A Soviet Humanitarian Action?: Centre, Periphery and the Evacuation of Refugees to the North Caucasus, 1941–1942

Abstract

In the first year of the Soviet-German war, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were evacuated to the North Caucasus. Many of them were Jewish women, children and old men who arrived independently in the region. Their evacuation created serious frictions with the local authorities and population with the newcomers often being protected by the central Soviet government. The latter came to welcome the arrival of these refugees in the North Caucasus, despite its initial reluctance to promote the evacuation of those whose contribution to the country's war effort was not direct.