Ukraine without Jews - by Vasil Grossman
ritten soon after the oiet rmy liberated eastern kraine from €erman ou‚ation in midƒ1„…† the original manusri‚t of ‡asily €rossman’s essay ‘kraine ithout Jews’ was thought to hae been lost after the eond orld ar Št irst a‚‚eared in 1„„‹ in the shortƒlied Œournal Vek and is translated here into English for the irst time ‘kraine ithout Jews’ is a ‚owerful and historially signiiant essayŽ one of the earliest ‚ubli statements about the mass murder of Jews in 1„…1 and 1„…2 during the ‘a’i ou‚ation of oiet kraine it is also one of the irst attem‚ts in any language to systematially e“‚lain the ideologial and material moties behind the genoide that €rossman alls the ‘greatest rime eer ommitted in history’ ‘kraine ithout Jews’ was initially reŒeted for ‚ubliation in 1„…† by the military news‚a‚er Red Star ”Krasnaia zvezda• where €rossman had earned a huge following from his re‚orts of the oiet rmy’s harrowing defense and stunning itory at talingrad The essay was then translated into –iddish and ‚ublished in the weekly ‚a‚er of the Jewish ntiƒ—asist Committee Unity ”Einikayt• Št was ‚ublished in two abridged setions and then disontinued The –iddish translation remained the only e“tant ersion of the essay after 1„…† and was bakƒtranslated into Russian in 1„˜™ Šn 1„„‹ the original Russian manusri‚t ”nearly three times the length of the bakƒtranslation• surfaed from €rossman’s estate and was ‚ublished in Vek The reoery of ‘kraine ithout Jews’ in its original form allows us to trae the origins and deelo‚ment of €rossman’s historial ommemoratie and literary writing about the ‘atastro‚he’ ”as the hoah was known in Russian• €rossman e“‚anded u‚on and modiied many of the ideas in this essay in later writings inluding ‘The šell of Treblinka’ ”used as doumentary eidene of ‘a’i war rimes at the ‘uremburg Trials in 1„…™• as well as his editorial work on the monumental anthology The Black Book and his two greatest noels For a Just Cause and Life and Fate ‘kraine ithout Jews’ also ‚roides uni›ue insight into €rossman’s initial reation to the genoide as a oiet Jewœ in it he e“‚resses both his ‚ride in soialist ‚rini‚les and oiet military ‚ower and his desire to ‚ubliise and e“‚lain the e“e‚tional nature of Jewish itimisation at the hands of the ‘a’is €rossman’s own mother had been among the itims murdered in 1„…1 in the western krainian ity of his birth Berdihe Ukraine Witho By Vasily Grossman Translated into English for the irst time by Polly Zavadivker The translator would like to thank Robert Chandler for sharing the original ersion of this essay and for his beneiial omments on an early draft of the translation When our forces enter the villages of Left-bank Ukraine Iasotin, Borispol, Baturin...I was in hundreds of villages, under a volley of fire and the din of hand grenades, domestic farms, settlements, and fishing outposts on the shores of the geese rise up into the air. Flapping their enormous white Desna and Dnieper, in steppe farms encircled by pastures, wings, they circle above peasant huts, above lakes covered in solitary little tar houses existing in a constant shadow of in water lilies, above fields and gardens. huge pine forests, and in beautiful hamlets whose thatched There is something worrisome and strange in the roofs are hidden beneath canopies of fruit trees. heavy, arduous flight, and the sharp, alarming and sorrowful If one was to gather into a single place all of the cries of these domestic birds. It is as if they are calling the stories and images that I witnessed during those days and soldiers of the Red Army to witness heartbreaking and months in Ukraine, it would amount to a horrifying book frightening images of life, as if they are rejoicing at the about colossal injustice: forced labour and secret beatings, arrival of our forces, simultaneously weeping with joy children deported to Germany, burnt houses and looted and lamenting, screaming of great losses, and of the tears warehouses, evictions onto squares and streets, pits where and blood that have aged and salted the soil of Ukraine. those suspected of having sympathy for or connections There is a long list of Ukrainian towns and villages with partisans were shot, humiliations and mockery, vulgar where I found myself while working as a special corre- cursing and bribes, drunken and erratic behaviour, and spondent for the paper Red Star. I was in Satrobel’sk, Svatov, the bestial depravity of reckless, criminal people in whose Muntsisk, Tsapuika, Voroshilovgrad, Krasnodon, Ostro, hands rested the fate, life, integrity and property of many Jewish Quarterly • 12
Ukraine without Jews - by Vasil Grossman Page 2