Authors

Raisa Ostapenko²; Caroline Sturdy Colls¹; Daria Cherkaska¹;  ¹ Staffordshire University, UK;  ² Sorbonne University, France

Discussion

In this roundtable discussion, we would like to evaluate the applicability of Raul Hilberg’s classic perpetrators-bystanders-victims paradigm (extended by Jan Gross to include helpers and beneficiaries) to the Holocaust in Eastern Europe in light of the shades of grey that characterised human behaviour under Nazi occupation. We would also like to evaluate research challenges and source limitations in this area of study. Amongst the controversial topics we hope to discuss are the following: 1) Local collaborators and Axis-appointed administrators as helpers or rescuers of Jewish victims of the Holocaust; 2) Abusive rescuers and those who rescued Jews for money or other benefits; 3) Soviet guards at Nazi camps (Former POWs as accomplices of Nazi crimes: the case of the Trawniki men); 4) Soviet forensic expertise and post-war investigations of Nazi crimes; 5) The looting and otherwise misuse of mass graves and killing sites related to the Holocaust in Ukraine; 6) Competing victimhoods and “commemoration competition” between various victim groups vis-à-vis shared Holocaust-related burial sites.