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CHAPTER 1.2

Soviet Population Evacuation into the North Caucasus, 1941–1942¹

1. WARTIME EVACUATION OF THE POPULATION IN THE SOVIET UNION

When a central government initiates the partial or complete evacuation of a civilian population from territory threatened by an enemy, that initiative should be regarded as a part of its war strategy. In this sense, the evacuation envisioned and implemented by the Soviet government during the Soviet-German War had to take into account several considerations. On the one hand, the “scorched earth” policy with the complete removal of the population from the areas about to be seized had some advantages. It ensured that the Soviets would keep their human resources intact, whereas the Germans would have to count only upon their own scarce manpower in order to run the newly conquered regions. On the other hand, the complete depopulation of abandoned areas had serious disadvantages: it was hardly feasible on a practical level and it would leave no-one behind to wage a partisan war in the territory overrun by the enemy. In addition, it made sense to leave some of the population under the enemy’s sway in order to capitalize on the inevitable friction between this population and the occupying power as time went on.

Particularly acute was the timing of any evacuation. The Soviets aimed at maintaining a probably impossible equilibrium: they tried to manage a gradual evacuation and, at the same time, keep the semblance of a normal life in order to avoid panic among the inhabitants and continue industrial production, including military industries, until the last moment. The evacuations were usually carried out until the position of the Soviet forces became indefensible.² Finally, there was the danger that massive evacuations would play into the Germans’ hands, giving them an opportunity to bring German settlers who could fill the empty territories.

The decision of the Soviet government to start evacuating the general population during the War could be seen against the background of its prewar resettlement policies, which were applied to a number of Soviet nationalities and professional groups during the 1930s.³ It may be said, cautiously, that, on a quantitative and geographic scale, the prewar population evacuation planning could not cope with the challenges as compared to the challenges presented by the actual German invasion. As with the industrial relocation plans,⁴ the Soviet strategists failed to take into account that such a significant part of the country could possibly fall under the enemy’s control.⁵ It is noteworthy that, during the War, the Soviet authorities also tried to analyze and take into account the experience of Imperial Russia with respect to the eviction of the general population from the threatened areas during World War I.⁶

These considerations, compounded by a rapidly deteriorating strategic situation, guided the Soviet government when it made decisions to withdraw human resources from the Germans’ reach, soon after the beginning of the War. The complete removal of the population was never under consideration. Rather, the government formulated its evacuation policy solely with regard to specific groups, which were singled out for their significance to the country’s war effort and the survival of the Soviet regime. According to the directives, the evacuation of the general population was aimed first and foremost at safeguarding the lives of functionaries affiliated with the Communist Party, the Soviet government, and security agencies of all levels, together with their families. The next priority was to evacuate agricultural and industrial (mainly military-industrial) facilities together with their workers. Transferring all possible human resources away from the Germans’ reach was the last item in the order of importance.⁷ In addition, special emphasis was placed on the evacuation of children and elderly people,⁸ although their relocation may be considered a humanitarian action, apparently not designed as part of the war efforts, however broadly they may have been interpreted.⁹ Most organized evacuees fell into the third category.

There was also a considerable number of unorganized or independent refugees, who fled eastwards on their own initiative.¹⁰ Many of them chose to escape because they feared that they would suffer under German rule. This group consisted of three major subgroups: Jews; members of the Communist Party, the Komsomol youth organization, and other Soviet functionaries; and families of officers of the Red Army.

The wartime evacuation of the population in the USSR was slated to be a highly centralized process. It was coordinated by the Council for Evacuation, created on June 24, 1941 in accordance with the joint decision of the Soviet government, called Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov (SNK or Council of the People’s Commissars), and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.¹¹ The head of the Soviet Trade Unions and Politburo Member Nikolai Shvernik was placed in charge of the Council.¹² This body was empowered to authorize the evacuation of all population groups, with the exception of residents in areas that were close to the front lines, in which case the evacuation fell under the jurisdiction of the military command.¹³ The decisions of the Council for Evacuation were binding for the local administrations and all-Union ministries.¹⁴ Overall, the Council presided over the evacuation eastwards of more than ten million Soviet citizens in 1941, as indicated in the report drawn up at the end of 1941 by Konstantin Pamfilov, the Deputy Chairman of the Council, in charge of the population evacuation.¹⁵

Following the military successes of the Red Army during the winter of 1941–1942, the Soviet leadership assumed that the stage of war-related evacuation was over. This prompted the liquidation of the Council for Evacuation and its replacement by a department of the RSFSR Council of the People’s Commissars for the maintenance of the evacuated population on December 25, 1941.¹⁶ The central government even sanctioned a partial return of the evacuees (reevakuatsiia) into the central regions (Moscow, Tula, Kalinin) in the first half of 1942. However, when the German armies swept into the North Caucasus in summer 1942, the State Committee of Defense established on June 22 a new Komissiya po evakuatsii (Commission for Evacuation) staffed by the members of the disbanded Council for Evacuation and headed by Shvernik. This points to a continuity of Soviet evacuation thinking and policies, but the Commission appears to have enjoyed a lower status than the disbanded Council and certainly it was set up too late to effectively organize further civilian evacuation from the Caucasus. Nevertheless, according to the official Soviet data, more than eight million people were evacuated in summer and fall 1942, thus bringing the total number of evacuees during the War to about twenty-five million people.¹⁷

The organized evacuation of the population in the wartime USSR was carried out at the initiative of the central government. Local administrations could submit their proposals on the character and timing of the evacuation, but specific decisions always had to be made by the center. This was a bureaucratic process that took time, even when the situation on the ground looked critical. The resulting delays could seal the fate of “last-minute” refugees.

Local administrations found it very difficult to accommodate masses of refugees and provide them with food, heating, and employment, all within a very short space of time. Like all projects not directly related to the war effort, the evacuation was underfunded, and local authorities had to find ways to fund it from local resources. These processes inevitably led to tension between the central government, on the one hand, and the local authorities and residents, on the other.¹⁸ Often, the locals were forced to billet evacuees in their homes free of charge; there were fewer allocations from local budgets, which now had to be shared between the local residents and the incoming evacuees. So resentment against was the newcomers stirred up among the local administration and the local residents, as well as inter-regional and inter-ethnic animosity.¹⁹

2. THE NORTH CAUCASUS

2.1. The Local Population and the Jewish Evacuees

In the North Caucasus, Jewish evacuees came to constitute a considerable proportion of the newcomers who started moving into the region after the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. On October 1, 1941, a local agency in charge of evacuation in the Krasnodar territory stated in its internal memorandum that Jews made up 73% of the 218,000 people who were received and given accommodation in the area.²⁰ Data of the Council for Evacuation pertaining to other areas indicates that, in summer and fall 1941, Jews constituted a majority of the newcomers throughout the North Caucasus:

Distribution of the Registered Evacuated Population in the Regions of the North Caucasus, as of November 15, 1941, by Gender and Age, as a Percentage of the Total

Source: calculated by the author on the basis of data of Resettlement Departments processed by the Council for Evacuation, 1941. YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3091. Note: There is no information for the Rostov District.

This finding seems to contradict the widely held view that the Soviet government did not prioritize the evacuation of Jews²¹ and must be explained. As mentioned above, in Soviet planning the region served as a reception area. However, the number of “unofficial” refugees who flooded into the Caucasus was considerably higher than the figures set for the organized evacuation. The reason for this influx of refugees was the geographical proximity of the North Caucasus to the Ukraine region with its sizeable Jewish population. Thus, the apparent contradiction may be reconciled in the following manner: although the Soviets did not prioritize the evacuation of Jews insofar as organized evacuation was concerned, they evidently allowed those Jews who had escaped independently and had reached the North Caucasus region to avail themselves of the facilities offered by the Soviet evacuation program such as provision of food, work, housing, warm clothes, fuel, medical aid, and school education for children.

It became apparent that the arrival of masses of predominantly Jewish evacuees led to an upsurge of anti-Jewish sentiments amongst the local population. This involved, among other factors, the refusal to allow Jewish evacuees to move into a place (the local inhabitants were recorded as saying: “We’ll let Russians in, but not Jews”),²² and the attempts to get rid of Jewish tenants with the tacit approval of local functionaries.²³

Many Jewish testimonies also mention the atmosphere of anti-Semitism in the North Caucasus towards the Jewish evacuees.²⁴ This is how Vladimir Gel’fand who was evacuated to Essentuki, described the situation in his diary:

In the streets and in the park, at a bread store, and in a line for kerosene, everywhere can one hear whispering—quiet, dreadful, cheerful, but hateful. They are talking about Jews. So far they speak awkwardly, while looking around. Jews are thieves. … Jews have money. … Jews don’t like working. Jews don’t want to serve in the Red Army. Jews live without being registered. Jews walk all over them [seli im na golovu]. In brief, Jews are the root of all misfortune.²⁵

A Jewish refugee, who fled from Rostov-on-Don when it was captured by the Germans for the first time (late November 1941), stated in a postwar interview that, when:

we entered local villages to seek food, the population was ill-disposed towards us and even behaved in a belligerent fashion. We were never invited to enter a house in order to clean ourselves up. There was even a feeling of terror.

Such attitudes did not diminish, but rather intensified, from May 1942 onwards, possibly in view of some change in the balance of forces in the region in favor of the Germans and the way that the local people perceived the situation. This was noted by a Jewish evacuee: “When [we] moved around North Caucasian localities, we sensed hostile attitudes on the part of the local population. ‘Hitler will shoot you all the same,’ they said. Often, we were denied water.”²⁶

Yet, in many cases it cannot be established whether the hostile attitude was due to the fact that the witnesses was Jewish, or the fact that they were refugees. In contrast, a very limited number of sources noted that the Russian population displayed neutral or even positive attitudes towards Jewish refugees.²⁷ However, these few examples stand out as the exception to the trend, which was indicative of the increase in anti-Semitism among the local Slavic people on the eve of the German occupation of the North Caucasus.

More generally, the local authorities recorded an increase in anti-Semitic feelings as a reaction to the growing predominantly Jewish evacuation into the region. From the early stages of the War, many Jewish evacuees, especially those from recently annexed territories, were not conscripted into the Red Army. This could be explained by the Soviet concern about the political reliability of their new citizens, and also, by the general chaos surrounding the Soviet evacuation policy and its implementation. The local population in the North Caucasus was outraged to see many young Jews among the newcomers, whereas their own sons had already been drafted into the Soviet army.²⁸

As the German army approached the North Caucasus, animosity towards the Jews increased, as indicated by the following two quotes from Stavropol records. According to the memorandum of the District Committee of the VKP(b) prepared in September 1941, “the hostility towards Jews on the part of anti-Soviet elements was clearly on the rise in recent times in a number of areas.”²⁹ On January 6, 1942, a lecturer in the VKP(b) Department of Agitation and Propaganda in the Stavropol territory communicated to the NKVD regional administration: “In the Libknekht area, the departure of draftees to the front took place in an anti-Soviet mood: ‘Beat Yids and Communists!’”³⁰

Official Soviet records indicate that quite a number of ordinary people, and especially low-level functionaries, were convicted for “instigating nationally motivated animosity, namely anti-Semitism” in the context of the evacuation into the North Caucasus.³¹ We get little understanding, however, of what the NKVD in the North Caucasus regarded as manifestations of anti-Semitism subject to legal prosecution. Overall, the impression is that the central Soviet government tended to suppress anti-Jewish attitudes among the local elite and the inhabitants of the region (contrary to what we know about other evacuation reception areas³²). Often viewed in conjunction with, or as explicit expressions of resentment against the Soviet regime and all too reminiscent of Nazi messages (to quote the Council for Evacuation envoy, “the enemy’s hand is behind [these activities],”)³³ they could not be ignored as in other regions: in late October 1941, the Wehrmacht had reached the gates of the North Caucasus.

2.2. The Macro View

2.2.1. 1941

Initially, the North Caucasus emerged as an important evacuation destination in early July 1941. Later, the Council for Evacuation designated three Russian districts of the North Caucasus (Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, and Stavropol) for the reception of 100,000 people in each city, to be evacuated from the Western Ukraine.³⁴

In addition to the officially sanctioned plan, thousands of independent refugees thronged to the North Caucasus in summer and fall of 1941 because the region was situated on a natural escape route from Ukraine into the Soviet interior.³⁵ According to the data of a local agency in charge of the resettlement, 37,165 evacuees arrived in the Krasnodar territory from July 19 to 25, 1941.³⁶ By early fall, this number had swelled considerably, and by September 10, it had reached 205,000.³⁷ The unofficial evacuees continued to arrive (see Table 1), despite the growing threat of a German thrust into the region. At that time, it was entirely unclear whether the German advance towards this region could be halted. The Soviet authorities considered the area to be under threat, as can be inferred from their intensive defensive preparations starting from mid-August 1941 in the Stavropol territory³⁸ and especially in the Rostov district.

The independent incomers to the North Caucasus viewed it as a destination area (intending to make a long-term stay) or simply as a transition point (intending to make only a short-term stay). They were usually not registered as evacuees prior to their arrival. Consequently, neither the central government nor the local authorities in the region anticipated their arrival. Nevertheless, they had to be provided for, much like the organized evacuees. Thus, since the regulations issued by the central government did not envisage giving a different treatment to unofficial newcomers and organized evacuees,³⁹ the considerable overstretching of the Caucasian resources from the start of the War led to the inappropriate treatment of refugees in the North Caucasus in 1941–1942. The local Caucasian inhabitants were receiving much reduced allocations of food, fuel, and other commodities following the arrival of so many evacuees, which would probably have increased their resentment towards the newcomers.

The authorities were extremely alarmed over the anticipated penetration of enemy agents disguised as evacuees, as the “Directive Letter of the Committee of the VKP(b) of the Krasnodar Territory on the Work with the Evacuees” from September 1941 demonstrates:

Fascists are dispatching inhabitants of the occupied areas to the Red Army’s rear, in order to carry out diversions, gather intelligence on the deployment of Soviet units, send up rockets to signal to German planes the location of military units, [and] spread panic about the might of the German army [and] about its allegedly good behavior towards POWs and the [civilian] population.⁴⁰

Echoing this appraisal, the Bolshevik Party Committee in one of the localities in the Krasnodar territory stated during this period that:

Owing to the evacuation of the [civil] population of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia [now Belarus] from the areas occupied by the enemy, we have refugees. It is a legal possibility to dispatch anyone [here], and it is probable that this is indeed being done on a large scale. People are arriving and telling such stories that cannot be described and [as a result], it creates an impression of panic . . . all kinds or rumors are being spread.⁴¹

Finally, on October 6, 1941, the NKVD Administration for the Krasnodar territory ordered a security check of all the newcomers.⁴²

Evacuees were dispatched to locations all over the North Caucasus region, to towns⁴³ as well as villages,⁴⁴ including Russian localities and Cossack settlements (stanitsy).⁴⁵ According to a Soviet report, 226,000 people were evacuated to the Krasnodar territory in 1941, but only 51,353 remained there as of January 1942, out of whom 39,100 had been allocated to villages.⁴⁶ There is no record that the Jewish evacuees were ever sent to Muslim villages, which probably indicates the reluctance of the Jews to reside in an entirely unfamiliar setting.

2.2.2. In 1942

After the Red Army repelled the German advance in the North Caucasus in late November 1941, the situation on the Southern flank of the Soviet-German front stabilized. The Soviet victory at Rostov-on-Don, though limited, had several important repercussions. First, the Soviet civil and military administration became over-confident in its ability to check any further German advance. Therefore, in contrast to the previous months and despite the fact that the Germans remained camped only a few hundred kilometers away from Rostov-on-Don, the Soviet administration placed a ban on civilians leaving the city.⁴⁷ Second, some people, including a small percentage of the Jews, were enthusiastic about the Soviet recapture of Rostov-on-Don, and decided to return to the city of their own volition.⁴⁸ However, others, apparently the majority, remained skeptical.

Other North Caucasian areas situated further from the front line than the city of Rostov-on-Don became a destination of state-run evacuation from Leningrad, which was under siege. The decision was carried out in the winter months of 1941–1942, when evacuation from Leningrad was possible over the ice-covered Lake of Ladoga. Central Soviet planners designated the whole North Caucasus region and the Volga region for the evacuation of 11,000 people from Leningrad.⁴⁹ However, in April 1942, the local authorities recorded that 36,000 evacuees from Leningrad were accommodated in the Krasnodar territory alone.⁵⁰ In addition, many people from other threatened areas, such as the Crimea and Rostov-on-Don, were also evacuated by the authorities to the Caucasian interior in the first half of 1942.⁵¹

Thousands of Jews were evacuated to the region in 1942, among them the staff and, in particular, the students from Leningrad’s institutions of higher education.⁵² Sometimes they were accompanied by elderly family members. Occasionally, elderly people also arrived unaccompanied.⁵³ Again, there was a significant proportion of children: among 36,000 evacuees from Leningrad accommodated in the Krasnodar territory in April 1942, there were more than 10,000 children (almost 28%).⁵⁴ At the time of the German occupation in August 1942, the Jewish evacuees outnumbered the relatively insignificant number of native Jewish residents in the region.

The newcomers were settled in the region in an organized way. Once more, Jews were dispatched all over the North Caucasus, especially to the resort towns of the Stavropol territory.⁵⁵ They were also brought, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale, to villages,⁵⁶ again including Russian and Cossack settlements.⁵⁷ As in 1941, there were no records of Jewish refugees being sent to Muslim villages. In contrast to 1941, however, there is no evidence that Jewish refugees brought to the North Caucasus in 1942 were provided with employment. This may have been the result of the Soviets’ logistic inability to provide masses of newcomers, including many white-collar workers, with suitable employment in the region. Alternatively, it is possible that the authorities did not consider that these evacuees would be staying in the Caucasus for a long period of time.

2.3. The Micro Level

2.3.1. Making Decisions

The Soviet Jews made their evacuation-related decisions on the basis of what they knew of the danger that the German occupation might cause them and the proximity of the German army. What did the Jewish evacuees and refugees in the Soviet Union know about the German treatment of Jews? By November 1941, the knowledge of the Soviet Jews about the Germans was acquired from official Soviet reporting, contact with refugees, and previous, often prewar information.

Regarding the media reporting, the situation was apparently more or less similar in the whole country⁵⁸—the information was available, but it was not emphasized. However, local nuances were also at play. With respect to the Holocaust-related information available to the Jews living in the Caucasus up to mid-1942, little information could be acquired from listening to the radio.⁵⁹ The local press, such as the main newspapers of the Rostov district—Molot (Hammer), the Stavropol territory—Ordzhonikidzevskaya pravda (Ordzhonikidze Truth), and the Krasnodar territory—Bolshevik,⁶⁰ were a more important source of information. Precise analysis of relevant articles published in these newspapers is provided in the chapters dealing with the Ginsburg letters. Here I will confine myself to several general observations. Throughout the whole period from June 1941 to July 1942, not a single word was written about the evacuation from the North Caucasus. The dominant motive of the Soviet propaganda in this region, as seen from the local newspapers, remained “business as usual”—until the Germans reached the gates of the North Caucasus.⁶¹ References to German mistreatment of Jews were rare,⁶² and information on the advance of the German armies towards the Caucasus was clearly outdated.⁶³ Finally, even though this information was sometimes available, its importance was partly offset by the skepticism that the average Soviet citizen felt towards the official propaganda.

Consequently, rumors coming mainly from refugees from such areas as Ukraine,⁶⁴ as well as from Red Army personnel (especially if there were Jews among them)⁶⁵ turned out to be a most important source of information. The effect of rumors is indicated in a postwar Jewish testimony pertaining apparently to the Krasnodar territory:

The five members of my family stayed in the village of Ivanovka for [about] 4 to 6 weeks. In about November–December 1941, it was rumored that Jews gradually abandoned [their places of residence]. So, my family decided to move to Krasnodar.⁶⁶

With respect to Rostov-on-Don and the potential impact of incoming evacuees on the state of mind of local Jews, it should be noted that the city proved to be a very important transition point, through which thousands of refugees, including many Jews, fled eastwards. But when it came to the direct impact of rumors on decision-making by Rostov Jews, it seems to have been limited and diluted by Soviet propaganda more than was the case in the areas with weaker Soviet control, such as smaller towns and/or areas closer to the frontline.⁶⁷

The developments in the city were remarkable in another respect, namely, the unique fate of Rostov-on-Don and its Jewish population in 1941: the brief occupation of the city by the Germans from November 21–28, 1941 and its quick recapture by the Red Army limited the time available for attacking the Jewish population.⁶⁸ This experience would have made the rumors of the German threat less believable for the Rostov Jews.

The third source, that is, the Jews’ previous, often outdated, knowledge about the German attackers seems to be the most difficult to describe properly. Yet it was frequently mentioned in testimonies. The degree to which the available information was understood and acted upon depended on the strength of the Jews’ group identity, their level of intelligence, and their prewar whereabouts and contacts.

One factor the Soviet Jews used to decide on assess the German threat was the memories they retained about the attitudes of the German army towards Jews during World War I. At the outbreak of World War II, many North Caucasian Jews were newcomers to this region, so their conduct reflected their memories of the other regions in which they used to live, especially Ukraine.⁶⁹ In the North Caucasus, the only areas occupied by the German army during World War I were the Rostov district, and especially the city of Rostov-on-Don. Available testimony, from newcomers and Rostov Jews alike, point that Jews had good memories of the Germans’ behavior in that earlier period, which influenced their unwillingness to move further away from the German advance.⁷⁰

By and large, if we attempt to sum up the North Caucasian Jews’ view of the Germans’ attitude towards the Jews, available testimonies indicate that, in fall 1941, there were still a considerable number of Jews who were ignorant of the German persecution of the Jews in other places. In particular, many consciously chose to disregard the information that was available. The opinion of one Jewish intellectual: “I do not believe that the civilized nation of Goethe and Schiller can behave like barbarians”⁷¹ is characteristic in this regard. However, by the summer of 1942, the number of Jews in these two groups had decreased to such a point that it can be claimed with certainty that an absolute majority of the Ashkenazi Jews living in the North Caucasus did not wish to stay under German rule.

2.3.2. Implementing Decisions

Influenced by the Soviet media and/or rumors, many North Caucasian Jews came to view the situation as fraught with danger and reached the conclusion that they would be better off evacuating. Yet, there was a significant gap between their intentions and the feasibility of their plans. Jews often failed to leave because of illness and physical disabilities. The high proportion of mothers with children, unaccompanied children, and elderly persons among the Caucasian evacuees made this factor especially meaningful. People were also reluctant to leave their native area. The father of a witness from Nalchik suggested that they should leave, but the mother refused, asking: “Why should I abandon my house and go?”⁷²

Additionally, the people were afraid of the economic hardships involved in the evacuation.⁷³ It should be noted that evacuation was a costly enterprise. The incoming evacuees had to pay most of their own expenses, as state subsidies did not suffice. It is no wonder therefore that potential evacuees, including Jews, endeavored to procure sufficient means, mainly movable assets like money, well in advance. This could be achieved by selling their possessions to those who were reluctant to evacuate. At this stage, the laws of the market came into play: if there was a massive flight, then very large numbers of refugees sold their valuables at the same time, and prices declined sharply. The following testimony, describing how a mixed Russian-Jewish family, on the eve of their evacuation from Grozny in Chechnya, sold their possessions, underscores the point. After returning from the city market in the summer of 1942, the Russian mother said:

Do you know what’s happening at the market [tolkuchka]? It is impossible to buy anything. Everyone is selling; they are almost ready to give their belongings away for nothing. Chechens are the only ones who are buying; they are really getting rich.⁷⁴

As we see, this exchange did not have anything to do with anti-Jewish bias, but rather, it illustrates how expensive it was to become evacuees at this period.

Once an individual Jew or a family decided to escape, they faced the Soviet bureaucracy in charge of this process. The incoming evacuees now formed the majority of the Jewish population in the North Caucasus. Most of them were officially unemployed, and therefore did not need official authorization in order to become eligible to apply for evacuation permits. However, a small minority of the newcomers and probably the majority of local North Caucasians were employed and had to go through the process of obtaining evacuation clearance.⁷⁵ This could take a longer or a shorter time, depending on the specific circumstances of each applicant, but if they wished to leave in an orderly manner, they could not avoid this process. It seems reasonable to assume that, before those Jews who were employed perceived that the situation was truly threatening, the vast majority of them were thinking of making an orderly evacuation.

Once Jews, individually or with their families, obtained all the necessary papers and received evacuation permits, they were entitled to leave. But still, this did not necessarily mean that all of them would succeed in realizing their plans. They could be prevented from doing so because of Soviet bureaucratic mistakes. For example, in Krasnodar, a Jewish woman received evacuation authorization, but was not allowed to leave until she had removed all the goods from her storage area.⁷⁶ A significant obstacle was the lack of the necessary transport services. The problem became particularly acute after the start of the German drive into the Caucasus, when the units of the retreating Red Army requisitioned all means of transport.⁷⁷

We should also consider the impact of the food conditions in the region on the behavior of the Jewish refugees. In contrast to most other Soviet rear areas during the War, in the North Caucasus there was a relative abundance of food.⁷⁸ This was especially important for refugees coming from the besieged city of Leningrad, who had already suffered terrible starvation during the siege of the city since September 1941. Moving elsewhere from such a blessed region as the North Caucasus was fraught with uncertainty, and was therefore frowned upon by potential refugees.

Same as in other parts of Russia that were in the line of attack from the German army, the place of residence could also influence the intention and ability of the Jews in the Caucasus to escape from the approaching German forces. Other conditions being equal, a big city was the best place to get information about the German advance, and the best place to obtain Holocaust-related information. Especially favorable in this regard were large transportation centers through which Jewish refugees were trying to make their way eastwards. Conversely, it was more difficult to obtain information in smaller cities and towns, and in particular in villages, where geographical distance prevented Jews from learning about the proximity of the danger.⁷⁹

However, in summer 1942 the situation changed. “Urban” Jews still seemed to be better informed with respect to the proximity of the German forces. But their ability to escape decreased dramatically because of the enormous transportation problems caused by the retreat of the Red Army and by the German bombardment of the main transportation centers. Conversely, Jews living in rural areas had some chance to escape on their own, provided that their point of departure was far enough away from the advancing German troops. Finally, it should be remembered that the evacuation from such a vast area as the North Caucasus was a multi-stage process: it was possible to escape the first wave of German attack in the region and still be swept away by the second wave.⁸⁰

Moreover, the military developments in the southern part of the Soviet-German War zone in 1941–1942 were very confusing for those North Caucasian Jews who were trying to figure out whether and when they should run away. On the one hand, the victories of the Red Army during the winter campaign of 1941–1942⁸¹ partly assuaged their fears. On the other hand, the fiasco of the Soviet forces near Kharkov in mid-May 1942 and the fall of Sevastopol on July 2 of that year prompted many Jews to consider immediate flight from the Caucasus.⁸² This is analyzed in greater detail in the chapters dealing with the Ginsburg letters.

1 In this chapter, I rely on some findings that have already been published in my previous articles. See Kiril Feferman, “A Soviet Humanitarian Action?: Centre, Periphery and the Evacuation of Refugees to the North Caucasus, 1941–1942,” Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 5 (July 2009): 813–831; idem, “Jewish Refugees under the Soviet Rule and the German Occupation in the North Caucasus,” in Revolution, Repression and Revival: The Jews of the Former Soviet Union, ed. Zvi Gitelman and Yaacov Ro’i (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 211–244.

2 Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War, 1941–1946 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), 48–76.

3 Manley, To the Tashkent Station, 24–47. Cf. Alexander Statiev, “Motivations and Goals of Soviet Deportations in the Western Borderlands,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 6 (2005): 977–983.

4 David R. Stone, “The First Five-Year Plan and the Geography of the Soviet Defense Industry,” Europe-Asia Studies 57, no. 7 (2005): 1061.

5 Decree of the Executive Session of the Council of Labor and Defense “On the order of removal of valuable property, institutions, enterprises and human resources from the regions threatened by the enemy,” April 20, 1928, Yad Vashem Archive (henceforth YVA): JM/24678. Source: Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (henceforth GARF): A-259/40/3028.

6 Aleksandr Kurtsev, “Bezhenstvo,” in Rossiia i pervaia mirovaia voina, ed. N. N. Smirnov (St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 1999), 129–147.

7 Decrees of SNK SSSR “On the evacuation of workers and employees of evacuated enterprises” and “On the order of evacuation of population during the war,” Top secret, July 5, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3022. Cf. Dubson, “On the Problem of the Evacuation,” 42–43.

8 The Council for Evacuation, “Transfer of children from the cities of Moscow and Leningrad to rural areas,” Top secret, July 1, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3023.

9 I enlarge on this subject in my article, Feferman, “A Soviet Humanitarian Action?,” 813–831.

10 K. Pamfilov, The Council for Evacuation’s memorandum “On regulating the registration of the evacuated population and the improvement of information work; on location of the evacuated citizens,” Top secret, December 25, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3014.

11 “Status and structure of Council for Evacuation. Attachment to the decision of SNK SSSR,” Top secret, June 24, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3028.

12 The first head of the Council was Lazar Kaganovich. On July 16, 1941, he was replaced by Shvernik.

13 Decree of SNK SSSR “On the arrangement of the population evacuation during the war,” Top secret, July 5, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3022.

14 “Status and structure of the Council for Evacuation,” YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3028.

15 Report by K. Pamfilov, Top secret, December 25, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3014. A postwar Soviet study mentioned a lower estimate of 7.4 million people evacuated by the spring of 1942. I. I. Belonosov, “Evakuatsiia naseleniia iz prifrontovoi polosy v 1941–1942 gg.,” in Eshelony idut na Vostok. Iz istorii perebazirovaniia proizvoditel′nykh sil SSSR v 1941–1942 gg. Sbornik statei i vospominanii, ed. Iu. A. Poliakov (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 26.

16 Dubson, “On the Problem of the Evacuation,” 38 (footnote 6).

17 Belonosov, “Evakuatsiia naseleniia iz prifrontovoi polosy,” 28.

18 E. Rees, “The Changing Nature of Centre–Local Relations in the USSR, 1928–1936,” in Centre–Local Relations in the Stalinist State 1928–1941, ed. E. Rees (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 9–36.

19 For example, Fedor Kiselev, Gosudarstvennaia politika po otnosheniiu k evakuirovannomu naseleniiu v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny. Na materialakh Kirovskoi oblasti i Udmurtskoi ASSR, PhD diss., Kirov, Viatkskii gosudarstvennyi tekhnicheskii universitet, 2004, 77–85. Cf. Mariia Potemkina, “Evakuatsiia i natsyional′nye otnosheniia v sovetskom tylu v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny,” Otechestvennaia istoriiia 3 (2002): 148–156.

20 Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1945: Khronika sobytii, ed. A. Beliaev and I. Bondar′ (Krasnodar: Sovkuban′, 2000), vol. 1, 76–77.

21 Il′ia Al′tman, Zhertvy nenavisti: Kholokost v SSSR, 1941–1945 gg. (Moscow: Fond “Kovcheg”: Kollektsiia “Sovershenno sekretno,” 2002), 388–389. Cf. Yitzhak Arad, The History of the Holocaust. The Soviet Union and the Annexed Territories (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004), 177–202 [Hebrew]. Cf. Manley, To the Tashkent Station, 99–100, 166–167. Cf. Edwards, Fleeing to Siberia, 38–39.

22 The sources referenced here relate to the mixed Cossack-Russian localities (Krasnodar) and the indigenous North Caucasians (Kalmykia and unspecifiied North Caucasian indigenous localities). Senior Inspector Shklovskii, speech at session of the SNK of the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR, May 5, 1942, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3527.

23 Ibid.

24 Saul Borovoi, Vospominaniia: Pamiatniki evreiskoi istoricheskoi mysli (Moscow: Evreiskii Universitet v Moskve, Jerusalem: Gesharim, 1993), 250, 252. Cf. Testimony of Anfisa Kalnitskaya, 1926, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Department of Oral History (henceforth ICJ, DOH): TC 2759 (not transcribed). Cf. Testimony of Lyudmila Bradichevsky, May 13, 1996, ICJ: (217) 183, p. 3, and others.

25 Vladimir Gel′fand, Dnevnik 1941–1946 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2015), 44.

26 Testimony of Yury Burakovsky, in Evakuatsiia. Vospominaniia o detstve, opalennom ognem Katastrofy. SSSR, 1941–1945, ed. Aleksandr Berman and Alla Nikitina (Jerusalem: Soiuz uchenykh-repatriantov, 2009), 91–92.

27 Testimony of Sara Labinov, no date, ICJ: TC 2773, side A. Cf. Testimony of Ida Mandelblat, no date, YVA: VT/1911.

28 Information provided by the Head of the Military Department of Soldato-Akeksandrovsky Raion Committee of the VKP(b) B. Fadeev, Top secret, August 30, 1941, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii Stavropol′skogo kraia (henceforth GANISK): 1/2/64, pp. 8–10. In Stavropol′e: Pravda voennykh let. Velikaia Otechestvenaia v dokumentakh i issledovaniiakh, ed. V. Belokon′, T. Kolpikova, Ia. Kol′tsova, V. Maznitsa (Stavropol: Stavropol′skii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2005), 35.

29 Maksim Andrienko, Naselenie Stavropol′skogo kraya v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny: otsenka povedencheskikh motivov, PhD diss., Pyatigorsk, Piatigorskii gosudarstvennyi lingivisticheskii universitet, 2005, 57.

30 Ibid., 57.

31 NKVD to Shvernik, November 25, 1942, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3529. Cf. Shklovskii, report “On the conditions of the evacuated population in Kabardino-Balkar ASSR,” June 2, 1942, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3527.

32 Kiselev, Gosudarstvennaia politika, 79. Cf. Viktor Fedotov, Evakuirovannoe naselenie v Srednem Povolzh′e v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (1941–1945 gg.): Problemy razmeshcheniia, sotsial′noi adaptatsii i trudovoi deiatel′nosti, PhD diss., Samara: Samarskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet, 2004, 113. Cf. Mariia Potemkina, “Evakonaselenie v ural′skom tylu. Opyt vyzhivaniia,” Otechestvennaia istoriia 2 (2005): 93–94.

33 Shklovskii, speech, YVA: JM/24678. Source: GARF: A-259/40/3527.

34 Decree of the Council for Evacuation “On the plan for the evacuation of members of families of workers and employees from Karelo-Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Belorussian, Ukrainian (western areas), Moldavian SSR, districts of Murmansk, Leningrad and Smolensk,” Top secret, July 7, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. GARF: A-259/40/258, p. 66.

35 Distribution of evacuees (registered by lists) by districts and republics of their origin on the grounds of the data of Resettlement departments as of November 15, 1941, YVA: JM/24678. GARF: A-259/40/3091.

36 Beliaev and Bondar′, Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, vol. 1, 38–39.

37 Ibid., 56–57.

38 Information from the First Secretary of the Stavropol District Committee of the VKP(b) Mikhail Suslov on defensive preparations of the territory, Top secret, August 6, 1941, GANISK: 1/2/63, pp. 113–114. In Belokon′, Stavropol’e, 32.

39 With the exception of special one-time compensation paid to those evacuated in an organized manner. Decree no. 1791 of the SNK SSSR “On the payment of monetary allowances to those resettled from their locations on account of the relocation of their plants and institutions to other areas,” July 1, 1941. In L. Snegireva (ed.), Vo imia pobedy: Evakuatsiia grazhdanskogo naseleniia v Zapadnuiu Sibir′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny v dokumentakh i materialakh (Tomsk: Izdatel′stvo Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta, 2005), vol. 1, 282–283.

40 Directive letter of the Committee of the VKP(b) of the Krasnodar territory on the work with the evacuees. In Khachemizova, Obshestvo i vlast′, 141.

41 TsDNIKK: 2507/1/3a, p. 47. In Khachemizova, Obshestvo i vlast′, 141–142.

42 Beliaev and Bondar′, Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 76–77.

43 Towns: Elista, Kislovodsk, Mozdok, and Nalchik. Testimony of Bradichevsky, ICJ: (217) 183, p. 1. Cf. Testimonies of Fiks, Rechister, Shaulov, Gisa, Bergman, Shaposhnikova, and Yury Piler, July 16, 1990, Yad Vashem Hall of Names (henceforth YVHN).

44 Villages: Naturbovo, Ivanovsky raion, Krasnodar territory; Russky farm, Stavropol territory. Questioning of Klavdia Parshikova, b. 1902, August 12, 1942, YVA: M.33/291, p. 98. Cf. Testimony of Brimer, YVA: 0.3/2501.

45 Labinskaya and Tbilisskaya stanitsy, Krasnodar territory. Questioning of Anna Suzdalenko, May 10, 1944, YVA: M.33/308, p. 29.

46 TsDNIKK: 1774-A/2/373, pp. 69–76. In Beliaev and Bondar′, Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 181–182.

47 Evgenii Movshovich, Ocherki istorii evreev na Donu (Rostov-on-Don: Donskoi izdatel′skii dom, 2006), 127.

48 See the testimony related to November 29, 1941 in this book.

49 Note on the work of Department of SNK RSFSR on the economic arrangements made for the evacuated population, October 14, 1942. In Snegireva, Vo imia pobedy, 308.

50 Beliaev and Bondar′, Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 249.

51 Memorandum of the Committee of the VKP(b) of the Karachaevo Autonomous Area, no later than June 24, 1943, GARF: 7021/17/8, pp. 2–3.

52 In Essentuki, Kislovodsk, and Pyatigorsk. Testimonies of Tsilya Gadleva, October 25, 1990, YVA: 0.3/4391, p. 9. Cf. Testimonies of Mira Idina, Anatoly Tukhshnaid, Khasya Epshtein, and Sima Royak, November 8, 1992, YVHN.

53 In Essentuki and Kislovodsk. Testimonies of Idina, Tukhshnaid, and Debora Shklovskaya, YVHN.

54 TsDNIKK: 1774-A/2/626, pp. 11–18. In Beliaev and Bondar′, Kuban′ v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 249.

55 Essentuki, Kislovodsk, and Pyatigorsk. Testimonies of Shklovskaya, March 5, 1991, Idina, April 1, 1991, Tukhshnaid, no date, Epshtein, November 8, 1992, and Royak, September 24, 1994, YVHN.

56 Novozavedennoe village, Soldato-Aleksandrovsky raion, Stavropol territory. Statement of Anna Shlaen, 1943, GARF: 7021/17/11, p. 114.

57 Kotlyarevskaya stanitsa, Maisky raion, Kabardino-Balkar ASSR. Report no. 75 of the local commission of the Extraordinary State Commission for Investigation and Establishment of the Crimes Committed by the German Fascists and their Henchmen in the Temporarily Occupied Soviet Territories of the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR, June 24, 1943, GARF: 7021/7/109, p. 171. Cf. Statement of the Commission of Aleksandriiskaya Stanitsa, Aleksandriisko-Obilnensky Raion, Stavropol Territory, January 25, 1943, GARF: 7021/17/9, p. 12.

58 Mordechai Altshuler, “The Holocaust in the Soviet Mass Media during the War and in the First Postwar Years Re-examined.” Yad Vashem Studies 39, no. 2 (2011): 121–168. Cf. Karel C. Berkhoff, “‘Total Annihilation of the Jewish Population’: The Holocaust in the Soviet Media, 1941–1945,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 10, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 61–105.

59 Inna Somova, Kul′turnye i religioznye uchrezhdeniia Stavropol′skogo kraia v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, PhD diss., Pyatigorsk, Piatigorskii gosudarstvennyi lingivisticheskii universitet, 2004, 47–48.

60 Ordzhonikidzevskaya pravda was published daily by the Ordzhonikidze Territorial Committee of the VKP(b), the District Council of the Deputies of Workers, and the Voroshilovsk Municipal Committee of the VKP(b). Bolshevik was published daily by the Krasnodar Territorial and Municipal Committee of the VKP(b) and the District Council of the Deputies of Working People. I looked through all the issues of these two newspapers from June 22, 1941 to late July 1942, when their publication ceased.

61 See editorial “O khode sbora urozhaia,” and the Decree of the Bureau of the Ordzhonikidze Territorial Committee of the VKP(b) from July 9, 1942, Ordzhonikidzevskaia pravda, no. 159 (2534), July 10, 1942. Editorial “Rabotat′ i ne shchadit′ sily dlia fronta,” Bol′shevik, no. 176 (1469), July 26, 1942.

62 A. Faigel′man, “V lapakh gitlerovskikh grabitelei,” Ordzhonikidzevskaia pravda, no. 154 (2218), July 2, 1941.

63 Editorial “Otbit′ napadenie vraga!,” Ordzhonikidzevskaia pravda, no. 175 (2550), July 29, 1942. Editorial “Rabotat′ i ne shchadit′ sily dlya fronta,” Bol′shevik, no. 176 (1469), July 26, 1942.

64 Testimony of Aleksandr Simakhov, January 8, 1998. In Iskhod gorskih evreev: razrushenie garmonii mirov, ed. Svetlana Danilova (Nalchik: Poligrafservis IT, 2000), 171. Cf. Testimony of Kalnitskaya, ICJ: TC 2759.

65 Testimony of Melinsky, YVA: 0.3/4342, p. 4.

66 Krasnodar was the largest city close to the village of Ivanovka, and it was much easier to join the evacuation from this city than from the village. Testimony of Gurevich, ICJ: TC 2761.

67 Shternshis, “Between Life and Death,” 497–498.

68 These events are analyzed in depth in chapter 2.1.

69 On this issue, see, for example, Wolfram Dornik and Peter Lieb, “Misconceived Realpolitik in a Failing State: The Political and Economical Fiasco of the Central Powers in the Ukraine, 1918,” First World War Studies 4, no. 1 (2013): 111–124; Pam Maclean, “Control and Cleanliness: German-Jewish Relations in Occupied Eastern Europe during the First World War,” War & Society 6, no. 2 (1988): 47–69.

70 Testimony of Raisa Rakhlin, b. 1924, May 24, 1997, YVA: O.93/30459. Cf. Testimony of Tankha Otershtein, b. 1932, May 25, 1997, YVA: O.93/31823. Cf. Yaakov Krut, Povest′ o podarennoi zhyzni (Petakh-Tikva: n.p., 2008), 9.

71 Professor Dobruskin from the Leningrad’s Polytechnic Institute. See the institute’s website, http://nashpolytech.ru/index.php?id=59, accessed September 16, 2019. See also Nicholas Poppe, Reminiscences (Bellingham: Western Washington, 1983), 161. See also Testimony of Klara Shcheglova, b. 1931, September 6, 1997, YVA: O.93/35826.

72 Testimony of Elizaveta Nazarova, January 6, 1998. In Danilova, Iskhod gorskih evreev, 131.

73 Testimony of Liviia Digilova, b. 1936, August 19, 1999. In Danilova, Iskhod gorskih evreev, 45. Testimony of Nushum Shamilov, b. 1922, October 11, 1988, YVA: 0.3/5157, p. 12.

74 Anatolii Skorokhodov, Takoi dolgii, dolgii put′. Vospominaniia, razdum′ia, razmyshleniia (Moscow: Izdatel′stvo Glavnogo arkhivnogo upravleniia goroda Moskvy, 2010), 217.

75 Shternshis, “Between Life and Death,” 500.

76 Testimony of Natalya Krechetovich, b. 1931, August 29, 1999, YVA: 0.33.C/5961.

77 Kislovodsk. Testimony of Gadleva, YVA: 0.3/4391, p. 9. Nalchik. Testimony of Nushum Shamilov, October 11, 1988, YVA: 0.3/5157, p. 12.

78 Kiril Feferman, “Food Factor as a Possible Catalyst for the Holocaust-Related Decisions: The Crimea and North Caucasus,” War in History 15, no. 1 (2008): 85–87.

79 Villages of Dzhiginka in winter 1941–1942 and Ivanovka in November and December 1941. Testimony of Melinsky, YVA: 0.3/4342, p. 4. Testimony of Gurevich, ICJ: TC 2761.

80 Testimony of Aron Gurevich, no date, GARF: 7021/17/206, p. 329. See also Testimony of Lidiya Amchislavskaya, May 17, 1989, YVHN. Testimony of Izrail Tomachevsky, October 3, 1999, YVHN.

81 B. I. Nevzorov, “Sokrushenie blitskriga,” in Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941–1945 gg., vol. 1, ed. N. M. Ramanichev (Moscow: Nauka, 1998), 248–284; idem, “Zimnee nastuplenie Krasnoi Armii,” ibid., 285–318.

82 Testimony of Yakov Vinokurov, October 19, 1999, YVA: VT/2489 (not transcribed). Cf. Testimony of Barukh Yafit, September 4, 1999, YVHN.