“If we had wings we would fly to you”. Kiril Feferman
allowed more time for the Jews living in the region to decide whether or not to relocate; significantly, this period provided an opportunity for the Jews to create written records, such as correspondence, which enable us to examine their decision-making processes. However, most such correspondence was lost in the maelstrom. The collection of Ginsburg letters preserved in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem is one of these rare records, as it sheds light on one Jewish family’s long period of hesitation about evacuating from their home in Rostovon-Don. I have employed this rich collection of Ginsburg family letters to illuminate the plight of the Jewish population of the North Caucasus, as Jewish family members deliberated and argued amongst themselves, over and over again, and finally made the fateful decision—whether to stay in their familiar local area, or to leave.
At the time of the German invasion of the USSR, the Ginsburgs, a Jewish family living in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia (the Russian gateway to the Caucasus), numbered eleven people, spread over three generations. Among the adults there were six women and three men, several of whom took part in the correspondence. The only member of the Ginsburg family living away from Rostov-on-Don was Efim Ginsburg (1897–1973). He was the recipient of almost every letter in this collection, and he managed to hold on to the collection and keep it safe, during and after World War II.
The Rostov-on-Don Ginsburgs (in fact, the family split up several times, but always remained close to the city) badly miscalculated the events of 1941 and 1942; they stayed in the Caucasus region and perished during the German occupation in the summer of 1942. Vladimir (Volodya) Meerovich, the sole family member from the Rostov-on-Don branch who wasn’t murdered with the others, had been drafted into the Soviet army before the German attack on the Caucasus in June 1942; he survived until mid-1943. When he learned what had happened to his family, he began to take personal revenge on the Germans, by participating in some reckless reconnaissance raids. Life expectancy in these army units was extremely short.
The changing tides of the War had a direct impact on the correspondence. We can glean from the letters the unmistakably gloomy and deteriorating atmosphere, which was increasingly evident as the German armies approached the North Caucasus region the first time, from late summer to fall, 1941, and again in the summer of 1942. In contrast, the letters written in the early summer of 1941 and in the winter to spring of 1941–1942 are optimistic, citing both the real and imagined triumphs of the Red Army. Written in a country known for its keen interest in the inner thoughts of its citizens, these letters also could be read with an eye to the Ginsburgs’ fear of the Soviet censorship, real or exaggerated.1 Viewed from this perspective, the book sheds new light on the limits of what was permissible under Stalin2 or, framed more broadly, on the principles of communication between people in the USSR.3
This communication revolves around one main issue that permeates all the letters—evacuation: that is, if, when, and how the family should leave their home city, in order to evade capture by the Germans. It should be remembered that, in ordinary situations, people do not abandon their homes—it takes the direst of circumstances to convince them to leave. If someone has no way back, for one reason or another, he becomes a refugee.4 On their way to a new life, refugees may cross borders, and, in case of hostilities, even front lines, ceasefire lines, etc.
Economic factors bring an additional dimension to this story, creating a constant and nuanced interplay with “life and death” factors. The greater the danger threatening potential refugees, the less place economic considerations played in their decision-making, responding to immediate threats. Other refugees made their decisions more as a strategic choice, that is, not in response to immediate threats, and as a result, they often avoided being trapped in a dilemma between “life and death” factors and economic calculations. Still, all those who considered evacuation had to reckon with the fact that they would incur many expenses due to their flight and subsequent resettlement, resulting in their impoverishment.
The flight of Jews from the Soviet Union’s western regions into the interior, in the initial phase following the German invasion in June 1941, placed them in the category of refugees, as broadly defined above. Generally speaking, Jews who remained in territory under German rule faced the danger of physical extermination, but this is knowledge we only possess a posteriori. Soviet Jews considering flight could not acquire any definite and direct facts about what awaited them under German occupation. The physical destruction of Jews began only after June 22, 1941, and the Germans did their best to keep it a secret. Jewish flight from the deadly reach of the Germans should be viewed against the background of the Soviet evacuation program. This was a large-scale state-run project, aimed primarily at safeguarding the Soviet military industries and the manpower they employed from being taken over by the Germans. These state employees, often with their families, were evacuated, by government orders, to the country’s hinterland; there were also Jews amongst this group. In addition, there were others who were ordered by their local employers to continue working, even until the last days of Soviet rule. With the exception of these two categories, all the others had to decide on their own whether or not they wished to join the evacuees, and to act accordingly. It was on them that the evacuation program had the biggest impact, by creating a certain psychological climate. This amounted to a paradox, as the totalitarian Soviet regime, preoccupied with its own survival, left masses of people to decide for themselves. Thousands of individual Jews had to make the fateful decision, alone, whether or not to leave their home and seek shelter elsewhere.
For residents of Rostov-on-Don, this decision was based on what they thought about the course of the Soviet-German War, and the likelihood and danger of German occupation of their city. Their perceptions were influenced in turn by the news they were hearing and reading, which was often a function of how the Soviet media presented such information. The Soviet media, an important, and often the only official news supplier, was not regarded as trustworthy by many Soviet people. However, its coverage created a certain climate, as did the specific measures that the local authorities implemented (even though we do not know for certain how the population, Jewish and non-Jewish, interpreted what they heard and read). These factors affected the decision of individual families about whether to stay or to go, along with other factors, such as age, gender, family situation, employment status, opportunities for evacuation, and the procedures to be followed, as well as fears about the dangers involved in the evacuation process itself. The Ginsburg letters, although written to pass censorship, do mention at least some of the factors that they were considering in determining what to do.
It could be anticipated that Soviet reporting would be confusing, as it reflected Soviet ideological maxims, including the claim that the Germans 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,