Contribution short abstract:

This report examines the case of Boris Kinstlers, a member of the Nazi and Soviet security services, analyzing the practices of reconstructing the past. It explores impact on his son, Olafs, and granddaughter, Linda, highlighting themes of memory, responsibility, and divided collective histories.

Contribution long abstract:

The report focuses on the case of Boris Kinstlers, a member of the German SD unit in Nazi-occupied Latvia and a participant in the Holocaust, as well as an informant for the Soviet KGB after World War II. It will analyze different practices and perspectives on reconstructing—and, in some cases, not retelling—the past.

Previously suppressed narratives reveal B.Kinslers role as a double agent, working for both the Soviet and Nazi security services. Other accounts suggest that, in 1949, he was infiltrated into the Gehlen Organization in Western Germany, where he subsequently disappeared without a trace.

Among those affected by this unwritten history is Latvian chemist Olafs Kinstlers, born in Soviet-occupied Latvia in 1949. Never having met his father, Olafs escaped Riga with his family in 1988, eventually settling in California. For many years, he unsuccessfully sought the truth about his father. Another key figure is Linda Kinstler, the granddaughter of B. Kinstlers. Born in California in 1991 to a mixed Latvian-Jewish family, Linda is an journalist and a Ph.D. in rhetoric at UC Berkeley. Her book, Come to This Court and Cry (2022), has been widely praised and has gained recognition in non-fiction Holocaust literature in the West.

This paper will examine the interaction between the legacies of the Nazi and Soviet pasts, the memory space of individuals, families, and broader societies, and the divided collective memories of contemporary Western and post-Soviet societies. It will also address the imbalance between individual and collective responsibility and other related factors.