The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust
The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union

This book explores regional variations in civilians' attitudes toward the Jewish population in Romania and the occupied Soviet Union.

Diana Dumitru (Author)

9781107583368, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 November 2018

286 pages, 17 b/w illus. 4 maps 1 table
22.9 x 15 x 1.4 cm, 0.42 kg

'Brilliantly written, with a masterful use of sources and secondary literature, Diana Dumitru's book will prove mandatory reading for every scholar interested in the perpetration of the Holocaust in the East. An impressive and well-informed monograph with a sophisticated theoretical framework and a consistent and sharp argumentation, it would be useful reading for graduate and undergraduate classes in Holocaust studies and Eastern European history. It also suggests new avenues for subsequent researchers.' Ionut Biliuta, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Based on original sources, this important book on the Holocaust explores regional variations in civilians' attitudes and behavior toward the Jewish population in Romania and the occupied Soviet Union. Gentiles' willingness to assist Jews was greater in lands that had been under Soviet administration during the inter-war period, while gentiles' willingness to harm Jews occurred more in lands that had been under Romanian administration during the same period. While acknowledging the disasters of Communist rule in the 1920s and 1930s, this work shows the effectiveness of Soviet nationalities policy in the official suppression of antisemitism. This book offers a corrective to the widespread consensus that homogenizes gentile responses throughout Eastern Europe, instead demonstrating that what states did in the interwar period mattered; relations between social groups were not fixed and destined to repeat themselves, but rather fluid and susceptible to change over time.

Introduction
1. Experiencing the Russian Empire
2. Bessarabia within the Romanian state - antisemitism reframed
3. Committed to change - fighting antisemitism and integrating Jews in Soviet Transnistria
4. Under assault - civilians' behavior toward Jews during the Holocaust in Bessarabia
5. Jews and their neighbors in occupied Transnistria
6. Substantiating and explaining the differences.

Subject Areas: Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Jewish studies [JFSR1], Religious issues & debates [HRAM], Social & cultural history [HBTB], European history [HBJD]