“The Germans Equated the Karaites and the Jews”: The Shoah and the Karaite Policy in Melitopol’ District (1941–1943)

This article explores the Holocaust, German Karaite Policy, and Jewish–Karaite relations in Melitopol’ region during the Nazi occupation. The author uses unpublished sources from Ukrainian, Israeli, German, and Lithuanians archives, as well as oral history testimonies from his private collection to demonstrate that Jews in Melitopol’ were murdered by the Germans and their collaborators throughout the entire period of occupation, with the culmination of this policy occurring in the first days of the Wehrmacht’s arrival in Melitopol’. The property of the murdered Jews was confiscated by the local administration and handed over to the German army. Jews who concealed their nationality and went into hiding in Melitopol’ or nearby villages were persecuted by the Germans and their collaborators throughout the entire period of occupation. Local Karaite activists, with the support of local self-government officials, managed to convince the employees of SK 10A that the local Karaites had nothing in common with the Jews and were in fact a Turkic people professing “their own religion”. Close examination of the archival materials reveals that the Karaite narrative in Melitopol’ had already fallen under the strong influence of Karaite Turkic nationalism in the pre-war period. Within this narrative, there was an attempt to eliminate any Jewish elements from the everyday culture of local Karaites. The Holocaust is mentioned in this narrative only in general terms, most often in the context of the fact that the Germans sought to eliminate the Karaites, but the latter managed to convince the former that they were a separate ethnic group altogether. The research demonstrates that the subject of the Holocaust is practically absent from the postwar trials of collaborators in Melitopol’, as evidenced by the trials of members of the local self-government, Andrei Putov and Vasilii Perepletchikov. The documents prove that representatives of the Melitopol’ local administration participated in the looting of Jewish property after the first mass executions. However, the role of the local government in the first and bloodiest Aktion remains unclear. The Ilarion Kurylo (Krymchak) trial highlights the role that members of the rural self-government played in not only the persecution but also the rescue of Jews, as well as attempts to influence the local administration of OUN (b) and OUN (m).