Memory Uninterrupted

New research on the collective memory of the Soviet-Jewish population shows that the transmission of memories about the Holocaust differs from Jewish groups outside the Iron Curtain. Soviet ideology, identity repression, and selective memory-sharing within the family all altered the shape of collective memory generationally bestowed upon many within this body. The Welstein Family presently resides in Moscow and contains three living generations of Jews that experienced familial losses in the Holocaust. Unlike their contemporaries, the Welstein family regularly discussed and shared their family history of victimhood in Ukraine during the Nazi occupation of Odessa. Unlike their peers, the Welstein family’s collective memory remains intact and simultaneously altered from the Holocaust memory narratives presented outside of the Soviet Union. Thus, the Welstein family produces a unique picture into the preservation of Jewish collective memory from within the boundaries of the USSR that their contemporaries do not express.