Is history written by the victors? The complete history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union remained in the hearts and minds of the Jewish survivors, some who wrote it down, some who did not. Their voices were silenced.
Decades of Soviet suppression of information impact our world today, and the goal is to reclaim this history and tell the complete story before it is too late. This is why remembrance is so important in everyday life. The previous panels of this exhibition have shone a light on the little-known history of the suffering of the Jews in the geographical area that would ultimately all become part of the Soviet Union. We say that history tends to repeat itself but maybe that is because we have not learned from it. With this thought in our consciousness, we can then decide how to be the best version of ourselves.
Yellow Circle
It is not okay to discriminate against those who are different. People have many different identities and this is not a reason to dislike them or not treat them fairly. Alienating people because of their religion, size, skin colour, sexuality, or just about anything is the beginning of dangerous behaviour.
What images are associated with the Holocaust? It could be striped clothes, barbed wire and the yellow Star of David patch. Antisemitism, as we have seen, is ancient. The yellow patch also has an ancient symbolism. It is important to see just how widespread this concept of identification was. Jews and Muslims were required to wear a garment that identified them as different to Catholics in the Middle Ages, all over Europe. European kings went out of their way to discriminate against Jews and Muslims because they were “the other”.
In medieval Spain, which had the largest Jewish population of Europe at the time, Jews at one point had to wear distinctive turbans, then distinct colours and also oval patches.
In medieval England, King Edward I ordered all Jews to wear “a distinguishing mark on their outer garments [in the form of the Ten Commandment tablets] of yellow felt of the length of six inches and of the breadth of three inches.”
In France, if Jews were found to not be wearing their circular badges, they would be imposed with a heavy fine.
All of Europe had their own rules, but the result was the same: to identify Jews and Muslims so they could be a target.
The yellow Star of David patch was used in many ghettos but not in all. The Minsk Ghetto used a big yellow circle patch, like you see in the photographs. The photograph on the left is one of the original circular pieces of yellow fabric, which Jews in the Minsk Ghetto were forced to wear (as you can see on the right). The order applied to everyone then and older. The patches were to be 10cm in diameter and attached to the outer garments, on both the left side of the chest, and on the back. The prisoners referred to the patches in Yiddish as late, pronounced: lata or laty.
This is the text from the order by the Minsk Ghetto Judenrat, a council of Jews in the ghetto which had been established by the Germans to carry out the decrees against the Jews the Germans enacted:
From Communiqué №31 of the Security Police and the SD on the creation of the Jewish Council (Judenrat)
Minsk 23rd July 1941
“As the German soldier cannot always unfailingly distinguish Jewish people from non Jewish local population, in some cases misunderstandings have occurred. A regulation has therefore been issued requiring that with immediate effect, Jewish men and women aged 10 and older wear yellow sewn-on patches on their breasts and backs at all times.”
Tulsa 1921
In 2021, US President Joe Biden became the first president to publicly acknowledge the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The Tulsa Race Massacre – also known as the Black Wall Street Massacre and the Tulsa Race Riot – was one of the most horrendous incidents of racial violence in United States history. Between May 31st and June 1st 1921, hundreds of Black citizens were injured and killed, and thirty-five blocks of the city were destroyed, along with more than 1,200 homes.
While there were few white people who helped the Black community after the massacre (due to a strong Ku Klux Klan presence in the area), members of the Tulsa Jewish community made efforts to help Black families by taking them into their homes or businesses, feeding and clothing them, as well as hiding them during and after the atrocity.
Many of the Jews in Tulsa were recent immigrants in the early 1900s from Eastern Europe who remembered firsthand suffering through violent pogroms and antisemitic policies in the Russian Empire.
Some of the stories of how individual Jews saved people are so important, such as a married couple from Latvia who owned a grocery store and hid some people in the large pickle vats in the store. The wife hid little children under her skirt. There are stories of Jews hiding their black employees, friends, and their families in their homes and guarding them with guns, in car trunks driving them to safety, garages and other places. The Eastern European Jewish immigrants had memories of pogroms and knew what it was to be a target and a victim, so they helped their fellow man. They used their own experiences to help make sure this did not happen to others. They used their memories for good.
Children of the Brest Ghetto
There are documents containing information about Jews who lived and died in the Brest Ghetto: The Brest Ghetto Protocols. Every prisoner needed to have this document, so that the Germans could keep track of Jews in the ghetto. Every document contains information such as the dates and places of birth, parents’ names, why the document was issued, and many other historical details.
These Protocols are very hard to access today, very few people have seen them, making these documents so special and unique.
Every child featured in the documents was killed around 1942, when the Germans liquidated the Brest Ghetto. So many of the names of the people who were murdered have been forgotten, but thankfully, these documents have been recovered in Belarusian archives and are enabling us to remember those who need to be remembered.
Click on the images to enlarge.
Be an upstander
Propaganda can be easily spread and can hurt millions of people in unimaginable ways. It can quickly spiral out of control and it is our responsibility to make sure the spread of fake news does not happen.
Antisemitism is still prevalent today, so take matters into your own hands and be proud of your heritage and identity.
You have a superpower to repair the world. You have the power to make the world a better place.
You have the power to be a changemaker.
