Save your Souls: Jewish Conversion and Survival in the Occupied Soviet Territories During the Holocaust1

Chapter 8. Between the Permitted and the Forbidden: The Politics of Holocaust Representation in The Unvanquished (1945)

“…8 Despite the tendency towards silence about the fate of Jews during the war, the Jewish tragedy could still be seen in artistic productions as late as 1948, and it was directly referenced in legal discourse (mainly in the reportage of the Nuremberg Trial). 9 Taken together, this amounts to a contradictory and ambivalent picture. These tensions and ambivalence with regard to the interpretation of the Jewish tragedy permeate The Unvanquished on several levels-the film's narrative, as well as the film's professional and critical reception.…”

“…Even though the number six million had already been mentioned by Ilʹia Ehrenburg in 1944, 33 it was not widely circulated in the USSR before 1955, following repeated publications of the Nuremberg Trial documents. 34 Romm also externalizes the Holocaust. He talks about an execution of Jews "in Europe, " underplaying the fact that a great many executions took place on Soviet soil.…”