Author: Daina Eglitis, Department of Sociology, George Washington University - ResearchGate

Contents:

	Introduction (p. 279)
	Survivor Voices: Sources and Challenges (p. 280)
	A Long Journey Home: Soviet Filtration Camps (p. 283)
	Women Remember: Filtration and Suspicion (p. 287)
	Women Remember: Filtration and Sexual Danger (p. 291)
	Conclusion (p. 296)
	Notes (p. 297)
	Bibliography (p. 303)

Extract: »This chapter uses women’s testimonies and memoirs to develop an account of the often frightening and violent journeys survivors experienced and remembered, and to highlight the postwar risks encountered by liberated women survivors. It focuses in particular on the process of filtration (fil’tracija) that was used by Soviet authorities to investigate perceived threats and traitors and to ascertain the wartime activities and postwar loyalties of citizens.1 Millions of Soviet citizens returning from prisoner of war camps, forced or voluntary labor under German authorities, and mobilization in German armed forces underwent detention and interrogation at filtration points and camps that dotted the postwar map of East and Central Europe and the USSR. Among them were also Jewish survivors whose experiences in Nazi-occupied zones were almost invariably brutal imprisonment in concentration camps, but whose survival in German captivity was an object of suspicion in the eyes of Soviet authorities. Significantly, testimonies show that experiences of filtration were gendered: Women were at risk in filtration camps of sexual violence from Soviet officials, soldiers, and guards who believed that their survival had been enabled by sexual collaboration with the enemy.« (Source: p. 279-280)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Russia / History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953) | Internment: Soviet special camps / NKVD filtration camps | Genocide: The Holocaust / Sexual violence during the Holocaust | Sex and the law: Sexual violence