On the margins : essays on the history of Jews in Estonia / Anton Weiss-Wendt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weiss-Wendt, Anton, 1973- author.

Contributor:

JSTOR (Organization)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Estonia--History.

Jews.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Estonia.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Ethnic relations.

History.

Estonia--Ethnic relations.

Estonia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Estonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish history, On the Margins fills this lacuna. Rebuilding a life beyond so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement, the Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia, and the trauma of Soviet occupation of 1940-41 are but few issues addressed in the book. Most profoundly, the book wrestles with the subject of the Holocaust and its legacy in Estonia. Specifically, it examines the quasi-legal system of murder instituted in Nazi-occupied Estonia, confiscation of Jewish property, and Jewish forced labor camps. One the Margins develops an analysis of the causes of collaboration in the Holocaust and explains the dynamics of war crimes trials in the Soviet Union since the 1960s and so-called denaturalization trials in the United States in the 1980s. The haunting memory of Soviet and Nazi rule, the book concludes, prevents a larger segment of the Estonian population today from facing up to the Holocaust and the universal message that it carries.

Contents:

1 New in Town: Jews in Narva, 1874-1917 31

2 Thanks to the Germans! Jewish Cultural Autonomy in Interwar Estonia 69

3 The Soviet Occupation of Estonia in 1940-41 and the Jews 95

4 Accidentally Jewish: Helmut Weiss and the (II)logic of Political Violence in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia 115

5 Ordinary People Facing the Holocaust: The Estonian Security Police Investigation Files, 1941-42 143

6 The End Complete: The Destruction of Jews in Provincial Cities 165

7 The Business of Survival: Baltic Oil Ltd, and Jewish Forced Labor Camps in Estonia 197

8 Estonian Perpetrators of the Holocaust in the Annals of the Cold War: The Prosecution of War Criminals in the Soviet Union, 1943-1987 221

9 Why the Holocaust Does Not Matter to Estonians 243.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9789633861660

9633861667

Publisher Number:

40027185284

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.