Spring 2018 Grant Recipient
Graduate Student
Tierre Sanford (Slavic Languages & Literatures)
On June 28, 1941 Nazi soldiers literally paraded into Minsk, the capital of Soviet Belarus, and began posting orders around the city. One such proclamation, decreed that all Jews must relocate or be shot. This designated area of the city became known as the Minsk Ghetto. My dissertation project examines published memoirs penned by survivors of the Minsk Ghetto. I aim to translate many of the survivors' words into English for the first time, while also examining the transformation of Jewish self-identification during the first summer in the Minsk ghetto and introducing the body of Minsk ghetto memoir literature to the fields of Russian Literature and Holocaust Studies as well as to the general public.