Returning Home After the Holocaust. Jewish–Gentile Encounters in the Soviet Borderland

Abstract

This chapter aims to unravel the intricacies of Jewish–gentile encounters in the aftermath of the Holocaust in the territories of Bessarabia, Bucovina and Transnistria—regions that had been administered by Romanian authorities between 1941 and 1944. Using oral history interviews with Jewish survivors as well as archival material, it seeks to examine the peculiar social environment shaped by Jewish awareness of instances when, during the war, civilian gentiles had collaborated with the murderous authorities. It tracks the efforts Jewish survivors made to attain a degree of post-war justice and to recover lost property. At the same time, the chapter analyses the ways in which gentiles had to face the important legal and moral implications of their actions as perpetrators of crimes against their fellow citizens that had taken place in their communities, or as onlookers to these deeds.