The study of transformation processes

What does "transformation" mean? Or to put it more precisely, what does transformation mean as the reshaping of terrain in the context of the violent crimes committed by the German occupiers in Eastern Europe during World War II? To understand this process, one must first examine the purpose and intentions behind the Nazi design of spaces, irrational to our contemporary eyes.

Martin Pollack has characterized the notion of "landscape" as a contradictory concept that evokes in most people positive associations with natural unspoiltness and a sentiment of sentimental retreat, and the impression of being largely free from human influences. Landscape, however, is always formed by man and is therefore also subject to his memories and feelings, which he projects onto it.¹

The concept of landscape was also taken up in the mindset of National Socialism and, in the sense of "racial theory", related to the supposedly necessary confrontation between the "creative Germans" and the "apathetic Slavs", more precisely to the colonization and economic exploitation of Eastern Europe. With the idea of Eastern Europe as an unorganized and economically undeveloped area, National Socialist theorists saw a mission by the Germans to establish a new, creative order in Eastern Europe.²

"Order" must be seen as a central concept here. Following their racist view of the local - especially the Jewish - population, many of the occupiers saw themselves as future colonizers in a "German East" that was still to be developed.³ This goal could only be achieved through the physical extermination of the local population.

"The design of the landscape served as a justification for the genocide"⁴

This will to extermination in the creation of a new order of space is visible in the National Socialist camp architecture, which was also evident in Maly Trascjanec. The separation into work and extermination areas, typical of the camps, and the clear separation of the accommodation areas for camp staff and inmates were intended to illustrate a power relationship in addition to their functional purpose: This camp, a small settlement in its own right, served the will and ideas of the occupiers alone. Its urban forms, such as the infrastructure and the local production of goods, were designed by the occupiers and were intended to benefit them alone.⁵

Last but not least, the transformation of the landscape in Maly Trascjanec also fulfilled the central purpose of destroying the people themselves and destroying the memory of them. In order to keep the murders committed in as much concealment as possible, the space had to be transformed and reshaped, even after their murder. This required time, enormous effort, a precise knowledge of the topographical conditions and, finally, the removal of the mortal remains of the murdered. Thus, transformation also has a dimension of denial: the denial of guilt on the part of the perpetrators and, often, also a denial of remembrance on the part of the surrounding residents for various reasons.⁶

So what does the "transformation" mean?

Transformation means physically reshaping a landscape or a certain area in order to adapt it to a certain purpose; in the case of Maly Trascjanec, the transformation of the site took place between 1941 and 1944 with the aim of murdering people. The efficiency of the killing increased during this period, which is also visible topographically. A railway track was quickly extended near Blahaǔščyna in order to bring the deported people to the place of execution more quickly. The camp near Maly Trascjanec was enlarged in order to exploit more people as forced labour.

Transformation processes have a physical as well as a psychological level: for the villagers of Maly Trascjanec, the complete understanding of the place changed in just ten years. In the 1930s it was used as a collective farm, in the first half of the 1940s as a Nazi camp and shortly afterwards as an agricultural estate again. So, like the landscape, the understanding and remembrance of Maly Trascjanec was transformed. In the Soviet, Belarusian and German culture of remembrance, the perception of this extermination site changed over time.

Responsible for content: Peter Kamp