During World War II, large numbers of Polish and Soviet Jews fled eastwards from German-occupied Europe or were deported by the Soviet Union. The majority of exiled Polish Jews lived in various labor camps and labor colonies in Central Asia and Siberia for the duration of the war.The Lucky Ones: Several groundbreaking new books chronicle the fate of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who evaded Hitler only to wind up in the hands of Stalin. by Ruth Franklin, NY Review of Books, October 21, 2021. review of three books: • In the East: How My Father and a Quarter Million Polish Jews Survived the Holocaust, by Mikhal Dekel. •Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union, Eliyana R. Adler. • Journey Into the Land of the Zeks and Back: A Memoir of the Gulag, by Julius Margolin. At the end of the war, Jews displaced in the Soviet Union were the largest group of surviving European Jews, as most of those left behind died in the Holocaust.ESCAPE FROM GERMAN-OCCUPIED EUROPE, Article, US Holocaust Memorial Museum official website.
Deportations
Origins and conditions After the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, between 150,000 and 300,000 Polish Jews entered in the Soviet Union in order to flee the Nazis. Some individuals reported anecdotally that Nazi soldiers seemed almost helpful in pushing the refugees to make their way to Soviet-controlled territory. There are several memoirs written by individual refugees after the war which corroborate this. Many Jews fled to Bialystock, which was considered safer due to the Soviets having military control of that area.Saved by Stalin? Trajectories and Numbers of Polish Jews in the Soviet Second World War, by Mark Edele and Wanda Warlik. Part Two of Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union. by Grossmann, Atina, et al. Wayne State University Press, 2017. Project MUSE.
In the first part of the war, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and all Polish people were treated with basic hostility (most notorious being the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish and Polish Jewish officers). Their status underwent a major change when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, thereby causing the Soviet Union to join the Allies. Polish citizens were now considered to be allied with the Soviet Union in the war against the Nazis. As the war progressed, the Soviet Army created some military units consisting of people from Poland.Identity Profusions: Bio- Historical Journeys from “Polish Jew” / “Jewish Pole” through “Soviet Citizen” to “Holocaust Survivor”, by John Goldlust, Part Six of Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union. by Grossmann, Atina, et al. Wayne State University Press, 2017. Project MUSE.
As the war progressed and the Nazi invaders got further into the Soviet Union, huge numbers of Soviet citizens, mostly Jewish, sought safety by moving east, further into the interior, to escape the Nazi hordes. Due to its knowledge of how Nazis treated Jews, the Soviet government moved Jews from areas such as the Crimean Peninsula into areas further away from the front-lines.MENDEL FELMAN biographical overview, official website, US Holocaust Museum.
Leo Cooper wrote an autobiographical memoir which was cited by scholarly works, in which he recounted that once Poland was invaded, he fled to the USSR, and accepted an offer to become a Soviet citizen. His skills as a trained "turner", or lathe operator, made him highly-demanded as a worker. He found his treatment by the nearby Russians to be overall favorable.
Deportations Beginning in Spring 1940, the deportation of Polish nationals and Jews to the camps occurred mostly by train. Although they were not as brutal as the Nazi transports of the Holocaust, the conditions were still brutal and degrading. All deportees were jammed into cattle cars, for which the only toilet was a hole in the floor. One extensive article by researcher Jonah Goldlust reports as follows:
The operation to “clear” the Polish refugees from the former Polish territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, at first occupied and more recently annexed by the Soviets, began slowly in the spring of 1940. Not only Jews were targeted, but a considerably larger number of ethnic Poles had also moved from German- into Soviet-controlled areas after September 1939. The arrests and deportations reached their peak on the “night of June 29 when hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, most of whom were Jewish and the rest [ethnic] Poles.” They were taken from their homes or sometimes straight off the street. Even some refugees who had taken up Soviet-sponsored jobs, and some who had accepted Soviet citizenship were caught up in the swift and efficient roundup operations and summarily deported on the trains with the rest.
The suddenness of their arrest by Soviet authorities and the rapid events that followed— being herded into overcrowded railcars for a lengthy train journey eastward, often lasting weeks and into parts unknown—is described in detail and sometimes at considerable length in a number of the memoirs. Fela Steinbock tells of being arrested while pregnant and, together with her husband (who was not even one of the “refugees” but a permanent resident of Soviet- occupied Poland), being deported by train to a remote barracks camp in the general vicinity of Krasnoyarsk in central Siberia.
All the firsthand reports are consistent in mentioning the severe discomforts experienced during the journey, in particular the extreme overcrowding in the locked “ cattle cars,” the appalling sanitary conditions, and the minimal food and water available. All travelled for lengthy periods, but Anna Bruell's journey of five weeks on the train before arriving at Tynda, located in the far east of the USSR, seems especially grueling.A Different Silence: The Survival of More than 200,000 Polish Jews in the Soviet Union during World War II as a Case Study in Cultural Amnesia, by John Goldlust. Part One of Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union. by Grossmann, Atina, et al. Wayne State University Press, 2017. Project MUSE.
Camp routines and conditions
Conditions of life in the camps The labor camps were mostly located in Siberia, although a small number were located in areas further south that had more hospitable climate conditions. In general, conditions in the camps were difficult but often were not lethal. Internees received food and medical care.
Conditions in the camp were harsh, but also clearly showed that the Soviet government mainly intended for internees to serve as forced labor and that the Nazi efforts of genocide during that period were not a model or a parallel for the Soviet methods of running the camp.Surviving the Nazis, exile, and Siberia, by Edith Sekules.Published Vallentine Mitchell, 2000. Google Books link. pdf of excerpt.Jews under Soviet Rule: Attempts by religious communities to renew Jewish life during the postwar reconstruction period The case of Belorussia, 1944-1953, by Leonid Smilovitsky, Goldenstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, Université de Tel-Aviv. smilov@ zahav. net. ilShelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union Edited by Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Atina Grossmann. Published by: Wayne State University Press, 2017Book Review of "Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union" review by Joanna Sliwa, of book by Eliyana R. Adler. Reviewed by Joanna Sliwa (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference)) Published on H-Poland, March, 2023.online bibliography and resources, relating to book "Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union Bibliography", Compiled by Eliyana R. Adler.
Internees were placed in bunks that were little more than wooden pallets. Food was not plentiful during the initial period. Any female internees who became pregnant were given medical care. Delousing was crucial for new internees, before becoming residents in such crowded conditions; this was carried out by having the new internees rub a solid yellow chemical mixture onto each other.
Unlike Nazi camps, there was no genocidal machinery, but the conditions were still brutal. Goldust writes:
In writing about the remote camps, most authors [i.e., of memoirs by eyewitnesses] list the numerous hardships they endured: the long hours of labor in forests, mines, and farms; the high work quotas expected and the minimal food rations earned even when these were achieved; the extremes of climate faced, most notably the brutal Russian winter; the serious epidemics, particularly typhoid and malaria, that swept through the camp population; and, as almost everyone mentions, the extreme infestations of bedbugs and lice.
As the war progressed, conditions sometimes improved; for example, in some camps, large new buildings were built for use of internees.
Work roles Many camp internees were given professional roles and vocational roles if they had existing training and expertise. Any internees who were physicians were tasked with caring for internees. Carpenters and masons assisted in building camp structures.
Average people in the camps were often assigned to help with logging and forestry work. Some internees were sent to work on local farms in tending crops and harvesting food.
Experiences of deportees The conditions in the camps varied depending upon the location, and often for individual groups.
A group of students from the Novardok Yeshiva were deported in a group from Poland to Siberia. Their leader and head teacher was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Nekritz. Their written accounts describe how the NKVD subjected them to harsh persecution, including confiscating all religious texts and prohibiting most religious services.The Alter of Novardok: The life of Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz and his worldwide impact, by Rabbi Shlomo Weintraub, translated from Hebrew, Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2020, pages 374-375. One of the prominent rabbis interned with this group was Rav Yaakov Galinsky.The Last Novardoker, by Tzvi Yaakovson, February 11, 2015, yated website.
Despite a long chain of constant persecutions, the yeshiva students continually tried to observe the Sabbath. According to the biography of Rav Galinsky, the Jewish students would pass pieces of wood to each other, to avoid transgressing the Sabbath prohibition against carrying objects. According to this account, the Soviet supervisors for this work group actually commended them for this method, as being highly efficient.IN GOOD FAITH book review by Linda Hersche,| MARCH 1, 2022, mishpacha website.
According to an account by Rav Yaakov Pasternak, recounted in the book by Rabbi Shlomo Weintraub, Rabbi Nekritz was consistent in advocating for the right to observe the Sabbath, and finally permission was granted. Pasternak states that in order to show their willingness to meet expectations and to do their work, the students would present themselves to the camp officials when the Sabbath ended on Saturday night, in order to do their workload and to make up for the time missed during the Sabbath.The Alter of Novardok: The life of Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz and his worldwide impact, by Rabbi Shlomo Weintraub, translated from Hebrew, Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2020, pages 381-382.
Historiography