FRIAS Kolloquium - Anika Walke

Bones, Dirt, and Ash: Holocaust Testimony Matters in Belarus

In Belarus, the legacy of World War II is inscribed on the landscape, in the form of mass graves of Jews or others and of large meadows that were once villages. What does it mean to live within this space of destruction? How do people relate to the visible and invisible traces of violence? How do these relationships correlate with social and political change? Drawing on a range of primary sources the project offers a novel approach to understanding the Belarusian culture of memory. The place-based account of how survivors, historians, writers, and others have sought to represent violence and loss identifies both the potential and failure of vernacular and official mnemonic practices and illuminates the complex legacies of atrocity. The project contributes to understanding recent attempts to create revisionist historical accounts that are weaponized for political gain, domestically and internationally, in Belarus and elsewhere.