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Didactic approach
T1 requires pupils to explain the meaning of ‘genocide’ in relation to a document and
secondary literature. T2 and T3 each contain one question about the Holocaust requesting
pupils to define the characteristics of the ‘occupying regime’. T4 requires an explanation
for the forced dislocation of Jews from Minsk, and a definition of characteristics of the
genocide in occupied Belarus.
National idiosyncrasies
The textbooks present the Holocaust strictly in the context of Belarussian local or national
history, in line with the Belarussian curricula stipulation that teaching about the Holocaust
should take place within the context of the history of Belarus and, more specifically, of
the ‘Great Patriotic War’. Repeated references to the occupation of Belarus in the context
of the Holocaust suggest that the Holocaust primarily involved a violation of Belarussian
territory. The authors of T2, for example, refer to ‘the occupied territory’ (115) and T1 to the
fact that ‘the territory of Belarus was covered with a network of concentration camps’ (129),
while exercises in T2, T3 and T4 ask pupils to describe the Holocaust from the point of view
of members of an occupied country. This local vision of the event is reinforced by further
references to camps, but above all to the Trastsianets camp and the Minsk ghetto in Belarus,
to the equal status accorded to Jews, ‘Gypsies’ and Belarussian nationals as victims of the
‘Generalplan West’ in T1, and by reproducing images of badges worn by eastern Europeans
and Belarussians in camps (T2). In short, there is a tendency to nationalize victimhood.
Numbers of Jewish victims listed in all four books refer only to those who were killed in
either Trastsianets or the Minsk ghetto, although T1 does not name categories of victims
and T2 focuses primarily on Soviet victims. By naming perpetrators as ‘Hitler’s soldiers’,
‘Nazis’, ‘collaborators’, ‘occupiers’, ‘Germans’ and ‘aggressors’, the textbooks demonstrate
a further tendency to externalize perpetration, which is nonetheless not embodied in the
person of Hitler, but in multiple, largely German agents.
Bibliography
T1: Novik, E. 2012. История Беларуси 1917-1945. 10 [History of Belarus 1917-1945]. Minsk, Народная Асвета.
(history, age 15-16 years, in Belarussian)
T2: Siarguei, U. S., and Vital, F. 2001. Гiсторыя Беларусi.11 [History of Belarus]. Minsk, Народная Асвета. (history
of Belarus, age 16-17 years, in Belarussian)
T3: Petrykau, P. 2002. Гiсторыя Беларусi.11 [History of Belarus]. Minsk, Народная Асвета. (history of Belarus,
age 16-17 years, in Belarussian)
T4: Kovalenia, A. 2004. ВЕЛИКАЯ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННАЯ ВОЙНА СОВЕТСКОГО НАРОДА в контексте Второй
мировой войны [The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People in the Context of the Second World War]. Minsk,
Editions of the State University. (History of Belarus, age 16-17 years, in Belarussian)
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