“They grab everyone”: Gaswagens in Krasnodar narratives about the Nazi occupation
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-2-36-57
Abstract
Today, many Krasnodar residents say that during the German occupation of the city, the Nazis rounded up residents using gaswagens (mobile gas chambers, gas vans). According to these stories, anyone could become a victim of a raid and die in a gaswagen, regardless of ethnicity or political loyalty, while in reality specific categories of population became victims of gas vans. The article focuses on the reasons for the emergence and popularity of such stories in Krasnodar. The narrative basis for the stories of gas vans and indiscriminate raids was created by Soviet propaganda texts that appeared immediately after the liberation of the city. In late Soviet times, gas vans became a part of the cultural memory (A. Assmann) thanks to an inscription on the city’s main war memorial. The propaganda thesis about indiscriminate killings by means of gaswagens became fixed in oral tradition, since there was a ready-made form for it — the story of a dangerous black car that personified state terror. Like other oral histories of the distant past, stories about gas vans that “grabbed everyone” help storytellers maintain an identity that is relevant for them: they confirm the city’s status as a victim of the Nazis and thereby help compensate for the official lack of recognition of its heroic deeds.
Keywords
gaswagen,
oral history,
Krasnodar,
cultural memory,
memory of the Great Patriotic War,
memory of the Nazi occupation
Supporting agencies: The research was conducted with support from the grant program of the Research Center of the Private Cultural Institution “Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center” (Moscow) with the financial support of A. I. Klyachin.
About the Author
A. A. Kirziuk
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Russia
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Anna A. Kirziuk, Cand. Sci. (Philosophy) Senior Research Fellow, Center for Theoretical Folklore Studies, School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Institute for Social Sciences
119571, Moscow, Prospekt Vernadskogo, 82
References
1. Ageeva, V. A. (2022). Ispol’zovanie zhitelei Taganroga na prinuditel’nykh rabotakh v Germanii v 1942–1945 [The use of Taganrog residents for forced labor in Germany in 1942– 1945]. In G. G. Matishov (Ed.). Velikaia Οtechestvennaia voina v istorii i pamiati narodov Iuga Rossii: sobytiia, uchastniki, simvoly: Materialy Vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii (g. Rostov-na-Donu, 30 iiunia — 1 iiulia 2022 g.) (pp. 476–483). Izd-vo IuNTs RAN. (In Russian).
2. Assmann, A. (2006). Der Lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. C. H. Beck.
3. Bourtman, I. (2008). “Blood for blood, death for death”: The Soviet Military Tribunal in Krasnodar, 1943. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 22(2), 246–265.
4. Ivanov, V. (2009, June 6). Eto nuzhno ne mertvym, eto NUZHNO? zhivym… O zhertvakh fashizma v Krasnodare i dal’neishikh sud’bakh massovykh zakhoronenii okkupatsionnogo perioda [It is not the dead who need it but the living ones? About the victims of fascism in Krasnodar and the further fate of mass graves of the occupation period]. Uroki istorii. https://urokiistorii.ru/school_competition/works/vadim-ivanov-jeto-nuzhno-nemjortvym-jeto. (In Russian).
5. Kirziuk, A. (2017). Tri chernykh “Volgi”. Molchanie i strakh v sovetskikh gorodskikh legendakh [Three black Volgas: Silence and fear in Soviet urban legends]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2017(1, no. 143), 167–177. (In Russian).
6. Makarova, E. A. (2022). Maloizvestnye stranitsy okkupatsii Stavropol’skogo kraia (po materialam ugolovnogo dela natsistskogo posobnika A. Raikha [Little-known chapters of occupation of the Stavropol Territory (Krai) (based on the materials of an archival criminal case of the Nazi accomplice, A. Reich]. In G. G. Matishov (Ed.). Velikaia Οtechestvennaia voina v istorii i pamiati narodov Iuga Rossii: sobytiia, uchastniki, simvoly: Materialy Vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii (g. Rostov-na-Donu, 30 iiunia — 1 iiulia 2022 g.) (pp. 295–303). Izdatel’stvo IuNTs RAN. (In Russian).
7. Ostrovskaia, I., & Shcherbakova, I. (2007). Opyt prinuditel’nogo truda v ustnykh svidetel’stvakh byvshikh ostarbaiterov [Experience of forced labor in oral testimonies of former ostarbeiters]. In T. K. Shcheglova (Ed.). Ustnaia istoriia (oral history): teoriia i praktika: Materialy Vserossiiskogo nauchnogo seminara (Barnaul, 25–26 sentiabria 2006 g.) (pp. 75–83). Izd-vo BGPU. (In Russian).
8. Portelli, A. (1991). The death of Luigi Trastulli: memory and the event. In A. Portelli. The death of Luigi Trastulli, and other stories: Form and meaning in oral history (pp. 1–28). State Univ. of New York Press. Rebrova, I. V. (Ed.) (2019). “Pomni o nas…”: Katalog vystavki, posviashchennoi pamiati patsientov psikhiatricheskikh klinik, detei-invalidov i vrachei-evreev, ubitykh v period natsistskoi okkupatsii Severnogo Kavkaza [“Remember us…”: Catalog of the exhibition dedicated to the memory of psychiatric patients, disabled children and Jewish doctors killed during the Nazi occupation of the North Caucasus]. Tipografiia “Edart”. (In Russian).
9. Rebrova, I. (2020). Re-constructing grassroots Holocaust memory: The case of the North Caucasus. De Gruyter.
10. Tazhidinova, I. G. (2019). Mediatizatsiia temy prestuplenii nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov i ikh posobnikov (na primere Krasnodarskogo protsessa, 1943) [Mediatization of the theme of crimes of the German-Fascist invaders and their accomplices (on the example of the Krasnodar Trial in 1943)]. Nasledie vekov, 2019(3), 79–90. https:// doi.org/10.36343/SB.2019.19.3.008. URL: http://heritage-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019_3_Tazhidinova.pdf. (In Russian).
11. Teitel’baum Iu. M. (2012). Memorializatsiia Kholokosta v Krasnodarskom krae: opyt i problemy [Holocaust memorialization in the Krasnodar region: experience and problems]. In I. A. Al’tman (Ed.). Pamiat’ o Kholokoste: problemy memorializatsii: Materialy 6-i Mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii “Uroki Kholokosta i sovremennaia Rossiia”, Sankt-Peterburg, 2–5 oktiabria 2011 g. (pp. 53–59). Nauchno-prosvetitel’skii tsentr “Kholokost”; Fond “Kholokost”; APART. (In Russian).
12. Voronina, T., & Utekhin, I. (2006). Rekonstruktsiia smysla v analize interv’iu: tematicheskie dominanty i skrytaia polemika [Reconstruction of meaning in interview analysis: Thematic dominants and hidden polemics]. In M. Loskutova (Ed.). Pamiat’ o blokade. Svidetel’stva ochevidtsev i istoricheskoe soznanie obshchestva: Materialy i issledovaniia (pp. 163–187). Novoe izdatel’stvo. (In Russian).
13. Welzer, H. (2005). History, memory, and the presence of the past. Osteuropa, 55(4), 9–18.
Review
For citations:
Kirziuk A.A. “They grab everyone”: Gaswagens in Krasnodar narratives about the Nazi occupation. Shagi / Steps. 2024;10(3):36-57. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-2-36-57
Views:
129
Email this article 