"Treblinkskij ad" di Vasilij Grossman nell'Europa dell'immediato dopoguerra (1945-1947)

The literary essay Treblinskij ad (The Treblinka Hell), originally published in the journal “Znamja” in 1944, became widespread shortly after the end of the Second World War, and contributed substantially to the memory of the Shoah in the Soviet Union. Treblinskij ad is a complex essay both textually and philologically, in so far as several versions of it were published, not only in Russian, but also in other European languages. It is however surprising that – despite the widespread circulation of the essay – hardly any attention has been given to such textual-philological complexity. This paper will attempt to reconstruct how Treblinskij ad spread across Europe and the United States during the Nuremberg Trials, namely at the time of the first witnesses to the Shoah. In order to do so, the paper will offer (and discuss) an analysis of the English, French and German translations of the essay from 1945 to 1947, as well as a textual comparison between such translations and the Russian published versions.