“They grab everyone”: Gaswagens in Krasnodar narratives about the Nazi occupation

Abstract

Today, many Krasnodar residents say that during the German occupation of the city, the Nazis rounded up residents using gaswagens (mobile gas chambers, gas vans). According to these stories, anyone could become a victim of a raid and die in a gaswagen, regardless of ethnicity or political loyalty, while in reality specific categories of population became victims of gas vans. The article focuses on the reasons for the emergence and popularity of such stories in Krasnodar. The narrative basis for the stories of gas vans and indiscriminate raids was created by Soviet propaganda texts that appeared immediately after the liberation of the city. In late Soviet times, gas vans became a part of the cultural memory (A. Assmann) thanks to an inscription on the city’s main war memorial. The propaganda thesis about indiscriminate killings by means of gaswagens became fixed in oral tradition, since there was a ready-made form for it — the story of a dangerous black car that personified state terror. Like other oral histories of the distant past, stories about gas vans that “grabbed everyone” help storytellers maintain an identity that is relevant for them: they confirm the city’s status as a victim of the Nazis and thereby help compensate for the official lack of recognition of its heroic deeds.