Formation and Strengthening of the Karaite Collective Identity in the Face of the Holocaust

• In Event: New Approaches to Cultural Identity Research: Changing Self-Perception of Lithuanian Jewish and Karaite Communities in the Process of Emancipation

Abstract

In the study of the Holocaust and Nazi policy towards the Jews Karaite question remains in the margins of the scholarly attention. There are only several contributions in this field, most important of which are those of Warren Green, Kiril Feferman, Philip Firedman and Mikhail Kizilov. Their studies reveal the formation of the Nazi policy towards the Karaites and implementation of it, which is of the crucial importance in understanding the faith of the Karaites in 1930s-1940s in Nazi Germany and in occupied territories. However, these studies remain silent about the Karaite community itself; the Karaite attitude towards the Rabbanite Jews, perception of Karaite identity, both within community and among individual Karaites remains under researched.
Meanwhile the question of Karaites’ role in the Holocaust was focused on the questions like why East European Karaites didn’t perish during the Holocaust, or how the Nazi politics towards the Karaites was formed and implemented. In this perspective Karaites are viewed as objects, rather than subjects of this difficult historical period. Such perspective gives illusory picture of the Karaite community in Eastern Europe, supposing that they were voiceless when their fate was decided by the nazi government.
The paper aims to examine the role of the Nazi persecutions and the Holocaust in entrenching non-Jewish national self-identity among Karaites and answer the question whether and how the Karaite elite used the atmosphere of suppression, fair and uncertainty during the nazi rule to foster the entrenchment of non-Jewish identity within Karaite community.

Author

• Dovile Troskovaite, Vilnius U (Lithuania)