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Between the Wires: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv

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Waitman Wade Beorn discusses the untold history of the Janowska camp in Lviv, Ukraine—one of the deadliest yet least-known Holocaust sites.

Image courtesy of interviewee. September 6, 2024

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The speaker discusses their research process for a new book project related to the Holocaust, focusing specifically on a previously overlooked site: Janowska camp in Lviv. The unit used Jewish slave labor from a nearby concentration camp, raising the speaker's interest in the historical significance of Janowska. They find that this site has not been extensively documented in English-language academic literature, despite the availability of survivor testimonies and accounts.

Janowska consists of a hybrid camp that functioned as a slave labor camp, a transit camp for deportation, and a site for extermination, leading to a substantial death toll of approximately 80,000 victims, predominantly Jews. The speaker explains that Janowska served multiple purposes: it housed Jewish prisoners for labor, acted as a transit hub for Jews from surrounding regions, and was involved in property management for plundered goods. The camp’s connection to the extermination process reveals its role in the broader context of the Holocaust within Europe.

The speaker emphasizes the camp's unique characteristics, noting how it produced a variety of responses and forms of resistance from the prisoners, including cultural expression, religious practices, escapes, and uprisings. Two significant armed uprisings in 1943 highlight the prisoners' struggle against impending liquidation. Ska's proximity to urban settings allowed for connections to the local population, which influenced the dynamics of resistance and survival.

Ultimately, the speaker aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the Holocaust by weaving together the experiences of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders, reflecting on the complex realities faced by those involved. This video integrated approach enables a deeper exploration of individual stories within the overarching narrative of the Holocaust.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Research Motivation**: The author discusses the initial motivation for their research, stemming from previous notes on the Holocaust. They became interested in Janowska, Ukraine, that used Jewish slave labor during World War II, leading them to discover an important yet overlooked site related to the Holocaust.

2. **Janowska Significance**: The research reveals the significance of Janowska, a site associated with various camps including forced labor and extermination. Despite a high estimated death toll, it has received comparatively little academic attention in English, making it a critical area for further historical exploration.

3. **Complex Nature of Camps**: Janowska is described as a hybrid camp that functioned simultaneously as a slave labor camp, a transit camp, and a site of extermination. This multifaceted purpose illustrates the complexity of the Holocaust's implementation on the ground, highlighting how different roles and experiences intersected.

4. **Resilience and Resistance**: The video emphasizes the diverse forms of resistance within the camp, including cultural expression, religious practices, escapes, and armed uprisings. This showcases the resilience of Jewish prisoners and their ability to resist Nazi oppression in various ways, despite the dire circumstances they faced.

5. **Integrated History Approach**: The author aims to provide an integrated history of the Holocaust that includes multiple perspectives—prisoners, perpetrators, and bystanders—showcasing the nuances and complexities of human behavior during this dark period. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust experience beyond a singular narrative.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video :

1. **Introduction to Academic Exploration**:
- "Was doing what a lot of academics do, which is when I was casting about for my next book project, I went back to some of the notes, things I had written down for one of our previous book projects..."

2. **Realization of Historical Importance**:
- "And I realized that there was this incredibly important site, um, for the Holocaust in Ukraine... that had not been written about, at least, certainly not in an academic sense, um, in English."

3. **Significance of the Topic**:
- "I always like to say that, that OVS is the most important place you've never heard of, um, when it comes to the Holocaust."

4. **Nature of the Camp**:
- "But what makes it, I think, really important is... it serves, it serves three different functions that many other concentration camps and extermination centers throughout the Nazi system fulfill."

5. **Convideo of Killing**:
- "And it, it does this throughout its existence... as a dedicated extermination site."

6. **Resistance and Agency**:
- "There were two simultaneous armed uprisings by prisoners which are relatively successful... in November of 1943, it becomes clear that the camp is to be liquidated."

7. **Artistic Resistance**:
- "One of the first kinds of resistance that you see is this kind of artistic, um, musicians who are in the camp... continuing to create sort of cultural things, which is a way of maintaining dignity."

8. **Integrated History of the Holocaust**:
- "I've really tried to do in the book... is to rise to solve Friedlander's challenge of... writing an integrated history of the Holocaust, which is the history of the Holocaust that includes voices, perspectives, and experiences."

9. **Overall Message**:
- "When the Nazis say they're going to use Jews for slave labor or murder Jews... what does that actually look like and how does that actually take place on the ground?"

These quotes reflect the overarching themes of historical significance, individual agency, resistance, and the complexities of the Holocaust experience encapsulated in the speaker's academic exploration.

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Here are some articles that discuss Holocaust studies, concentration camps, Jewish resistance, and the experiences of prisoners during the Holocaust:

1. **"The Holocaust: A New History" by Laurence Rees** - This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Holocaust, exploring not just the events but also the individual experiences of victims and survivors.

2. **"They Were All My Family: Memories of a Jewish Orphan Boy in Europe and America" by Jay Neugeboren** - This memoir reflects on the author’s experiences during and after the Holocaust, offering personal insights into the survival and resilience of individuals.

3. **"The Holocaust in History" by Michael R. Marrus** - This work examines how the Holocaust is remembered and studied, discussing the historical convideo, the concentration camps, and the various aspects of Jewish life during this period.

4. **"Holocaust: A History" by Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt** - This book offers a detailed historical account of the Holocaust, including the conditions in concentration camps and the impact on Jewish communities.

5. **"The Destruction of the European Jews" by Raul Hilberg** - A foundational work in Holocaust studies, Hilberg's analysis covers the systematic nature of the Holocaust, including the bureaucratic and logistical aspects of extermination.

6. **"Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives" by Lucy S. Dawidowicz** - This article explores different forms of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, including organized armed uprisings and cultural survival efforts.

7. **"Concentration Camps: A Short History" by Wolfgang Benz** - This article provides an overview of the concentration camp system, discussing its origins, purposes, and the experiences of those interned.

8. **"Testimony: The Legacy of the Holocaust" edited by Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub** - A collection of survivor testimonies that examines the lived experiences of those in concentration camps and their responses to trauma.

These articles and books collectively cover the themes of Holocaust studies, survivor experiences, Jewish resistance, and the analysis of concentration camps, which resonate with the content of the video.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Was doing what a lot of academics do,

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which is when I was casting about for my next book project,

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I went back to some of the notes, things I had written down

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for one of our previous book projects,

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the first book on the Acht and the Holocaust,

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and, you know, things that I might

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want to go back and pursue.

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And one of them was a German army motor pool unit,

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in Aviv, in Ukraine that had used,

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Jewish slave labor from a concentration camp.

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Uh, so I initially I thought, well, I'm gonna expand on this

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and look at, you know, this German army motor pool unit,

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which actually looking back would've been a

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much less interesting project.

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And I then I found out that, that these,

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these prisoners, these Jewish prisoners had come from a

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place called Ska, which I had never heard of

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before, started probing that a little bit.

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And I realized that there was this incredibly important

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site, for the Holocaust in Ukraine,

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but also I think writ large that had not been written about,

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at least, certainly not in an academic sense,

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in English, you know, and,

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and it was, it was quite surprising at a certain level

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because, I was very fortunate there's a great deal

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of survivor testimony, even memoirs,

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video testimony and these kind of things.

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But it had somehow slipped off of the radar of, of academia

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and of, of general under the public's general understanding,

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of the Holocaust as things sometimes do.

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And so, you know, I always like to say that,

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that OVS is the most important place you've never heard of,

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when it comes to the Holocaust.

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And it, and it really is for, for lots of reasons,

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which I'm sure we're gonna talk about.

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Um, so the way that I got into this project was, you know,

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I think of the way that a lot of academic projects begin,

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which is a sort of happy coincidence, of

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things fun into appraised

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and pulling strings that lead you down a trail

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that I certainly was not really intending to go down when I,

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when I first came across the topic.

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Dean Oscar, concentration camp, is,

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is actually not officially a concentration camp

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until January of 1944.

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Um, but it, it begins as a,

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a DAW camp, which is a, a, a German equipment factory,

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which was a, a concern of the ss that that

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used Jewish slave labor to build things for sale.

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Um, and then later on, a forced labor camp is

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Vans lagger was built next door, immediately next door.

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And so together these sort of two camps

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that which were separate,

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but deeply connected, are referred to as, as ska.

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Uh, though I will distinguish certainly in the book

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between the z Zerbe, Slager, the Zal, the Forced Labor camp,

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and the DAW, which is this, this factory,

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slave labor camp.

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But what makes it, I think, really important is,

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you know, first and foremost, and,

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and again, in Holocaust studies, you know,

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certainly I don't play the Olympics of suffering game where,

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you know, one place is worse than the other

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because of a, a, a body count

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or this, that, or the other thing.

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But it does bear mentioning that the, the largest estimates

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of numbers of, of people predominantly Jews,

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but not just Jews murdered at Unka, is around 80,000.

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And if that's the case, that number

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exceeds, the number murdered at Myonic, which is often

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included with Auschwitz and Triple Blink and Soor and Beech

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and kno as one of the extermination centers.

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It also, eclipses places like Taha, Buchenwald,

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Bergen Belsen as well.

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Um, and, and even some of the lower estimates o of the,

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the death toll there place it amongst those,

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those much better known places.

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Um, and that leads into sort of one of the

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most interesting things about this camp, which is

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that it sort of is a,

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a hybrid camp throughout its existence, which means

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that it serves, it serves three different functions

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that many other concentration camps

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and extermination centers throughout the Nazi system fulfill

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at times and in places.

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But rarely do you have a place that sort of does all

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of these things at the same time.

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And what it does, it's, it's a, it's a slave labor camp,

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which I've suggested already.

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Um, it is a transit camp

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and it is a site of extermination, a site of killing.

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Um, and very briefly, you know, as a slave labor concern,

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it, it employed predominantly, Jewish prisoners

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to do a wide variety of tasks,

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for a wide variety of employers.

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And I'm using employer in, in, in scare quotes here.

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In fact, the employers paid the SS per prisoner

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to essentially rent them out.

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So they were very much chattel slaves in this sense.

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Um, things like, they worked for the Lu FFA at the airfield.

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They worked for a brewery, they worked

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for equipment, a uniform factory.

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They worked in the camp itself, building the, building,

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the camp, from the ground up.

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They worked in the city gardening department.

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Um, they worked in groups of five, in groups of a hundred,

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I mean, all kinds of places.

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And this is, this is slave labor, which was important

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to the higher SS and police leader in Aviv,

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'cause it sort of elevated his, his profile.

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Secondly, it was a transit camp,

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and it was a very important place in the area

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of occupied Poland, the general government known

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as district Kian, which comprises a bit of Eastern Poland

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and what is now western Ukraine.

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And as a result, it was at the epicenter

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of the murder of around 430,000 Jews from that

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district, meaning that, many of them

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arriving from other towns

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and villages throughout the region, passed

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through the camp in some way, shape, or form.

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The trains would stop and prisoners would be offloaded

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to work at the camp, and prisoners from the camp would be

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placed on the trains headed

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for the predominantly the extermination center of Besi,

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which was about 60 miles away,

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but also for the Jewish population of Aviv,

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as the camp was an urban camp.

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It was 20 minutes walk from downtown.

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Um, and there were approximately 160,000

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Jews living in Aviv at the outside of the war of whom

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around 8,000 survive.

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Um, and so most

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of the Jews from Aviv also first go to the Unov camp

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where they are selected, separated,

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and then placed on trains, for,

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their deportation and eventual murder at Beic.

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Uh, the camp also serves as a transit camp for property.

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So property comes back from Beic

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and is repaired, cleaned, washed, et cetera,

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and then goes off sometimes back to Germany, sometimes to,

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for look for sale, locally.

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And lastly, it's a transit camp for the actual assessment.

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Um, there's a very interesting finding,

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that I came across when I was doing this research of,

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of these men, leaving the camp

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to take over their own little camps, ghettos,

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throughout the region, sometimes coming back into ska.

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And so you have a dissemination of personnel,

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but also the things they've learned

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to do in their behaviors, in the camp itself.

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And then lastly, as I, as I suggested, the camp serves

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as a dedicated extermination site,

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throughout its existence.

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And in fact, even before its existence,

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because the hills behind the camp that are going to be used

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as the killing sites are already used in July of 1941

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before the camp is established in September.

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And these are frequent sets of killings that include sort

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of your, your normal daily shootings

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of prisoners from the camp,

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but also larger killings, of groups

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of people coming in from throughout the region.

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And then when Bei closes down,

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Besch closes operations twice in its existence.

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Once is, in the summer of 1942,

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while it gets improved gas chambers.

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Um, and then the last is in December of 1942, when it closes

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for good, when it's not open, the Inka camp itself

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serves as a replacement killing site for,

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not only Jews from La iv,

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but Jews from the region, as well as,

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some mental patients, some Italian soldiers,

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some Polish, intelligentsia.

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Um, and it, it does this throughout its

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existence and which is important.

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And then, you know, following on with that, it also serves

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as the training site for the under command 1,005,

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which is the group of SS men that went

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around Eastern Europe, excavating

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and burning bodies to try

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to cover up evidence, of the Holocaust.

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So it really does all of these things, simultaneously

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while at the same time being, in some ways outside

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of the official concentration camp system,

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because as I mentioned at the outset,

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it's not officially a concentration camp in

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that it doesn't come under the spec of camps,

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until very much later in its in its existence.

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I think all of those things together make it a really,

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really interesting place, and a somewhat unique place.

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Um, and then one of the things

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that I think also makes it really worth looking into,

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and one of the things that I tried to do in the book was

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to use it as a way of looking at a lot of different aspects

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that are common to the Holocaust experience,

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but that we can all see taking place

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within this one, this one camp.

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And you can see the interplay of things taking place there

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and, and what, what their context is in the larger history

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of the Holocaust taking place across Europe.

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Really important question.

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And it, it, and it's one that, has

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been asked by both scholars,

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by prisoners at the time

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and survivors reflecting on their experiences in the camps.

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And one of the things that I think is important

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to highlight is that you have a variety

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of different responses and experiences within the camp,

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that, that thanks to the, absolute wealth

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of information that's out there,

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archivally about the camp, we get a really good sense

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of a lot of the different players involved.

10:38.075 --> 10:39.695
And before we get to the resistance, you know,

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th this also includes, some not so great, prisoners,

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you know, who take advantage of their fellow prisoners,

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who are corrupt and, and these kinds of things.

10:50.955 --> 10:54.855
Um, resistance takes a variety of different forms,

10:54.955 --> 10:58.695
and it's informed in part by its location in the city

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of Aviv because Aviv is often referred to

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as the Vienna of the East.

11:02.835 --> 11:05.615
Uh, so in under, under the hops boards, you know,

11:05.615 --> 11:10.215
it is a city of of high culture, with an opera house

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and a symphony and artists

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and writers and these kinds of things.

11:13.455 --> 11:17.415
And of course, many of them are Jewish and they end up inov.

11:18.195 --> 11:21.895
And so, one of the first kinds of resistance

11:21.895 --> 11:25.375
that you see is this kind of artistic, musicians

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who are in the camp, writers there is a,

11:29.945 --> 11:31.185
there was a very famous writer

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who was working on a novel about Unka while in Unka,

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unfortunately he was, he was murdered.

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So we don't have that novel, but, these kinds

11:40.465 --> 11:43.785
of people we're continuing to create sort of cultural

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things, which is a way of maintaining dignity, right?

11:49.395 --> 11:51.805
Similarly, you know, there are, there is religious,

11:52.485 --> 11:54.285
practice, which is outlawed by the Nazis, and so

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therefore it's, it's very existence

11:56.825 --> 11:59.005
is is in some ways a form of resisting

11:59.005 --> 12:00.365
what the Nazis are trying to accomplish.

12:01.755 --> 12:05.605
There's a, a large amount, a large number of escapes,

12:05.605 --> 12:07.565
which I, I found really, really interesting.

12:08.145 --> 12:10.685
Um, you know, prisoners were able to leave the camp,

12:10.705 --> 12:13.165
and in fact, one of the most famous prisoners,

12:13.235 --> 12:14.765
Leon Wells escapes twice.

12:15.545 --> 12:17.125
Um, and I thought

12:17.125 --> 12:18.405
that was really a really interesting thing.

12:18.405 --> 12:20.445
And it of course, is obviously a form of resistance.

12:21.305 --> 12:23.405
And one of the things, again, and I I suggested this earlier

12:23.435 --> 12:28.005
when I said that there's so many different aspects

12:28.005 --> 12:30.765
of the Holocaust experience, both perpetrators

12:31.185 --> 12:33.925
and victims, as well as to a certain extent, bystanders.

12:34.505 --> 12:36.765
Um, but what makes Endos, again, a really interesting place

12:36.765 --> 12:40.645
to study, is that there are two simultaneous armed uprisings

12:41.465 --> 12:45.325
by prisoners which are relatively successful.

12:45.325 --> 12:50.085
Both, in November of 1943, it becomes clear

12:50.085 --> 12:52.325
that the camp is to be liquidated.

12:52.685 --> 12:54.205
IE the prisoners are all going to be murdered.

12:55.425 --> 12:57.805
And there's an uprising in the camp itself, which is kind

12:57.805 --> 12:59.725
of a somewhat organized,

12:59.725 --> 13:01.765
but not particularly well planned out

13:02.065 --> 13:04.645
or well executed uprising, but people do escape.

13:05.265 --> 13:08.605
Um, and it, it essentially ends that camp's existence.

13:08.605 --> 13:12.245
And then a second more successful escape takes place about a

13:12.245 --> 13:15.125
mile away in the Leal forest, which is where

13:15.125 --> 13:18.285
that sun command 1,005 that I mentioned, had its camp.

13:18.425 --> 13:20.725
And they were involved. They had finished digging up

13:20.725 --> 13:22.005
and burning bodies at Unka.

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It's made up of unka prisoners.

13:23.955 --> 13:25.525
They relocate to this forest

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where they're doing the same job

13:26.805 --> 13:29.325
of digging up these mass shooting graves.

13:30.585 --> 13:34.305
And they also, during the night, rise up

13:34.765 --> 13:36.425
and kill several s men

13:36.925 --> 13:40.025
and a mass escape ensues, which,

13:40.025 --> 13:41.345
which enables them to, to get out.

13:41.345 --> 13:45.745
So you really see a, a wide spectrum of various kinds

13:46.365 --> 13:49.865
of resistance, which in some ways is made easier

13:50.325 --> 13:53.575
by the fact that it's a local camp,

13:53.575 --> 13:55.535
because most of the prisoners there for much

13:55.535 --> 13:58.455
of its existence are literally in their hometown,

13:58.925 --> 14:01.635
which means that they have connections to the outside.

14:02.745 --> 14:06.405
Uh, the, the Jewish council in the ghetto is able to,

14:07.415 --> 14:11.225
with varying degrees of success, bring in supplies, food,

14:11.665 --> 14:14.625
clothing, to the prisoners in the camp, to the extent

14:14.625 --> 14:16.425
that the, the SS let them have it.

14:17.045 --> 14:19.115
Um, it also means that there's a great deal

14:19.115 --> 14:20.355
of support if you get out of the camp

14:20.355 --> 14:21.675
because you're in your own city.

14:22.135 --> 14:24.395
You're, you're familiar, those kind of things.

14:24.825 --> 14:26.995
There's a flip side to it, which is that

14:27.575 --> 14:28.875
the SS knew this as well.

14:28.975 --> 14:31.395
And though, so for a, a certain period

14:31.395 --> 14:33.675
of the camp's existence, particularly while the ghetto was

14:33.675 --> 14:38.405
more or less intact, what they would do is if you escaped,

14:38.405 --> 14:39.845
they would simply take your family

14:39.905 --> 14:41.365
and bring them into the camp and kill them.

14:41.825 --> 14:44.845
And so that actually mitigated against escape

14:44.845 --> 14:46.725
because you would've to count on whether

14:46.725 --> 14:48.125
or not the Nazis could find your family.

14:48.345 --> 14:51.045
So you see a, a wide spectrum

14:52.225 --> 14:56.445
of ways in which people, manage to survive,

14:57.185 --> 14:59.325
and as well as to resist, you know,

14:59.325 --> 15:00.325
what the Nazis are trying to do.

15:00.445 --> 15:02.765
I think one of the things that, that I've tried to do,

15:03.665 --> 15:06.325
and it's a little bit, it's skeletal in the sense

15:06.325 --> 15:09.085
that I think it, it, it, it upholds the book,

15:09.225 --> 15:10.925
but it's not necessarily immediately visible,

15:11.145 --> 15:14.485
but it provides structural organization is a sense

15:14.585 --> 15:19.285
of the geographic spaces involved, both micro level

15:19.345 --> 15:20.405
and the camp itself.

15:20.555 --> 15:23.845
What spaces, were safe, were,

15:25.645 --> 15:29.825
were places of suffering, places of commerce,

15:30.565 --> 15:33.265
what does that mean for the existence

15:33.265 --> 15:36.225
of prisoners in the camp, but also the, where the camp

15:36.855 --> 15:39.145
sits in the larger scale

15:39.145 --> 15:40.825
of the Holocaust at the European level

15:41.005 --> 15:43.305
or at the regional level, these kinds of things.

15:43.485 --> 15:47.105
And I think that's something that, that is important for us

15:47.265 --> 15:50.025
to consider moving forward in, in a more sort of general

15:50.525 --> 15:52.625
and, and and methodological way.

15:53.465 --> 15:55.545
I think another thing that it points out is that

15:57.425 --> 15:59.775
there are lots of places out there

16:00.795 --> 16:02.645
that we haven't really looked at in detail

16:03.205 --> 16:06.155
that can tell us something about

16:06.975 --> 16:08.235
the Holocaust experience.

16:08.375 --> 16:10.755
And for me, you know, my bias is sort

16:10.755 --> 16:13.435
of very much on the table, which is a bias in the,

16:13.435 --> 16:14.995
in the favor of micro history.

16:15.455 --> 16:17.675
And I think that you can really learn something about an

16:17.675 --> 16:19.355
historical event by looking at

16:19.895 --> 16:24.385
how it's actually taking place on the ground,

16:24.395 --> 16:25.985
which is not to discount, you know,

16:25.985 --> 16:28.025
very important work at the sort of larger levels

16:28.085 --> 16:30.265
and the conceptual and intellectual levels.

16:30.765 --> 16:33.315
Um, but to say that a necessary

16:33.335 --> 16:37.315
and important addition slash corrective to that approach is

16:37.315 --> 16:40.675
to say, okay, when, when the Nazis say they're going to

16:41.685 --> 16:44.505
use Jews for slave labor or murder Jews

16:44.505 --> 16:47.025
or whatever, what does that actually look like

16:47.125 --> 16:49.105
and how does that actually take place on the ground?

16:49.565 --> 16:52.665
And I think Kovski shows, the complexity of that,

16:52.765 --> 16:56.665
and that when you, when you look at those things in detail,

16:57.085 --> 16:58.265
it raises questions

16:58.265 --> 16:59.745
that you may not have thought to think about before.

17:00.525 --> 17:05.185
And it shows both affirmation and rejection

17:05.245 --> 17:09.785
and disagreement with sort of the larger policies, right?

17:09.785 --> 17:13.305
Because the people involved, all of them, you know,

17:14.015 --> 17:18.545
prisoners, bystanders, perpetrators, et cetera, you know,

17:18.545 --> 17:20.665
they're, they're humans and they have agendas

17:20.725 --> 17:22.465
and they have thoughts,

17:22.565 --> 17:24.385
and they have, they're making choices.

17:25.125 --> 17:26.665
And so one of the things that I've really tried

17:26.665 --> 17:31.085
to do in the book, and I hope it comes through, is to rise

17:31.145 --> 17:33.365
to solve friedlander's challenge of, of being able

17:33.365 --> 17:35.205
to write an integrated history of the Holocaust,

17:35.655 --> 17:40.645
which is the history of the Holocaust that includes voices,

17:40.805 --> 17:42.525
perspectives, and experiences.

17:43.335 --> 17:46.055
Again, from, and I don't like, I don't like

17:46.055 --> 17:48.815
to use the perpetrator victim bystander, but I'll use it

17:48.815 --> 17:52.615
As a shorthand, uses perspectives, viewpoints,

17:52.615 --> 17:54.495
voices from all three groups,

17:55.415 --> 17:57.595
but in an integrated way, so they're talking

17:57.655 --> 17:58.675
to and against each other.

17:59.335 --> 18:02.035
And so you're not telling just one story

18:02.585 --> 18:03.635
from one perspective.

18:03.635 --> 18:05.555
You're trying to tell the whole story

18:06.605 --> 18:08.315
using all the different perspectives together.

18:08.315 --> 18:09.755
And I, I think that's something that I've,

18:09.755 --> 18:10.675
I've accomplished in the book.

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