Description
Book SynopsisDuring World War II, some two million Jewish refugees relocated from the western regions of the USSR to the Soviet interior. This book’s insights into the regional distribution and concentration of these emigres offer a behind-the-scenes look at the largest and most intensive Jewish migration in history.
Trade Review“Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Kaganovitch shows that Soviet wartime and postwar propaganda about the warm embrace of evacuees by their fellow citizens masks a far more complex reality of hunger, disease, and discrimination.”—Eliyana R. Adler, Penn State University
“Plumbs Soviet archives and published materials to provide considerable statistical data and compelling individual narratives of the plight of Jewish refugees in the Soviet interior. . . . Although the events of the Shoah overshadowed the predicament of these Eastern European Jews
, Kaganovitch’s informed narrative reclaims their stories.”—
CHOICE Reviews “A welcome contribution to the relatively limited field of wartime displacement in the USSR. Additionally, the book provides a fresh look at the history of Jewish people in the Soviet Union during World War II by examining the war’s impact on Jewish refugees from the USSR’s western regions to its east.”—
H-Russia “Rich with examples from memoirs and a multitude of archival materials, which are accompanied by much statistical data, based on large-scale quantitative studies. All of these sources give a detailed picture of the situation regarding the places where Jewish refugees arrived.”—
AJS ReviewTable of Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Transliteration Notes, Names, and Places
- Introduction
- 1 Wartime Migration to the Eastern Regions of the USSR
- 2 The Local Authorities Facing Refugees
- 3 “He who does not work, does not eat”
- 4 Famine, Mortality, and Some Help
- 5 Orphanages, Adoption, and Jewish Children
- 6 Culture Clashes
- 7 Statistics on Refugees and Their Migration
- 8 The Difficult Road Back
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
