Les espaces de la violence

une étude de cas sur le meurtre des Juifs en Ukraine (1941-1944)

Abstract

Examining the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Berdichev and the murder of some 18,000 Jewish inhabitants by German SS and police, this paper explores the transformation of space in both social and topographical terms by means of mass violence. Immediately after they had seized the town, the Germans started to use the location for their interests, thus restructuring and remodeling it. For example, the park in the city center was transformed into a cemetery for German soldiers killed in action during the conquest, schools gave shelter to Wehrmacht troops, townspeople had to leave their houses for German military and civil personnel, and all Jews were forced to move to the poorest and dirtiest neighborhood before they were rounded up, shot, and buried in the immediate vicinity of the town. This paper focuses on these practices of occupation and annihilation and asks how Jews and Ukrainians reacted to them, thus taking all agents into account. It shows how the city of Berdichev turned step by step to the German city of Berditschew, arguing that social and topographical spaces were created separately by all groups and at the same time all groups participated in mutual naming and appropriation.