Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Linda Kinsler discusses her book on her Latvian grandfather Boris, who appears linked to the Nazi-aligned Aris Commando and later to the KGB, and connects that family investigation to broader questions of Holocaust memory, justice, historical revisionism, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. The conversation explores how unfinished historical reckoning shapes the present.
Main Topics: Family history of perpetrators and victims (Priority: 5/5): Kinsler explains her mixed inheritance: a Latvian grandfather suspected of Nazi collaboration and a Jewish Ukrainian maternal family shaped by Holocaust violence, forcing her to confront identity, guilt, and memory across generations. The Aris Commando and Boris Kinsler’s wartime role (Priority: 5/5): The discussion reconstructs Boris’s likely participation in a Latvian auxiliary police unit that worked with Nazi occupiers, including ties to Herbert Cukurs and other figures implicated in atrocities against Jews. Posthumous investigation and the Cukurs case (Priority: 5/5): A long-running Latvian prosecutor-led investigation into dead Nazi collaborator Herbert Cukurs becomes the vehicle for examining how law can continue to reopen WWII crimes decades later. Justice, evidence, and the problem of historical closure (Priority: 4/5): The speakers debate what it means to prosecute crimes after witnesses die, how courts handle genocide cases, and why public memory and legal proof often diverge. Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe (Priority: 4/5): The conversation emphasizes that much of the Holocaust in Latvia, Ukraine, and the wider region was obscured by Soviet rule and is only now being publicly and institutionally addressed. Parallels with Russia’s war on Ukraine (Priority: 5/5): Kinsler and Pomerantsev connect current Russian atrocities and propaganda to historical patterns of occupation, deportation, erasure, and denial, while also debating whether history is repeating or being confronted more directly.
Key Arguments: Kinsler argues her family history is morally split between victims and perpetrators, making simple binaries inadequate for understanding Eastern European wartime history. She says the Aris Commando was a local Latvian killing unit formed under German occupation to conduct pogroms and roundups of Jews. She contends that the Cukurs investigation shows how legal systems can be forced to revisit Holocaust crimes long after the perpetrators have died. She argues that the collapse of living memory creates an epistemological and legal crisis: without survivors, denial and rehabilitation become easier. She links Russia’s war on Ukraine to unresolved historical violence in the region, especially the Soviet suppression of Holocaust and Ukrainian wartime memory. She suggests Ukrainian society is now facing its past more directly than before, and that current war crimes may clarify rather than obscure historical narratives. Pomerantsev argues propaganda may become legally relevant only when it is operationally tied to military action and war crimes, not merely when it is hateful or false.
Data Points: Year Boris disappeared: 1949 - Kinsler says her grandfather vanished while telling his pregnant wife he was going on a business trip to Sillamäe. Year Herbert Cukurs was murdered: 1965 - The transcript notes Mossad killed Cukurs in South America. Approximate number of Jews murdered by Herbert Cukurs’ associate group: around 30,000 - Cukurs is described as being implicated in the murder of thousands of Jews in Riga. Year Kinsler first encountered the Cukurs investigation: 2015 - She began researching the Aris Commando and Cukurs while studying at Cambridge. Year Cukurs rehabilitation request: 1996 - The transcript says Cukurs’ daughter asked for his rehabilitation in Latvia. Year Mossad killed Adolf Eichmann: 1960 - Referenced as the context for Mossad sending an operative to kill Cukurs. Number of Holocaust-related cases in Ukraine: 11,000 cases - Pomerantsev cites ongoing Ukrainian war-crimes investigations during the exchange.
Pivotal Quotes: "“justice, justice you shall pursue”" — Linda Kinsler: Kinsler recalls the Jewish day-school ethic that pushed her toward investigation rather than denial. "“how do we account for the atrocities of history and our personal links to them”" — Narrator/episode framing: This frames the book’s central question about inherited guilt and memory. "“I will forgive you if you confess to everything that you've done.”" — Joseph Berman (quoted by Linda Kinsler): Used to illustrate the impossibility of knowing when confession is complete or justice is sufficient.
Implications: The episode shows how unresolved WWII crimes still shape politics, law, and identity in Eastern Europe. It also suggests today’s war in Ukraine depends on memory, evidence, and narrative battles as much as on battlefield facts.