Was There a Soviet Policy for Evacuating the Jews?: The Case of the Annexed Territories

Slavic Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben-Cion Pinchuk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Population ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Baltic

As a result of the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and Northern Bucovina in 1939-40, the Soviet Union was left with the largest Jewish population in Europe. Given this large population, the fact that the Soviet Union had the greatest number of Jews who survived World War II has aroused the interest of researchers and drawn attention to the role of Soviet policy in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. Some of the reasons for the survival of Jews in Soviet-annexed territories seem obvious. In contrast to other European countries, only part of the USSR was occupiéd by German armies. Therefore, Jews could find refuge in the unoccupied regions. This simple and generally sufficient explanation is not the only one which has been offered, however. Some Western scholars have argued that the Soviet government had a specific policy designed to rescue Jews from the danger of annihilation. Soviet propaganda, particularly that aimed at Western audiences, maintained that millions of Jews owed their lives to Soviet rescue operations during the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Seventy-fi ve years of the victory of the Soviet people in the World War II. The role of Soviet medicine

2020 ◽  
Vol 174 (5) ◽  
pp. 127-131
Author(s):  
A. I. Paltsev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet People ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Red Flag ◽  
Historical Truth

The World War II was and is unforgettable for the Soviet people because it is the Great victory of the Great people. The president of the Russian federation defi ned the attitude of the West to the victory by the next words: “Countries do not stop trying to distort historical truth about the World War II… Russia will answer the truth to attempts to distort the facts about the World War II”. For our people this war is great tragedy and great feat. On the fi rst day of aggression the Soviet government declared: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.” The strength and courage of military commanders, soldiers and officers, who did, everything to ensure that on the night of May 1 the Red Flag hosted above the Reichtag. According to estimates of marshals of the Soviet Union, the role of the Soviet medical scientists, doctors, middle and junior medical workers is invaluable. It were they who returned to service 73.3% of the wounded and 90.6% of the sick, in absolute numbers that were about 17 million people, and 6.7 million people participated in the Berlin operation. Thus, the last point in the war was put by a Soviet soldier, a Soviet officer, returned to service by the Soviet medicine.

State as Transgressor: Šilingas versus the State—A Case Study

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-150
Author(s):  
Svaja Vansauskas Worthington
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Travel Guide ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Baltic

The usually cheerful Insight Travel Guide to the Baltic States offers this synopsis of the Baltic situation:Their independence was sentenced to death by the Nazi–Soviet Pact [the secret 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact] just before World War II. The pact envisaged the Baltic States would be parceled out between them, but it was overtaken by events with Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 … Among few other people did the Soviet mill grind finer than in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania … The final injustice was the permanent imposition of Soviet rule and Stalinist terror. Anyone a visitor meets today in the Baltics is likely to have a relation who was sent to Siberia or simply shot.

PROBLEM OF SECURITY IN NORTHERN POLAND FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II

2011 ◽  
Vol 161 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-274
Author(s):  
Wiesław ŁACH
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
World War ◽  
Northern Area ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Northern Border ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Baltic

This article focuses predominantly on analysing the role of the northern area of Poland in the security system of Poland following World War II. The separation of the area from the national defence system of the country resulted from the specific nature of incorporating a part of the former Eastern Prussia into Poland and its neighbourhood with the Soviet Union.In view of the Polish national administration, the area included the Olsztyn Voivodeship and part of the Gdansk Voivodeship east of the Vistula and the Bialystok Voivodeship bordering the Kaliningrad District. According to the military division of the country, the area was part of the Warsaw Military District and the Pomeranian Military District.The time frame was determined by the establishment and ultimate designation of the northern border in 1957, when Poland and the Soviet Union signed a treaty regarding the marking of the existing national border between Poland and the Soviet Union adhering to the Baltic Sea (5 March 1957).The article examines the political and military circumstances in which Poland’s northern border was determined, it assesses it operationally and determines the status of the northern area of Poland in the country’s security system.The subject has not been widely examined and literary sources are scarce. Most of the materials can be found in the Central Military Archives and the Border Guard Archives in Kętrzyn.Northern Poland has always been a key operational area, yet its defensive weakness, in the former political arrangement, was greatly affected by the proximity of the Soviet Union. The problem of defending Poland’s northern border was a dilemma that was increasingly growing in difficulty over the years. There were a large number of factors causing it, and it was in the sphere of defence that they manifested themselves most visibly.

scholarly journals Federalist Plans in Central and Eastern Europe and the Question of the Baltic States in the Context of Polish Politics During World War II

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Kisielewski
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Federation ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Polish Government

This paper deals with federalist plans of Central and Eastern Europe during World War II. The Polish government in exile and its Czechoslovak counterpart actively participated in the implementation of such plans. A Central- and Eastern European federation was to be an eventual alternative to Stalin’s plans of Europe’s Sovietization and to Hitler’s ‘New Europe’. For some time these federalist plans were supported by Great Britain and the United States. Besides, in British and American circles there were also other models for creating a European regional union. On 11 November 1940 Poland and Czechoslovakia managed to sign a declaration on the formation of a federation. However, soon disagreements concerning attitudes towards the Soviet Union as well as over Lithuania’s place in the federation arose.

Ideology and Soviet Policy towards Colonial and Ex-Colonial States with Special Reference to India 1917 – 1971

1992 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Surendar
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Attitude

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia made Lenin and his successors not only the rulers of the Soviet Union but also mentors of the international communist movement. Inevitably, the question of communist attitude to nationalist movements in the colonial world, and in the post-world War II period, to the new nationalist regimes of the ex-colonial states had to be decided by the Soviet leaders from time to time. This policy naturally changed over the years. The article seeks to analyse the relative influence of ideology and Soviet State interests on the policies enunciated over the years.

A Soviet West: nationhood, regionalism, and empire in the annexed western borderlands

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Risch
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Baltic

This article considers the role the Soviet Union's western borderlands annexed during World War II played in the evolution of Soviet politics of empire. Using the Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine as case studies, it argues that Sovietization had a profound impact on these borderlands, integrating them into a larger Soviet polity. However, guerrilla warfare and Soviet policy-making indirectly led to these regions becoming perceived as more Western and nationalist than other parts of the Soviet Union. The Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine differed in their engagement with the Western capitalist world. Different experiences of World War II and late Stalinism and contacts with the West ultimately led to this region becoming Soviet, yet different from the rest of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet West was far from uniform, perceived differences between it and the rest of the Soviet Union justified claims at the end of the 1980s that the Soviet Union was an empire rather than a family of nations.

Italian Communism and Soviet Terror

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Richard Drake
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

The declassification of materials from the Russian archives has provided a good deal of new evidence about the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Soviet Union both before and after World War II. Two newly published collections of documents leave no doubt that, contrary to arguments made by supporters of the PCI, the Italian party was in fact strictly subservient to the dictates of Josif Stalin. The documents reveal the unsavory role of the PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, in the destruction of large sections of the Italian Communist movement and in the tragic fate of Italian prisoners of war who were held in the Soviet Union during and after World War II. Togliatti's legacy, as these documents make clear, was one of terror and the Stalinization of the PCI.

scholarly journals Польские граждане на Северном Кавказе в 30–40-е годы ХХ в: статус, расселение, социальное обеспечение

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (XXIV) ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Сергей Линец
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
World War ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Western Ukraine

This article examines the complex political interrelations between the USSR and Poland just before and during World War II. The innocent hostages of these interstate relations proved to be thousands of Polish citizens. With the beginning of World War II from the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, refugees were displaced to different regions of the Soviet Union and they were later settled there as temporary residents. Some of Poles found themselves in the North-West Caucasus where, as ordered by the Soviet government, they were settled in towns and rural settlements. As the archive documents attest, the local administrations created quite acceptable (given the wartime conditions) circumstances of life for the Polish arrivals. They had the opportunity of getting a job and their families were provided with food, fuel, clothes and footwear. With the end of the war, the Polish citizens received the opportunity to return to their home country at their own free will.

Strategies for SALT

1971 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome H. Kahan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Strategic Balance ◽  
The Military

On November 17, 1969, after a three-year delay, the United States and the Soviet Union initiated Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Involving strategic systems and policies vital to the security of both superpowers, their allies, and the world, these talks have the potential of becoming the most important series of United States-Soviet negotiations since World War II. They can affect not only the military-technical aspects of the strategic balance but United States-Soviet political relations and the future role of nuclear weapons. Given the complexity and sensitivity of the subject, it is not surprising that negotiations are still continuing. Even if an early, limited agreement is reached, SALT meetings can be expected to span a period of many years.

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