targeted all groups under their domination, not only the Jews.5 Likewise, it could be expected that the Soviet media would be torn between the mutually exclusive goals of calming the public and raising people’s spirits, by providing news during the War while not sowing panic.
But probably the most crucial question concerns the reliability of the Soviet media in the eyes of its consumers, and most specifically, in the eyes of potential evacuees. By the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in June 1941, the Soviet media was widely viewed as the most important instrument of propaganda, but not as a reliable supplier of news.6 In order to gain the confidence of its audience, or to put it simply, to make people believe its reports, the Soviet media definitely needed more than just to exercise a monopoly in supplying news; its news had to look credible to the Soviet people. Given the dubious reputation of the Soviet media in the eyes of many Soviet people, it is likely that the Jews had to rely on their ability to read “between the lines” in order to grasp the hidden messages, and especially to understand the course of the War. On the whole, as long as they perceived the situation as being relatively stable and did not view it as a clear mortal threat, then “conventional,” that is, cost-benefit considerations played an important role in the decision-making of some Jews regarding evacuation.7 But, once the situation became or seemed to become critical, economic factors were increasingly dismissed, and then Jews fled or attempted to flee, irrespective of all other arguments.8
With the benefit of hindsight, a contemporary reader might surmise that the correct answer to the dilemma confronting Soviet Jews in the threatened areas as to which would have helped them decide the best time to escape was to leave when the situation remained relatively calm, there was no disorder, personal property could be sold at a good price, and the Soviet evacuation program, not yet overstrained by an excessive influx of refugees, still functioned properly. The ideal destination for the evacuees would be one that offered a relative abundance of food and a milder climate, connections that could lead to employment, or, more broadly, help refugees survive there economically, and finally, was far enough away from the German armies.
If official sources did not suffice, Soviet Jews had to turn to indirect sources of information. Consequently, Jewish refugees moving into the Soviet-controlled area and talking about the German persecution of Jews appeared to be the most trustworthy sources of information. Indeed, Jewish refugees who fled from the German-controlled part of Poland (they came into the Soviet Union from September to December 1939), and those escaping from the western regions of Soviet Russia (after the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941) could share with Soviet Jews what they knew about the various forms of anti-Semitic persecution, including sporadic killings.9 But, as mentioned above, they could not tell the Soviet Jews about the all-encompassing genocide of the Jews in their homeland because it only began after June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
But not every Jew contacted the refugees. Some were discouraged from doing so by Soviet admonitions against spreading alarmism. Furthermore, at times the influx of refugees would cease, if the frontline stabilized. When the flow of information coming from the refugees was cut back, and the role of other informal sources for one reason or another also decreased, the result was an information void. In such a situation, the proportional influence of the Soviet media would increase once more.
Viewed from a general perspective, this book considers the many factors affecting the Soviet-Jewish evacuation to potentially safer Soviet territories, far from the danger of German occupation, during World War II: the availability of information, individual discretion and consideration of outside factors, the effects of spontaneous relocation, and new local hostilities. Another key factor was what the local authorities did or did not do to encourage or facilitate evacuation. Finally, the big question is what evacuation opportunities and resources were available in Rostov-on-Don (and who could take advantage of them, and how), which could be another source for documenting patterns of flight.10 While focusing on the evacuation of one Jewish family, the book considers their situation as a case study of the larger issues involved in evacuation. The Ginsburgs’ personal deliberations and reflections and their recurring hesitation are set against the background of major wartime events in their region and in their home city of Rostov-on-Don, between 1941 and 1942. These events included the abrupt change from a peaceful life to destitution as a result of the German bombardment, the German capture of Rostov-on-Don in November 1941, its subsequent recapture by the Red Army, which held it for seven months, and the fall of Rostov-on-Don to the Germans, once again, in July 1942.
The major points of the book are to describe the Holocaust and the Soviet-German War through the Soviet Jewish lens.11 The book seeks to find an answer to the painful question that haunted the pitiably few survivors from this family: why didn’t the Ginsburg family escape to safety? Unlike Leningrad under siege,12 Rostov-on-Don was not encircled and it was possible to leave the city, during most of the period under study. Who bears the responsibility for this family’s fatal decision not to leave, in 1942, while they still had the chance? During that time, the German genocidal actions against Jews became known, and indeed some Jews were killed when Rostov-on-Don underwent the first brief German occupation, in November 1941. Although the Ginsburgs could have left the city before the first German attack, they did not do so. They conveyed their feelings and assessments of their situation, in letters to a relative who was living in a safe territory. The rich collection of correspondence between the members of the Ginsburg family helps us to understand their seemingly illogical decisions, and, more generally, to study some of the basic issues confronting Jews in a world threatened by a German invasion: the availability (or lack) of information, the attitudes of local authorities and local population groups, the changing tides of war and the knowledge of the mass murder of other Jews, the impact of these factors on individual Jews and their families, and, lastly, the fateful and difficult decisions that they themselves had to make.
Until recently, scholarship—whether Western, Jewish, or Soviet/Russian—has ignored the personal experiences of Jewish refugees in the wartime Soviet Union. The studies made of the evacuation have mainly been based on the official Soviet documentation.13 In recent years, more studies have been published, analyzing the experiences of evacuees sent to remote Soviet regions, far away from the battlefields of the Soviet-German War.14 Refugees who were transferred to these areas were not directly threatened by the German onslaught. The experiences of refugees who were living in the areas that faced an immediate German threat (or who escaped from one threatened zone into another) are usually only mentioned in passing.15
One reason for this is that the question of evacuation or escape is one of the more elusive Holocaust subjects because the process is difficult to trace and analyze. The events resulting in Jewish flight were kaleidoscopic because Jews in immediately threatened regions often had to make critical decisions within just a few hours, based on a spontaneous reaction to dramatic events, such as the news of a German land offensive in the area, or the experience of German bombardments. As a result, few refugees left written records of their experiences in real time. Those fortunate enough to reach a safe haven, far from the threat of the German army, endured enormous hardships along the road, which often dominated the saga of their flight. Unfortunately, little information is available in the official records of Jewish escape into Soviet territories that were safe from the danger of German attack.
When the Jews considered the pros and cons of their flight from potentially threatened Soviet territories, they also had to take into account their ability to overcome numerous obstacles, including the attitude of their employers and the authorities in charge of issuing the necessary authorization. Another aspect of evacuation involved the need for the Jews to mobilize all their financial resources, an essential step in preparing properly for a long journey with an uncertain ending. Ideally, nothing valuable would be left at home, since there were no guarantees that they would be able to return to the same property, and because people anticipated that evacuation, although formally a free-of-charge state program, would nevertheless turn out to be an expensive undertaking. To cope with this problem, the preparations for evacuation involved converting their savings into easily movable valuables. In addition, although
