Agency under German Occupation: Children in the Vitebsk Region (1941–1944)

Abstract This study examines the experiences and roles of children and teenagers during the German occupation of north-eastern Belarus (1941–1944), with a particular focus on the Vitebsk Oblast. Drawing on nearly 50 oral history interviews and a wide range of archival sources, the paper explores how children were affected by violence, persecution, and forced labor, while also considering their limited scope for agency. The analysis is situated within the broader context of Soviet childhood policies, interethnic coexistence, and the impact of Nazi racial ideology. It shows how the occupation undermined interethnic relations, replacing them with ghettoisation, forced labor, and the extermination of Jewish children. This study explores children’s experiences between violence, compliance, and powerlessness within the context of occupation. The study highlights the ambiguous roles that children held under German occupation and the limited possibilities they had to make their own decisions. It focuses on how everyday life changed after the invasion and how living conditions worsened as the partisan war intensified from 1942. Using witness accounts that speak of survival, cooperation with occupiers, and personal loss. The study sheds new light on children’s wartime experiences and calls for their recognition as historical subjects.