Jochen Hellbeck is distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is currently writing a book on the German-Soviet war. Together with Daria Lotareva and Viktoria Naumenko, he is also preparing a documentary volume, Soviet Suffering Under Nazi Rule: The First Testimonies.
The Nazis reserved two fates for the Soviet Union’s people: slavery or extermination. The outside world still hasn’t fully registered the scale of the horrific crimes unleashed by the Nazis’ invasion of the Soviet Union on this day in 1941.