DAFKADOTCOM
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • OUR VALUES
  • CONTRIBUTOR GUIDELINES
  • CONTACT
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • OUR VALUES
  • CONTRIBUTOR GUIDELINES
  • CONTACT
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

MANY ISSUES. MORE VOICES.

7/26/2021 3 Comments

The forgotten Jewish victims of World War II: Reorienting the focus of South African Jewish commemoration

By Michael Kransdorff 


​communal matters

exploring the concerns of the South AFrican Jewish community


Michael Kransdorff argues that memory and commemoration of the Holocaust often does not give its due to those murdered in the "Holocaust by Bullets." He suggests that there is a particular imperative for South African Jews to remember this less well-known history.

MY first encounter with Mordechai Perlov came at a fortuitous moment. In 2015, a few weeks prior to our first conversation over drinks in his Johannesburg flat, Litvaksig -- the Jewish Lithuanian heritage organization, for which I volunteer as a research coordinator -- had discovered a misplaced file in the Lithuanian archives listing thousands of Jews who had been ‘evacuated’ from Lithuania to the USSR during 1941. 

Initially I had hoped that this list might unlock the secret to some unknown rescue attempt of Lithuanian Jews as Nazi forces invaded the country. This would have been a remarkable discovery in a country where local collaboration was widespread and over 90% of the entire Jewish population was murdered. Mord scoffed at my suggestion. This was no humanitarian rescue effort. The people on the list were not Jews saved. Rather, like Mord and his family, they were Jews who were exiled and imprisoned in slave labour camps for being designated as enemies of the Soviet state. The majority would die of hunger, cold or disease. ​
"South African Jews have deep historical and cultural roots in Eastern Europe ... Nevertheless, we too have, until recently, also largely ignored the Eastern European Jewish experience in our commemoration of the Holocaust". 

Read More
3 Comments

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018

    Categories

    All Antisemitism Anti Zionism Anti-Zionism Apartheid BDS Black Lives Matter Communal Matters Constitutional Matters COVID 19 COVID-19 Democracy Emigration Environmentalism Freedom Of Expression GBV Hate Speech Holocaust By Bullets Holocaust & Genocide Identity IFP Interfaith Israel & Global Jewry Israel & Zionism Jewish Art Jewish Education LGBTQIA+ Machloket L'shem Shamayim Migration Progressive Judaism Social Responsibility South Africa Israel Relations South African Elections South African Jewish History The ANC The South African Constitution Youth

    KEEP UP TO DATE

Subscribe to Newsletter
Picture