Copyright by Vladyslav Christian Alexander 2013
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Copyright by Vladyslav Christian Alexander 2013 The Thesis Committee for Vladyslav Christian Alexander Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Surviving Total War in Kherson Region, Ukraine in 1941 – 1945 APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Charters Wynn Co-Supervisor: Bella Bychkova-Jordan Surviving Total War in Kherson Region, Ukraine in 1941 – 1945 by Vladyslav Christian Alexander, B.F.A., B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2013 Dedication To my great-grandmother, Natalia Porfirievna Yagnenko (1900 – 1999), who survived such social and political disasters of the Twentieth Century as World War I, the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, the Russian Famine of 1921, the Holodomor, World War II, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, yet raised three children, remained cheerful, and kept her strong faith in God till her last breath. Acknowledgements The following work started from the early years of my childhood, when my great- grandmother, Natalia Porfirievna Yagnenko, told me many fascinating stories from the Great Patriotic War, the German occupation of our city, and how she survived that period with her family. While drinking tea and eating the candy and cookies she always offered me, the child’s imagination did not have much room to picture horrors and realities of the war, and I enjoyed her stories from the perspective of a young boy, simply as interesting tales from the war period. As I grew older and began understanding the extraordinary circumstances the people of Ukraine lived through during the years of total war, I realized that my great-grandmother and her three children could have perished anytime throughout the period of the German occupation of Kherson. This work is a tribute to those who courageously endured the Nazi rule in Ukraine, and lived to tell their stories of survival, hoping that humankind would learn valuable lessons. My goal is to tell the story of survival of my people, residents of southern Ukraine, respectfully representing voices of those, many of whom are no longer with us, but because of their courage – I am. The process of research and writing of the following thesis involved help of many people. I would like to thank Dr. Charters Wynn and Dr. Bella Bychkova-Jordan for their guidance in this journey, valuable feedback and suggestions, and encouragement at times of my frustration. I am especially thankful to Dr. Mary Neuburger for helping fund my trip to Kherson, Ukraine to conduct field research at the local library, archive, and to interview children and veterans of World War II. My appreciation goes to Vitaliy Shalukhin and Liza Drach, who organized the interviews and various other logistics connected with this research, and to Tamara Skobnikova, who arranged for my research v in the NKVD files at DAKhO and assisted my efforts to find materials relevant to the study. I would also like to thank my great aunt Olga Malinovskaya for letting me stay with her when I was doing the research, and for recollecting and clarifying some of the family stories from the war. Thanks to Richard Paikoff, Keith Huddleston, and Elliott Nowacky, fellow students here at UT, for their valuable advice and friendship. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Lonny Harrison from The University of Texas at Arlington for inspiring me to reach higher in my education and serving as an example of humble, yet cheerful academician. Finally, I am indebted to my mother, Tetyana Ray, and late stepfather, Tony Ray, for caring and providing for me all through my life and especially during my venture through graduate school. vi Abstract Surviving Total War in Kherson Region, Ukraine in 1941 – 1945 Vladyslav Christian Alexander, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisors: Charters Wynn, Bella Bychkova-Jordan While there are plenty of published materials concerning survival in Ukraine during World War II, most of those bypass the Kherson region and focus primarily on the German occupation. This thesis is an attempt to study the complex history of people’s survival in Ukraine during a large portion of the twentieth century, through a micro- history of the city of Kherson and the neighboring villages, and towns of the region. The study analyzes the actions and the consequences for the various social, political and ethnic groups of changes in the ruling regimes, emphasizing the period of the return of the Red Army to the region in 1943-1944. This work attempts to provide an answer to the question of why the population of a provincial city, which endured no major combat, was reduced from about 100,000 residents in 1941 to less than a hundred on the day of return of the Soviets in 1944? vii Table of Contents List of Figures..........................................................................................................x List of Illustrations................................................................................................. xi Preface .................................................................................................................. xii Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Geopolitical History of Kherson Region ...............................................7 The Establishment and Development of Kherson Region..............................8 Geopolitical Comparison of the Regions of Reichskommissariat Ukraine ..12 Preparations for the Defense of Kherson......................................................18 Defense of the City of Kherson ....................................................................21 Statistics of Civilian Losses of Kherson Region ..........................................25 Chapter 2: Surviving the German Occupation in Kherson ....................................29 The Adult Population – Workforce ..............................................................31 Refugees........................................................................................................35 Youth ............................................................................................................36 Forced Labor - Ostarbeiter............................................................................38 Artists............................................................................................................41 Prisoners of War ...........................................................................................43 Ethnic Minorities ..........................................................................................49 Politically Aligned Population......................................................................56 Armed Factions.............................................................................................59 Chapter 3: Surviving the German Occupation in the Countryside ........................64 Peasants.........................................................................................................66 Prisoners of War ...........................................................................................70 Forced Labor – Ostarbeiter ...........................................................................71 Ethnic Minorities ..........................................................................................72 Politically Aligned Population......................................................................73 viii Armed Factions.............................................................................................76 Chapter 4: Surviving the German Withdrawal ......................................................83 Fleeing Westward .........................................................................................86 Fleeing to the Countryside............................................................................88 Escaping to the Left Bank of the Dnieper.....................................................90 Hiding in the City .........................................................................................93 Chapter 5: Surviving the Return of the Soviet Regime .......................................102 Evacuees Return to Kherson.......................................................................106 The Economic and Social Recovery of the Region’s Population...............108 Children of the War ....................................................................................112 The Return of NKVD .................................................................................113 The NKVD Trials – Prisoners of War ........................................................116 The NKVD Trials – Collaborators (Rehabilitated).....................................118 The NKVD Trials – Collaborators (Non-rehabilitated)..............................120 The NKVD Trials – Volksdeutsche............................................................125 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................133 Bibliography ........................................................................................................137 Archives......................................................................................................137 Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Khersons’koyi Oblasti, Kherson (DAKhO).......137 Books in English.........................................................................................138