Evacuation and Escape During the Course of the Soviet-German War

AbstractThe article analyzes the Soviet Union's policy of evacuating industrial plants and their employees as well as members of the cultural and governmental elites to the hinterland at the time of the Soviet-German war. The article does not merely describe this policy, but also presents extensive documentation pertaining to the practical implementation of the evacuation, against the background of the turmoil within the country and the breakdown of communication between the regime's central institutions and the periphery. Special attention is devoted to the Jewish population, for which evacuation and/or escape to the hinterland on the eve of the Nazi occupation presented virtually the only chance of saving itself from the total annihilation perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators.Keywords: The Soviet Unionevacuation to the hinterland and flighta means of saving Jews Notes1 Semen Shveibush, ‘Evakuatsia i sovetskie evrei v gody katastrofy’. Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve 2, no. 9 (1995): 36–55; Semen Shveibush, ‘Evakuatsia, reevakuatsia, antisemitizm v SSSR vo vremia Shoa’. Zametki po evreiskoi istorii 10, no. 157 (2012); see also Mordechai Altshuler, ‘Escape and Evacuation of Soviet Jews at the Time of Nazi Invasion: Policies and Realities’. In The Holocaust in the Soviet Union: Studies and Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi-Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941–1945, eds. L. Dobroszycki, and J.S. Gurock (London/Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), 77–104; Leonid Smilovitskii, ‘Evreiskie bezhentsy i Evakutsia – neraskrytaia stranitsa Kholikosta. K postanovke problemy – Natsiskaia politika genotsyda na territorii Vostochnoi Evropy’. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferetsii (Moscow, 26–28 aprelia 2010 goda). Fond istoricheskoi pamiati (2010), 350–367; on the evacuation from Eastern Belorussia, see, too, Shalom Holavsky, ‘Ha-shiltonot ha-sovieti'im ve-pinui ha-yehudim im prots milhemet rusia germania be-tehumei bielorusia ha-mizrahit’ [The Soviet Authorities and the Evacuation of Jews in the Areas of Eastern Belarus Upon the Outbreak of the Russian German War]. In Divrei ha-qongres ha-olami ha-teshi'i le-mada'ei ha-yahadut [Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies], Section 2, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1985), 187–190. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee commissioned Leib Zinger to write a book titled Soviet Jews under Evacuation. The author submitted a manuscript in late 1944. On 19 May 1945, the Committee's executive secretary Shakhne Epshtein informed Zinger by letter that the book had been rejected and would not be published. (I received a copy of the letter from the committee's archive from Prof. Shimon Redlich, and I thank him for this.)2G.A. Kumanev, ‘Sovetskaia ekonomika i evakuatsia 1941’. Soviet Union 1–3 (1991): 178; G.A. Kumanev, Voennaia perestroika ekonomiki, Velikaia otechestvennaia Voina, 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1998), Kniga 1: Surovye ispytaniia, 385–395; Marina Potemkina, ‘Evakonaselenie v Ural`skom tylu: opyt vyzhivaniia’. Otechestvennaia istoriia 2 (2005): 86–87.3Throughout this paper, the year shown in parenthesis following a witness' name denotes his or her year of birth.4Prior to the war some 1400 Jews lived in this town, constituting over a third of its population.5Dina German, Yad Vashem Archive, 03/5172, 5; for similar testimonies, see Dvora Landman (1925), Yad Vashem Archive, 03/5459, 2–13; Garri Feldman, ed., Zabveniiu ne podlezit, Zhitomir (Polissia, 2000): 67.6 http://iremember.ru/svyazisti/mezhebovskiy-boris-veniaminovich.html7Vladimir Popov, Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh, Moscow (1973): Tom 1: Stal` i shlak, Part 1, Chapters 8–10.8On the eve of the war, some 25,000 Jews resided in Stalino (now Donetsk), constituting 5.4% of its population.9Zinovii Gordon, ‘Kak eto bylo’. Evreiskii kamerton, 25 September 2007.10Testimony of Sarra Nutuva, Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 3 (202); Tania Maizlin (1913), who was evacuated from the town Romny, recalled that the Ukrainians were not inclined to leave, Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 21 (202).11Boris Slutskii was born in the city of Sloviansk in 1919. In 1941, he graduated from law school and the Literary Institute in Moscow and published his first poems. He fought at the front between 1941 and 1945 and published several poetry collections after the war as well as many articles on literary topics. He also translated from Yiddish into Russian and during the Thaw participated in Samizdat (self-published uncensored literature). Much of his poetry covers Jewish themes.12‘Desiat` frontovykh pisem Borisa Slutskogo’. Zvezda 5 (2004): 164.13See Ita Lapsker [Landboim] (1926), Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 136 (217).14 Vospominania zhitelei evreiskikh poselenii v Krymu (Simferopol`, 2004): 95.15According to the census conducted in 1939, the town had a Jewish population of 673.16Testimony of Iakov Blumshtein, Oral History Division. The Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 129 (217).17I. Shaikin and M. Ziabko, ‘Natsitskii genotsid v evreiskikh zemledel`cheskikh koloniiakh Iuga Ukrainy’. Katastrofa i opir Ukrains`kogo evreistva (1941–1944) (Kiev, 1999): 154–169.18Testimony delivered by Tat`iana Peterburgskaia. During the 1990s, the Judaica Institute of Kiev conducted over 100 interviews on the topic of the lives of the Jews in the Ukraine in the twentieth century. I thank Dr Feiberg for allowing me to use this material (hereafter ‘Judaica Interviews’).19On the eve of the war, the Jewish community of Vitebsk numbered 37,000, approximately one-quarter of the city's population.20Efim Gol`braikh, ‘Sviashchenaia voina’. Ia pomniu (Moscow, 2010): 76.21The Jewish population of this town numbered some 8000 on the eve of the war.22Leontiy Brandt, http://iremember.ru/razvedchiki/brandt-leontiy-veniaminovich.html23On the eve of World War II, this town was considered a village. Over 1000 Jews resided there, constituting some 18% of its population.24Frida Guzman, Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 39 (202).25Former citizens of Poland who were released from exile and from Soviet detention camps prior to the Soviet Union's agreement with the Polish government in exile and arrived to areas that harbored large numbers of evacuees were likewise registered as evacuees. By mid-December 1941, a total of 50,375 former Polish citizens were released from the Komi ASSR camps. See Organy gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti – (2000), ‘vol. 2, book 2’, 404 and ‘vol. 5, book 2’, 486. According to official Soviet data, in January 1943, approximately 103,000 Jewish former Polish citizens resided in the Soviet Union. See A. Chevardin, ‘Sud`ba polskikh spetspereselentsev (1941–1943) v Ural`skom regione’. Izvestiia Ural`skogo gosudarstvennogo Universiteta 55 (2008): 226–233; A. Chevardin, ‘Deiatel`nost` Sverdlovskogo oblastnogo pravleniia Soiuza pol`skikh patriotov v 1944–1946’. Izvestiia Ural`skogo gosudarstvennogo Universiteta 63 (2009): 223–230.26G.A. Kumanev, the foremost scholar of evacuation, wrote that no concrete plans for evacuation were prepared in advance, although the wartime-industrial committee prepared draft documents to that end that were not discussed owing to Stalin's strong objection to the issue; see G.A. Kumanev, ‘Narodnoe khozaistvo – frontu’. Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, 1941–1945. kniga 1: Surovye ispytaniia (Moscow: Nauka, 1998): 389.27Vasili Prunin (1905–1993) served as Chairman of the Moscow City Soviet from April 1939 to December 1944.28G.A. Kumanev, ‘Sovetskaia ekonomika i evakuatsia 1941’. Soviet Union 1–3 (1991): 152–153.29 Kommunisticheskaia partia v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, dokumenty imaterially (Moscow, 1970): 38.30Konstantin Fedin, Kaster (Moscow, 1962): 108–111.31 1941 god – Dokumenty, kniga 2 (Moscow, 1998): 447.32J. Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2005), 99–103; Vospominania zhitelei (2004), 147–148.33According to the 1939 census, some 1400 Jews resided in the town, constituting 7% of its population.34On the eve of the war, the Jewish population of the town numbered 13,233, constituting over one-quarter of its residents.35Interview with Rivka Tager, born in 1910, Yad Vashem Archive 03/3857, 16–18. Toiba Shtern likewise relates in her memoirs that a meeting was held in the municipal club of the town of I"ziaslav, at which those present were warned not to spread rumors arousing panic about evacuation (Yad Vashem Archive, 033/3264). In this town, there were over 3000 Jews in the year 1939, constituting 28% of its population.36The Soviet comprised eight members, and two additional members were appointed two days thereafter. It was headed by Lazar Kaganovich (1893–1991), who was replaced on 3 July 1941 by Nikolai Shvernik (1888–1970). The Soviet's members included two deputy prime ministers with experience in the field of organization, Aleksei Kosygin (1904–1980) and Anastas Mikoian (1895–1978).37L. Pogrebnoi, ‘O deiatel`nosti soveta po evakuatsii’. Eshelony idut na Vostok (Moscow, 1966), 201; N. Dubrovin, ‘Eshelon za eshalonom’. Eshelony idut na Vostok (Moscow, 1966), 208–209.38An Evacuation Soviet was established in Belorussia on 25 June 1941, but that same day the republic's leadership fled from Minsk to Mogilev. On 26 June, a similar Soviet was set up in the Ukraine, and on 7 July, an Evacuation Soviet began to operate in Moldavia as well.39 Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, tom 2 (1961): 56, 143; M. Pervukhin, ‘Perebazirovanie promyshlennosti’. Sovetskii tyl v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, tom 2 (Moscow, 1974), 13; Kommunisticheskaia partia (1970), 333–334.40‘Pervye dni voiny: Evakuatsia (Po materialam `Osobykh papok` Politbiuro TsKP(b)’. Vstupitelnaia: Zh. G. Adibekovoi, Otechestvennye arkhivy 2 (1995): 28–37; ‘O poriadke vyvoza i razmeshcheniia liudskikh kontingentov i tsennostei imushchestva’. Izvestiia TsK KPSS 6 (1990): 208; Kumanev (1991), 155.41B. Levshin, Akademiia nauk SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1966), 15–20. On 16 July 1941, a decision was made to evacuate 747 of the Science Academy's employees and their 1423 family members from Moscow, as well as 325 employees and 650 members of their families from Leningrad's scientific institutions; see ‘Pervye dni voiny: Evakuatsia (Po materialam `Osobykh papok` Politbiuro TsKP(b)’. Vstupitelnaia: Zh. G. Adibekovoi, Otechestvennye arkhivy 2 (1995): 33–34.42Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 33.43M.I. Likhomanov, L.T. Pozina, E.I. Finogenov, Partiinoe rukovodstvo evakuatsii v pervyi period Velikoi Otrchestvennoi voiny, 1941–1942gg (Leningrad, 1985), 13.44According to the 1939 census, some 4600 Jews resided in the town. From 1941 on it was part of the Transnistria province and was in effect administered by Romania.45Testimony of Roman Averbukh (1923), who was born and raised in this town, Judaica Interviews. For similar testimony, see Dunia Segal Keler, Yad Vashem Archive, 03/2752.46 http://iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/sharfman-mikhail-davidovich.html47M. I. Likhomanov, L. T. Pozina, Finogenov, E.I., Partiinoe rukovodstvo evakuatsii v pervyi period Velikoi Otrchestvennoi voiny, 1941–1942gg (Leningrad, 1985), 45–55.48‘Pervye dni voiny’. no. 2 (1995): 28–37; ‘O poriadke vyvoza i razmeshcheniia liudskikh kontigentov i tsennostei imushchestva’. Izvestiia TsK KPSS 6 (1990): 208; G.A. Kumanev, ‘Sovetskaia ekonomika i evakuatsia 1941’. Soviet Union 1–3 (1991): 154; Kuibishevskaia oblast` v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (1941–1945), (Kuibishev, 1966), 33–35.49 1941 god – Dokumenty, kniga 2 (Moscow, 1998), 447.50The decision to evacuate archives was made on 5 July 1941. See Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR, vol. 2, book 1 (2000), pp. 183–184.51 Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR, ‘vol. 2, book 2’, 301.52L. Maksimova, ‘Kul`turno-prosvetitel`nye uchrezhdeniia v pervye gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi vony (1941–1943gg.)’. Istoriia SSSR 3 (1960): 89.53 Mitrofanova 3 (1960): 40; R. Pogrebnoi, ‘O deiatel`nosti soveta po evakuatsii’. Eshelony idut na Vostok (Moscow, 1966), 203–204.54Sh. Muchaev, ‘Druzhba narodov SSSR Vazhneishee uslovie v reshenii problemy evakuatsii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta 6 (1972): 47; Mitrofanova 3 (1960): 39; M. I. Likhomatov, Organizatorskaia rabota partii v promyshlennosti v pervy period Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny (1941–1942) (Leningrad, 1964), 92–94.55 Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, vol. 2 (1961), 547; I. Belonosov, ‘Evakuatsia naseleniia iz prifrontovoi polosy v 1941–1942gg’. Eshelony idut na Vostok (Moscow, 1966), 16.56 Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, 1941–1945 – Slovar`– spravochnik (Moscow, 1985), 476–477.57Judaica Interviews.58G. A. Kumanev, ‘Sovetskie zheleznodorozhniki v pervyi period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (1941–1942)’. Istoriia SSSR 1 (1959): 37–38.59This committee included three members of the Evacuation Council (Mikoian, Shvernik, and Kosygin) as well as V. Merkulov, Deputy Minister of the Interior (NKVD); B. Arutiunov (1889–1953), First Deputy Transport Minister, and P. Emolin, Deputy Commander of the Red Army Home Command. See, too, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, Sbornik dokumentov, ‘vol 3, book 1’ (Moscow, 2003), 55460Sh. Munchaev, ‘Evakuatsia naseleniia v gody Velikoi Otechstvennoi voine’. Istoriia SSSR 3 (1975): 133; See also: A. Kolesnik, ‘RSFSR v gody Velikoi Otechstvennoi voiny’. In: Problemy tyla i vsenarodnoi pomoshchi frontu (Moscow, 1982), 92; and Haim Malamud, Sovetisch Heimland, 1982(12), 62.61Stalingrad, for example, was chosen as one of the centers for absorption of evacuees from Moldavia, Western Ukraine, Belorussia, Leningrad and other locations. See A. Vodolagin, Ocherki istorii Volgograda (Moscow, 1968), 296–298.‏ On the evacuation from the city of Chechen-Ingush ASSR Grozny, and particularly on the flight from it, see the research of Ishai Alkhasov (1914), Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.62According to the 1939 census, 113,750 Jews lived in the Caucasus.63See Vila Orbach, ‘Hashmadat ha-yehudim be-shithei brit ha-mo'etsot ha-kevushim al yedei ha-germanim’ [The Extermination of the Jews in the Occupied Areas of the USSR by the Germans], Yalqut Moreshet 19 (1975): 112. Zhenia Knor, who reached the Caucasus from Dnepropetrovsk, describes the terrible flight from this region as the Germans arrived, Oral History Division, The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 13(202).64Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 177(217).65Sonia Glikman, Yad Vashem Archive, 03/4325, 5.66On the evacuation from the north Caucasus region see Kyril Fefferman, Ha-shoah be-qrim uve-qavqaz [The Holocaust in Crimea and the Caucasus], (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007), 34–40; T. Petrenko, S. Linets, Evakuatsionnyi protsess na Stavropol`e letom 1942 goda: Uspekhi i neudachi (Piatigorsk, 2005), 34–56. Boris Livshits, for example, related that his family moved out of Kiev on the basis of a permit that his sister had obtained from the factory for which she worked: We sat at the train station for two days and nights and waited for a train to be arranged … our train initially headed for Poltava. Some days later it was diverted toward the Don River … at the end of July we arrived at the city of Stalingrad, where there were large crowds of refugees.67Refer to the order issued by the commander of the southwestern front, General Mikhail Kirponos, who ordered that the evacuation of Khar`kov commence on 1 September 1941 and end on the tenth of that month, Yad Vashem Archive, 1M37/110.68The interviewee Efim Sirota (1924) recalled that his family sought to leave the city of Odessa, but the authorities refused to grant them permission since they required manpower to excavate defense trenches. See Judaica Interviews; see, too, V. Ershov, V. Drobotov, V. Efimov, Gorod geroi – Volgograd (Volgograd, 1966), 88.69Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 16(202).70One of the witnesses related that during the course of his flight he reached a town about 35 kilometers from Minsk that had been home to some 1500 Jews prior to the war. ‘On 26 June, the radio announced that battles were continuing near the city of Baranovich … over 200 kilometers away. But only ten minutes later we heard people shouting that the tanks … were just across the river.’ Anatoly Rubin, Magafayim humim, magafayim adumim: mi-geto minsk ad mahanot sibir [Brown Boots, Red Boots: From Minsk Ghetto to Siberian Camps] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1977), 12–13.71G. Shigalin, Narodnoe khozaistvo SSSR v period Velikoi Otachestvennoi voiny (Moscow, 1960), 52.72A. Khavin, ‘Velikoe peremeshchenie industrii’. Novyi mir 6 (1948): 252–281; A. Mitrofanova 3 (1960): 35; Sanford Lieberman, ‘The Evacuation of the Soviet Union During World War II’. Soviet Studies 35 (1983) 1, 90–102.73 Istoriia Velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, vol. 2 (1961), 143.74A prime example of such an order is the instruction to evacuate 10,000 family members of factory workers from the city of Klintsy in the Orel district. The instruction was issued on 19 August 1941, the day before the Germans occupied the city. See Vadim Dubson, ‘On the Problem of the Evacuation of Soviet Jews in 1941 (New Jews in Eastern 3 the under which was evacuated and the see v gody voiny (Moscow, ‘Sovetskie zheleznodorozhniki v i SSSR, 1941–1945 (Moscow: Nauka, Anastas – (Moscow: L. v period Velikoi 5 History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. to the 1939 census, only Jews resided in this Jews were in this town in of Yad Vashem Archive, a of such an August 1941 issued to a Jewish family of by the of the Khar`kov region and a of a similar September 1941 issued to a family by Evakuatsia v voiny’. Zametki po evreiskoi istorii (2009): i i 5 – po evreiskoi Judaica who was evacuated from to in 1941, wrote as and In some the on the train on them and them to and they or of their into the Kaganovich was the of Lazar one of Stalin's Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of (Moscow: for an of the and the the see M. Sovetisch 1 Mitrofanova 3 Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. the escape of Soviet from and from other see dokumenty voiny 1941 (Moscow, on the escape of from the town of in the Vitebsk see Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v no. 1 The committee of that the Germans its leadership fled from See Fond On the for evacuation to this from the town of in Belorussia, see Leonid Smilovitskii, ‘Evakuatsia i iz 1941’. Istoriia i 3 or about of the town, were in in Minsk on the eve of the related that in his school he of the the town of who resided in a for The of and was the of the committee and they were to evacuate … was the of the in and her family likewise evacuate ‘Sud`ba i iz 6 August 1941, the commander of the leadership of the front of the and Soviet institutions evacuating their families panic and the population for evacuation to its in the same toward the families of the Upon the of the city of for example, families of of the were not evacuated … and the town was families were to i (Moscow, 2003), v to the 1939 census, over 10,000 Jews resided in constituting of its v 16 Vashem Archive, evakuatsii 3 History Division, The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. voiny, the that in the town of in Belorussia on 26 June 1941 as Jews it to they were to leave their Yad Vashem Archive, no. from related that the Germans she to her sister to leave the town, but the that she had a and not leave it Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. To the Tashkent was the central of a Jewish about of its lived there on the eve of World War History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. v Velikoi otechestvennoi Soiuza an of such an to escape from the town of in see Yad Vashem Archive, Jewish family from the of in the that to arrived at a that was by the Germans and was to See January in 2 (Moscow, v 5 kniga 1: Judaica Interviews. also related that his refused to leave the Soviet write about Germans is Yad Vashem Archive that in the city of in the Crimea Jews not that the were The people World War that the Germans were they were made out to See (Moscow, History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. [The vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: and See, too, Judaica Interviews; Toiba Shtern graduated from school in and began to at the and a the German she moved to with her in In her she a of on I that the Jews would not under the German … I to the to leave … but to they were in no … I … on June I to the … the municipal employees had … day at I with to some but there were no at On July we with to the train station … they were the families of on the train … I to with me and she Vashem Archive, for similar by the Jews of see evreiskoi 2009), Boris from the town of made similar Oral History Division. The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. Judaica Judaica of Yad Vashem Archive, mi-geto minsk from of a from Minsk (Tel Aviv: 1968), Judaica ed., members of that Red Army who from the town in the Jews to escape with them and to See from Poland in the Soviet (Tel Aviv: The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, During the I conducted with who from the of likewise related that the Red Army began to its on the Jews to V. A. vo i (Tel (Moscow, the eve of the war, some Jews lived in constituting of its that the Germans the the of Jews was since Jews from other of Soviet Belorussia had fled evreistva – i kniga 2, 2 2009), is of the Institute of Contemporary of The Hebrew University of in Russian and Yiddish on the and of the Jews in the Soviet Union. scientific articles in the field of his He was a scholar in University University