarianisms, and mass state violence—including repeated changes of regime and occupation, expulsions, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and, in particular, the Holocaust.5 At the same time, there are points of comparison, in particular with reference to the Baltic states of Estonia , Latvia, and Lithuania.6 Although the chapter restricts its comprehensive survey, integrated discussion, and taxonomy of Soviet Holocaust discourse to Lviv and western Ukraine, its findings may also shed new if indirect light on other regions of the Soviet west. Work on the memory of the Holocaust in countries that came under Soviet hegemony but were not annexed to the Soviet Union provides an important context. The most effective contribution to this growing literature is Jan Gross’s Neighbors and the debate and research in and beyond Poland that it sparked.7 Exactly how the cases of Soviet satellites compare with the Soviet west and how they interacted during and after the Soviet period is a topic for future research.8 Such a study must take into account the expansion of the European Union as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union. As several authors have pointed out, some form of official recognition and commemoration of the Holocaust has become, in Omer Bartov’s words, “a precondition for entry into the European Union” (EU).9 This reality complicates the perception of patterns. Both the Baltic states and western Ukraine were part of the Soviet west (if in institutionally different ways—another important aspect), but the Baltic states now belong to the EU, whereas western Ukraine does not. Poland was a satellite; western Ukraine was not. During World War II, however, the territory that is now Poland experienced pogroms similar to those in what is now western Ukraine. In fact, western Ukraine was then part of Poland. But these days, an investigation into similarities and differences must consider not only the distinction between postwar satellite status and full Soviet annexation but also Poland’s EU membership. Moreover, as Timothy Snyder has pointed out, European memory challenges are mutual, with Western Europe’s historical narratives and imaginative and identity gaps counterposed to Eastern Europe’s different memories as an irritant rather than an opportunity.10 I could go on, but the main point is that the influence of different regimes since 1939, if not before, is another topic for future research. 160 tarik cyril amar In addition to Soviet discourse, I discuss two other official or quasiofficial discourses available in Lviv and...