The first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed.
A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction, 1941-42
The book uniquely combines a macro-level analysis of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews with a personal narrative of a specific Soviet Jewish family. It significantly enhances the understanding of Holocaust history and World War II in the Soviet Union, using one region as a case study to illustrate the complexities of wartime social dynamics and media politics.
Dr. Kiril Feferman's fascinating book analyzes the Soviet Union's treatment of the Holocaust from 1941-1964 through the litmus text of the Babi Yar massacre of 1941. "In the West, while we are familiar with the concept of Holocaust denial, the Soviet concept of Holocaust suppression is quite foreign to us," explains Feferman, Yad Vashem lecturer, researcher, and overall expert on the Former Soviet Union, the Holocaust, and the Second World war. Feferman attempts to answer such questions Why and how did the Soviet views towards the extermination of Jews aim at avoiding Nazi accusations that that the Soviets were fighting ¿a Jewish war¿? Why the Holocaust did not fit in the simplistic, black-and-white Soviet mindset of "he who is not with us, is against us¿? Finally, Why the Bolsheviks, who never had any scruples about the many millions of Soviet civilians they themselves killed, were forced to accept over time that the Holocaust had to be treated differently than other, related topics? Feferman does a masterful job of answering these questions and many more in this carefully researched, fascinating work.