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Holocaust, nor do they address the role of the Allies, of bystanders, or include individual
stories. Similarly, none of the books mention helpers, rescuers, or local people who
participated in or abetted killings, or collaborated with perpetrators in Belarus. Partisan
resisters feature prominently in all books, and the fate of one, presumably partisan, woman
is graphically illustrated in T4 in the image of a child next to his dead mother; although the
child is named as Tolia Markovets, no information is provided concerning the place and date
of the killing, or the reason for it .
Interpretative paradigms
All textbooks focus on the political and military background of the Second World War. T1,
T2 and T3 refer to the event in terms of ‘genocide’ but also in terms of ‘mass murder’ (T1),
‘planned extermination of the Soviet people’ (T2), ‘total extermination’ (T3) and ‘the total
extermination of the Jewish population of Europe by the Nazis during the Second World
War’ (T4). The presentations of the Holocaust are not comprehensive or historical, but
consist in brief statements outlining facts of the event such as the numbers of camps and
ghettos and the identity of selectively named perpetrators and victims. These statements
are generally short and disconnected from the context of the Second World War, and do
not constitute explanations of the events of the Holocaust. The aims of perpetrators are
described in T1 in the context of the ‘Generalplan West’, according to which 75 percent
of Belarussians were to be killed or displaced and 25 percent of them used for forced
labour, while all Jews and ‘Gypsies’ were to be killed. The authors of T2 describe the aims
of perpetrators as a ‘“new order” … based on genocide, mass extermination and the theft
of national resources’ (115). Causes of and motives for the Holocaust are not explained in
T4, although references to ‘“racially harmful”’ people (97) suggest ideological motivations.
In addition to administrative documents, including a letter from the General Commissar of
Belarus about the killing of Jews (T1) and an official order concerning the ‘Jewish district’
of Minsk (T4), the textbooks contain iconic images of the Holocaust, including camp badges
used to identify people from eastern Europe and from Belarus (T2), and the entrance to
Auschwitz (T2). Historiographical or commemorative issues are not addressed. The authors
of T2 are the only ones to address what they call ‘collaborationism’ (T2).
Narrative structure and point of view
All authors adopt a single authorial point of view with minimal indications of other
interpretations. This imbalance is reflected in the fact that 90 to 100 percent of sections
about the Holocaust are devoted to authors’ texts alongside 10 percent documents or maps
in T1, T2 and T3, while T4 devotes 60 percent of available space to documents alongside
40 percent authors’ texts. The authors offer no metahistorical reflection about historical
method or commemorative uses of the Holocaust. By confining the scope of the narratives
to the period of the war and to Belarussian territory, the books tend to provide fatalistic
moral accounts of the Holocaust with no reference to long-term causes or consequences.
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