Decoding Terror: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Institutional Complicity and Latvian Collaboration with Nazi Germany in Holocaust Testimonies from the Baranovichi Ghetto (August 1941 – December 1942) – The Cases of Gregory (Girsh) Breslauer and Sim

This article offers an interdisciplinary analysis of institutional complicity and Latvian collaboration in the Holocaust through the cases of Gregory (Girsh) Breslav and Simon Rotkop, survivors of the Baranovichi Ghetto (August 1941–December 1942). Drawing on unpublished Soviet-era KGB interrogation records (1967), the study reconstructs the administrative, judicial, and operational mechanisms of genocide in Baranovichi. Content analysis reveals systematic confinement, deportations, and executions facilitated by bureaucratic structures and euphemistic judicial language that normalized mass violence. Comparative analysis of testimonies highlights the active role of Latvian auxiliary police within the SD, the involvement of local Belarusian police, and the detailed logistical organization of deportations and mass shootings near Grabovets and Glinishche. Critical discourse analysis demonstrates how Soviet ideological framing shaped survivor narratives, emphasizing collective Soviet victimhood and partisan resistance while downplaying specific Jewish suffering. The findings situate Baranovichi within broader theoretical frameworks of Arendt’s “banality of evil,” Agamben’s “state of exception,” and Bauman’s bureaucratic rationalization. By integrating historical, political, and linguistic perspectives, this study underscores the significance of microhistorical analysis for understanding how judicial, administrative, and collaborative structures facilitated genocide and how authoritarian regimes manipulate memory through discourse.