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Soviet use of the Holocaust as a propaganda tool, first against Germany, then against the nations the USSR occupied after WWII, commenced with Germany's invasion. Nor were the Soviets above blaming the Nazis for their own atrocities as at Katyn, not officially acknowledged until 1989.
That use peaked in the 1970's as the KGB provided U.S. and Canadian authorities with evidence implicating Baltic and Ukrainian individuals in Nazi atrocities. This evidence—provided with no expectation or demand for quid pro quo—was not always reliable: accusing those who were children at the time, deposing the deceased, and referencing trial "transcripts" published prior to trial. Soviet propagandists produced Daugavas Vanagi, Who Are They? (1963), "Political Refugees" Unmasked! (1965), and two decades later, There Shall be Retribution: Nazi War Criminals and Their Protectors (1984), all aimed at discrediting the leadership of the Latvian émigré community in the United States. The Soviets similarly targeted the Ukrainian community in Canada with The SS Werewolves (1982).
Still, as with Nazi archives, judicious study of Soviet-era archival resources — and an understanding of both Nazi and Soviet structures and methods — offers the possibility of separating facts from fabrications of history.
- Holocaust's Soviet Legacy in Latvia — Soviet authorities left a contradictory legacy: on the one hand they engaged in truth-seeking in unraveling the Nazi “conspiracy”, simultaneously they imposed a silence on the findings, and on the third hand, they created a “new” Holocaust image that had little in common with the real one. These three legacies lived on separate tracks that hardly ever met.
- Show Trial Soviet Style, 1965 — The 1965 trial for war crimes in Rezekne followed the formula of the 1961 show trial of officers of the 18th Latvian Police Battalion, with the exception that the Western press was invited, clearly to reinforce Soviet "allegations" published in Daugavas Vanagi, Who Are They?.
- Soviet Use of the Holocaust in 1941 — An early example of Soviet appropriation of the Holocaust for propaganda purposes.