The first book devoted exclusively to the Holocaust in the North Caucasus, exploring mass killings, Jewish responses, collaboration, and memory in a region barely known in this context

The first book devoted exclusively to the Holocaust in the North Caucasus, exploring mass killings, Jewish responses, collaboration, and memory in a region barely known in this context

When war between the Soviet Union and Germany broke out in 1941, thousands of refugees - many of whom were Jews - poured from war-stricken Ukraine, Crimea, and other parts of Russia into the North Caucasus. Hoping to find safety, they came to a region the Soviets had struggled to pacify over the preceding 20 years of their rule. The Jewish refugees were in especially unfamiliar territory, as the North Caucasus had been mostly off-limits to Jews before the Soviets arrived, and most local Jewish communities were thus small. The region was not known as a hotbed of traditional antisemitism. Nevertheless, after occupying the North Caucasus in the summer and autumn of 1942, the Germans exterminated all the Jews they found - at least 30,000 - aided by local collaborators.

While scholars have focused on local collaboration during the German occupation and on the subsequent Soviet deportations of entire North Caucasian ethnic groups, the region has largely escaped the attention of Holocaust researchers. This volume, the first book-length study devoted exclusively to the Holocaust in the North Caucasus, addresses that gap. Contributors present richly documented essays on such topics as German killing operations, decision-making by Jewish refugees, local collaboration, rescue, and memory, taking care to integrate their findings into the broader contexts of Holocaust, North Caucasian, Russian, and Soviet history.

Introduction - Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman
The Caucasus: A Rock in the Grinding Wheels of World History - Georgi Derluguian
Dwelling at the Foot of a Volcano? Jewish Perspectives on the Holocaust in the North Caucasus - Kiril Feferman
"Operation Blue," Einsatzgruppe D, and the Genocide in the Caucasus - Andrej Angrick
TheKaukasier Kompanie ("Caucasian Company"): Soviet Ethnic Minorities, Collaborators, and Mass Killers - Stephen Tyas
Mass Executions in Krasnodar Krai: Cross-Checking Sources for the Holocaust in the North Caucasus - Andrej Umansky
In the Shadow of "Mass Treason:" The Holocaust in the Karachai Region - Crispin Brooks
Rescue and Jewish-Muslim Relations in the North Caucasus - Sufian Zhemukhov and William Youmans
"We were Saved because the Occupation Lasted only Six Months:" (Self-)Reflection on Survival Strategies during the Holocaust in the North Caucasus - Irina Rebrova
The Holocaust on Soviet Territory - Forgotten Story? Individual and Official Memorialization of the Holocaust in Rostov-on-Don - Christina Winkler
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index