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On Evacuation:  Three Ukrainian Encyclopedias
Volodymyr Kubijovyc (editor), Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1963

The Soviet army, in its retreat, evacuated chiefly townspeople, skilled workers, and members of the intelligentsia.  (Volume I, p. 203)


The evacuation of the cities by the Bolsheviks affected mostly the Russians and the Jews; the Jewish population that remained was subsequently destroyed by the Germans.  (Volume I, p. 223)


In carrying out Stalin's directive proclaimed in a radio speech on July 3, 1941 � "Make life in the rear of the enemy unbearable" � the Soviet armies and special party detachments, when retreating, destroyed industrial plants, railroads, communal buildings, stores of food, water reservoirs, other resources, and the harvest in the field.  Because of their hurried retreat at the beginning of the war this destruction did not reach the proportions desired by the Bolsheviks, but advantage was taken of the German halt in August-September, 1941, on the Dnieper to effect great planned destruction in Kiev � the Khreshchatyk (the main artery of the city) and major buildings in other parts of the city were mined to explode some time after the Germans' entrance � and on the Left Bank.  The greater part of the mine shafts in the Donbas were flooded and the Dnieper Hydroelectric Works and all of the fifty-four blast furnaces in Ukraine were blown up.  Kharkiv also experienced great destruction before the Bolsheviks retreated.

The large-scale evacuation of people and equipment from Ukraine to the Urals and Central Asia was carried on without plan and was accompanied by enormous losses.

The people of Ukraine, for the most part, did not want to be evacuated to the East and avoided evacuation.  Those evacuated consisted primarily of party and government officials, skilled industrial workers, and specialists of all kinds.  Special care was taken to evacuate members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia (scholars, writers, research workers, and actors); the government feared that if the Germans should favor the Ukrainian cause, these people might become politically active if left behind.  Altogether about 3.8 million men, women, and children and about 850 large industrial establishments were removed from the Ukrainian SSR to the East.

While the movement to the East was taking place, the NKVD carried out mass arrests and executions, chiefly of Ukrainians � especially those who tried to avoid evacuation.  In the jails most prisoners whose period of imprisonment was more than three years were shot; others were evacuated if possible.  In several cities the NKVD burned prisons with prisoners in them.  (Vsevolod Holubnychy and H. M. wrote this section, Volume I, p. 878)



Danylo Husar Struk (managing editor), The Encyclopedia of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1993

After Nazi Germany invaded the USSR in June of 1941, most of Kiev's intelligentsia and over 300,000 of its inhabitants were evacuated and 197 factories were dismantled and shipped to Soviet Asia.  Before their final withdrawal, the Bolsheviks mined many public and residential buildings and destroyed the three bridges spanning the Dnieper, the railway station, and all railway shops, power stations, waterworks, and food and fuel depots.  The Germans occupied Kiev on 19 September [1941].  Soviet mines began detonating on the 20th, and a huge fire raged for 10 days, destroying the buildings on Khreshchatyk and many adjacent streets.  On 3 November a Soviet mine destroyed the Dormition Cathedral of the Kievan Cave Monastery.  (Volume II, p. 508)



A. B. Kudritsky (editor), Kyiv: an Encyclopedic Handbook, Head editorial office of the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia, Kiev, 1981 (in Ukrainian)

From Kyiv were evacuated to the East 197 large factories, 32 higher and middle-level educational and research institutions, and over 335 thousand people.  (p. 22, translated by Lubomyr Prytulak)


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