Bloodlands

by Timothy Snyder

  45 Werth, Terreur, 280; Viola, Forgotten Gulag, 195.

  46 On religious faith, see McLoughlin, “Mass Operations,” 124; and Binner, “S etoj,” 181-183.

  47 Shearer, “Social Disorder,” 527-531, quotation at 531.

  48 On the Siberian Terror, see Ablažej, “Die ROVS-Operation,” 287-298; Baberowski, Terror, 189-190; and Kuromiya, “Accounting,” 93.

  49 Binner, “Massenmord,” 561-562; Werth, Terreur, 283. On “an extra thousand,” Jansen, Executioner, 82, 87.

  50 For “once and for all,” see Binner, “Massenmord,” 565, also 567. For the cited numbers, see Nikol’s’kyi, “Represyvna,” 93.

  51 Vashlin, Terror, 38. For “better too far . . . ,” see Baberowski, Terror, 192.

  52 Binner, “Massenmord,” 565-568.

  53 Ibid., 567.

  54 Ibid., 568. On the latrine incident, see Michniuk, “Przeciwko Polakom,” 118. See also Weissberg, Wielka czystka, 293. For the signing of blank pages, see McLoughlin, “Mass Operations,” 127.

  55 Binner, “Massenmord,” 571-577. Sometimes Stalin’s orders were very local and precise; for examples, see Kuz’niatsou, Kanveer, 72-73. Some 1,825 prisoners of Solovki would eventually be shot.

  56 On Omsk, see Binner, “Massenmord,” 657-580. On the sentencing of 1,301 people in a single night, see McLoughlin, “Mass Operations,” 129. See also Khlevniuk, Gulag, 150.

  57 For quotation and details on the execution techniques, see McLoughlin, “Mass Operations,” 130, 131; and Schlögel, Terror, 602, 618. On the explosives, see Gregory, Terror, 71.

  58 On the shooting of 35,454 people, see Junge, Vertikal’, 201. On the remaining numbers, see Binner, “S etoj,” 207. On the camps, see Werth, Terreur, 285; and Khlevniuk, Gulag, 332. On the elderly, see Nikol’s’kyi, “Represyvna,” 99. On the shooting of thirty-five deaf and dumb people,” see Schlögel, Terror, 624; McLoughlin, “Mass Operations,” 136; and Binner, “Massenmord,” 590.

  59 On the events of December and February, see Nikol’skij, “Kulakenoperation,” 623; and Nikol’s’kyi, “Represyvna,” 100. On Leplevskii’s interpretations of the categories of Order 00447, see Šapoval, “Behandlung,” 339, 341. On the arrests of 40,530 people, see Nikol’s’kyi, “Represyvna,” 153. On the 23,650 people added to the death quota, see Šapoval, “Behandlung,” 343. For the figures 70,868 and 35,563 and 830, see Junge, Vertikal’ , 533. For the figures 1,102 and 1,226, see Nikol’skij, “Kulakenoperation,” 634-635.

  60 Stroński, Represje, 243. For discussion, see Weiner, Making Sense.

  61 Pasternak made this general point in Dr. Zhivago.

  62 Gurianov, “Obzor,” 202.

  63 Goeschel, Concentration Camps, 26-27. Perhaps 5,000-15,000 people were sent to concentration camps for homosexuality, of whom perhaps half died by the end of the Second World War; see Evans, Third Reich at War, 535.

  64 Goeschel, Concentration Camps, 4, 20, 21, 27; Evans, Power, 87. The argument about the swinging pendulum of nationality policy is powerfully formulated by Martin in Affirmative Action Empire.

  65 On the 267 sentences in Nazi Germany, see Evans, Power, 69-70.

  CHAPTER 3: NATIONAL TERROR

  1 Martin, “Origins,” brings analytical rigor to the national operations. Quotation: Jansen, Executioner, 96; see also Baberowski, Terror, 198.

  2 For greater detail on the Polish line, see Snyder, Sketches, 115-132.

  3 Snyder, Sketches, 115-116. The “Polish Military Organization” idea seems to have originated in 1929, when a Soviet agent was placed in charge of the security commission of the Communist Party of Poland; see Stroński, Represje, 210.

  4 Stroński, Represje, 211-213. On Sochacki, see Kieszczyński, “Represje,” 202. For further details on Wandurski, see Shore, Caviar and Ashes. At least one important Polish communist did return from the Soviet Union and work for the Poles: his book is Reguła, Historia.

  5 On January 1934, see Stroński, Represje, 226-227. For the motives and numbers of later deportations, see Kupczak, Polacy, 324.

  6 On the first cue, see Kuromiya, Voices, 221. For “know everything,” see Stroński, Represje, 2336-227. See also Morris, “Polish Terror,” 756-757.

  7 Stroński, Represje, 227; Snyder, Sketches, 119-120.

  8 Nikol’s’kyi, Represyvna, 337; Stroński, Represje, 227. For details on Balyts’kyi, see Shapoval, “Balyts’kyi,” 69-74. A similar fate awaited Stanisław Kosior, the former head of the Ukrainian section of the party, who was Polish. He too had played a major role in the starvation campaign of 1933, and he too was executed as a Polish spy.

  9 For further discussion of the origins of the Polish operation, see Rubl’ov “Represii proty poliakiv,” 126; Paczkowski, “Pologne,” 400; and Stroński, Represje, 220.

  10 For the text of Order 00485 see Leningradskii martirolog, 454-456.

  11 For some further examples, see Gilmore, Defying Dixie.

  12 Petrov, “Polish Operation,” 154; Nikol’s’kyi, Represyvna, 105. Figures on representatives of national minorities are given later in the chapter.

  13 On the “suppliers,” see Kuromiya, Stalin, 118. On the Polish diplomats, see Snyder, Sketches, 121-127. For the date on the central committee, see Kieszczyński, “Represje,” 198. On the experiences of Polish communists in the USSR, Budzyńska’s Strzępy is invaluable.

  14 Quotation: Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 23. The phone book anecdote is in Brown, No Place, 158.

  15 Stroński, Represje, 240.

  16 Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 28; Werth, Terreur, 294.

  17 Quotation and number: Naumov, NKVD, 299-300. For examples, see Stroński, Represje, 223, 246.

  18 On the Juriewicz family, see Głębocki, “Pierwszy,” 158-166, at 164.

  19 On the Makowski family, see Głębowski, “Pierwszy,” 166-172. For the figure 6,597, see Petrov, “Polish Operation,” 168.

  20 Ilic, “Leningrad,” 1522.

  21 Awakened: Dzwonkowski, Głód, 236. Black raven appears in Polish and Russian, black maria in Russian. For attestation to soul destroyer, which was later used in reference to German gas vans, see Schlögel, Terror, 615. On Kuntsevo, see Vashlin, Terror, 40, 44.

  22 On the sources of Polish borderland identity, see Snyder, Reconstruction of Nations. The redefinitions of Soviet Poles is the central subject of Brown, No Place.

  23 On the national purge, see Naumov, NKVD, 262-266; flower quotation at 266. Berman quotation: Michniuk, “Przeciwko Polakow,” 115. On the 218 writers, see Mironowicz, Białoruś, 88-89. See also Junge, Vertikal’, 624.

  24 For further discussion of this method of killing, see Goujon, “Kurapaty”; and Marples, “Kurapaty,” 513-517. See also Ziółkowska, “Kurapaty,” 47-49.

  25 For the figure of 17,772 sentences, see Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 168. On the total number of deaths (61,501), see Morris, “Polish Terror,” 759.

  26 Jansen, Yezhov, 258. On Uspenskii, compare Parrish, Lesser Terror, 6, 11; and Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 240.

  27 Werth, Terreur, 292.

  28 On Moszyńska and Angielczyk, see Kuromiya, Voices, 49-51, 221-223.

  29 Quotation: Dzwonkowski, Głód, 94. On Zhmerynka, see Stroński, Represje, 225.

  30 Quotation: Dzwonkowski, Głód, 244. See also Stroński, Represje, 235; and Iwanow, Stalinizm, 153.

  31 On Koszewicz, the undergarments, and the message, see Dzwonkowski, Głód, 90, 101, 147.

  32 On autumn 1937 and the orphanages, see Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 26; Kupczak, Polacy, 327, 329; and Jansen, Executioner, 97. On Piwiński and Paszkiewicz, see Dzwonkowski, Głód, 151, 168.

  33 On Sobolewska, see Dzwonkowski, Głód, 215-219, at 219.

  34 Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 30; Binner, “Massenmord,” 591; Werth, Terreur, 294, 470.

  35 On the sentencing of 100 and 138 people, see Stroński, Represje, 228.

  36 For the figure 111,091, see Petrov, “Pol’skaia operatsiia,” 32. For the estimate of eighty-five thousand execu
tions of Soviet Poles, see Petrov, “Polish Operation,” 171. Jansen, Executioner, 99, draws a similar conclusion. Naumov estimates the Polish dead at 95,000; see NKVD, 299. See also Schlögel, Terror, 636.

  37 Compare Morris, “Polish Terror,” 762, whose calculations are almost identical.

  38 For comparative arrest numbers, see Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost,” 316. Here and elsewhere, remarks about the weakness of the Polish intelligence presence in 1937 and 1938 are based upon weeks of review of the pertinent files of the Second Department of the Polish General Staff in the Polish military archives (the Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe, or CAW). See Snyder, Sketches, 83-112, for a more detailed discussion and a range of archival citations. I also discuss there the question of the harm the Terror did to the Soviet security position.

  39 In the Caucasus, smaller numbers of people were also forcibly transferred; see Baberowski, Feind, 771-772. On the killing of 20,474 people, see Kuromiya, “Asian Nexus,” 13. See also Gelb, “Koreans.”

  40 Quotation: Evans, Power, 357. On the German action, see Order 00439 (55,005 sentences, 41,989 death sentences). See also Schlögel, Terror, 628.

  41 Khlevniuk, Gulag, 147. I am citing the figures in Binner, “S etoj,” 207. Martin gives 386,798 deaths under Order 00447; see “Origins,” 855.

  42 Soviet Ukraine represented twenty-two percent of the population and saw twenty-seven percent of the convictions; see Gregory, Terror, 265. For the 123,421 death sentences, see Nikol’s’kyi, Represyvna, 402; at 340 are the national proportions of those arrested during 1937-1938 in Soviet Ukraine: Ukrainians 53.2 percent (78.2 percent of population), Russians 7.7 percent (11.3 percent of population), Jews 2.6 percent (5.2 percent of population), Poles 18.9 percent (1.5 percent of population), and Germans 10.2 percent (1.4 percent of population).

  43 Khlevniuk, “Party and NKVD,” 23, 28; Binner, “Massenmord,” 591-593.

  44 On the proportions of ranking officers, see Petrov, Kto rukovodil, 475; and Gregory, Terror, 63. The representation of Jews in summer 1936 was still higher at the rank of general (fifty-four percent) and in the central apparatus of the NKVD in Moscow (sixty-four percent) and among ranking officers in Soviet Ukraine (sixty-seven percent). See Naumov, Bor’ba, 119, for the first two; Zolotar’ov, “Nachalnyts’kyi,” 326-331, for the third. Latvians, Germans, and Poles disappeared entirely from the top ranks of the NKVD during the Great Terror. The Pole Stanisław Redens, for example, was the head of the Moscow NKVD and, as such, had signed the orders to execute 20,761 people in the Terror. He himself was arrested and later executed as a Polish nationalist.

  45 On the state pensions, see Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 122.

  46 Haslam, Collective Security, 194.

  47 Hirsch, Empire, 293-294.

  48 On Austria, see Dean, Robbing, 86, 94, 105.

  49 On the expulsion, see Tomaszewski, Preludium, 5, 139, passim. See also Longerich, Politik der Vernichtung, 193-204; and Kershaw, Hitler, 459, 472.

  50 Goeschel, Concentration Camps, 24.

  51 On 12 November 1938, see Polian, “Schriftwechsel,” 4.

  52 On Madagascar, see Polian, “Schriftwechsel,” 4, 8. On the Revisionists, see Arens, “Jewish Military,” 205; and Spektor, “Żydzi wołyńscy,” 539.

  53 On Polish-German relations, see Roos, Polen, 253, 396; Kershaw, Hitler, 475; and Weinberg, Foreign Policy, 20, 404, 484.

  54 Quotation: Evans, Power, 604.

  55 Kershaw, Hitler, 482; Zarusky, “Hitler bedeutet Krieg,” 106-107.

  56 See Haslam, Collective Security, 90, 153. On Litvinov, see Herf, Jewish Enemy, 104; and Orwell, Orwell and Politics, 78.

  57 Quotation: Wieczorkiewicz, Łańcuch, 323.

  58 Haslam, Collective Security, 227. Quotation: Weinberg, World at Arms, 25. I have not discussed Koestler’s experiences in Spain, which coincided with the imprisonment of his friend Weissberg in the USSR; see God That Failed, 75-80.

  59 Quotations: Lukacs, Last European War, 58-59.

  60 Krebs, “Japan,” 543; Haslam, East, 132.

  61 Levine, In Search of Sugihara, 121; Sakamoto, Japanese Diplomats, 102; Kuromiya, Między Warsawą a Tokio, 470-485; Hasegawa, Racing, 13.

  CHAPTER 4: MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP EUROPE

  1 Böhler, Verbrechen, 16, 69, 72, 74, Böhler, Überfall, 100. Datner counts 158; see 55 Dni, 94.

  2 On Warsaw, see Böhler, Überfall, 171-172. On the strafing, see Datner, 55 Dni, 96; and Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 67.

  3 Naumann, “Die Mörder,” 54-55; Grass, Beim Häuten, 15-16.

  4 On the death of German soldiers as “murder,” see Datner, Zbrodnie, 73. For “insolence,” see Lukacs, Last European War, 58. On the barn and cavalry, see Datner, Zbrodnie, 72, 69; Rossino, Hitler, 166, 169; and Böhler, Verbrechen, 23.

  5 Here is the instruction in somewhat greater detail: “Close your hearts to pity. Brutal action. Eighty million must get their due. Their existence must be secured. The stronger has the right. The greatest of severity.” See Mallman, Einsatzgruppen, 54. On Ciepielów, see Böhler, Verbrechen, 131. On the red cross, see Rossino, Hitler, 181; see also 184. For other tank incidents, see Datner, Zbrodnia, 62.

  6 For “Poles are the slaves” and the death grimace, see Rossino, Hitler, 141, 204. On “the intention of the Leader to destroy and exterminate the Polish people,” see Mallmann, Einsatzgruppen, 57.

  7 Rossino, Hitler, 138, 141; Böhler, Verbrechen, 100.

  8 Bartoszewski, Warszawski pierścień, 52-53.

  9 Böhler, Verbrechen, 19.

  10 On Solec, see Böhler, Verbrechen, 116. On the Jewish boy who asked for water, see Rossino, Hitler, 172. On Dynów, see Böhler, Überfall, 200. Rossino estimates that Jews were seven thousand of the fifty thousand Polish civilians killed by the Germans by the end of 1939; see Hitler, 234. Mallman, Böhler, and Mathaüs also give these figures in Einsatzgruppen, at 88. Böhler estimates about thirty thousand by the end of October (Verbrechen, 140) and forty-five thousand, of whom seven thousand were Jews, by the end of the year (Überfall, 138).

  11 On the possibility of such hope, see Młynarski, W niewoli, 54-59.

  12 Quotation: Weinberg, World at Arms, 57.

  13 On the Lwów betrayal, see Cienciala, Crime, 20; Czapski, Wspomnienia, 9-10; and Wnuk, Za pierwszego Sowieta, 35.

  14 On the Ukrainian steppe, see Czapski, Wspomnienia, 15. On the Polish farmers’ distress, see Młynarski, W niewoli, 98-99.

  15 Hrycak estimates 125,000 prisoners of war (“Victims,” 179); Cienciala, 230,000-240,000 (Crime, 26). The Soviets also kept about fifteen thousand people for hard labor in the mines and in road-building, of whom some two thousand died in 1941 during evacuations; see Hryciuk, “Victims,” 180.

  16 For examples of people moving from prison to power, taken from multiple regions, see HI 209/1/10420, HI 209/6/5157, HI 209/11/4217, HI 210/14/10544, HI 210/14/4527, HI 210/14/2526, HI 209/13/2935, and HI 210/12/1467. The instances of violence given here are in Gross, Revolution, 37, 44. For details on similar incidents, see HI 209/13/2935, HI 209/13/3124, HI 210/1/4372, HI 210/5/4040, HI 210/14/4908, and HI 209/7/799.

  17 On the typical sentence, see Jasiewicz, Zagłada, 172. On the 109,400 people arrested and the 8,513 people sentenced to death, see Hryciuk, 182. On the disproportion between arrest and imprisonment numbers, see Khlevniuk, Gulag, 236; and Głowacki, Sowieci, 292.

  18 On the sixty-one thousand Polish citizens, see Rossino, Hitler, 15, also 30; “destroy Poland” is at 77. See also, generally, Ingrao, “Violence,” 219-220. On Heydrich and Hitler, see Mallman, Einsatzgruppen, 57; and Mańkowski, “Ausserordentliche,” 7. On the doctorates, see Browning, Origins, 16.

  19 On Katowice, see Rossino, Hitler, 78. On the absence of good records, see Mallman, Einsatzgruppen, 80.

  20 The Einsatzgruppe z. b. V had the assignment of expelling Jews. See Rossino, Hitler, 90, 94, 98; the figure of twenty-two thousand is at 101. On Przemyśl, see Böhler, Überfall, 202-203. See also Pohl, Herrschaft, 52.

  21 On Hitler, see Rutherford, Pr
elude, 53. On Frank, see Seidel, Besatzungspolitik, 184 (including quotation). On Frank as Hitler’s former lawyer, see Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 74.

  22 Wnuk, Za pierwszego Sowieta, 13-23. The locus classicus is Gross, Revolution.

  23 Wnuk, Za pierwszego Sowieta, 23; Hryciuk, “Victims,” 199.

  24 On the 139,794 people taken from their homes, see Hryciuk, “Victims,” 184. Głowacki records temperatures of minus 42 Celsius, which is minus 43 Fahrenheit; see Sowieci, 328. See also Jolluck, Exile, 16.

  25 On “hell” and the adult dead, see Wróbel, Polskie dzieci, 156, 178. See also Gross, Revolution, 214-218. For “their dreams and their wishes,” see Gross, Children’s Eyes, 78.

  26 Jolluck, Exile, 41.

  27 There were 10,864 dead among deportees in special settlements by 1 July 1941; see Khlevniuk, Gulag, 279. On “the natives,” see Dark Side, 143. On the boots and swelling, see Gross, Children’s Eyes, 63, 88.

  28 On the skeletons, “what was in his heart,” and the white eagle emblem, see Gross, Children’s Eyes, 191, 202, 78 (also 71, 194).

  29 Pankowicz, “Akcja,” 43; Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, 275.

  30 Quotation: Shore, Information, 15. See also Rutherford, Prelude, 56.

  31 Rutherford, Prelude, 59, 75.

  32 On the numbers cited, see Rutherfold, Prelude, 59; Grynberg, Relacje, xii; and Hilberg, Destruction (vol. I), 156, 189.

  33 For the deportation numbers, see Rutherford, Prelude, 1, also 75, 88. On Owińska, see Kershaw, Hitler, 535; and Evans, Third Reich at War, 75-76. On the murder of 7,700 Polish citizens found in mental institutions, see Browning, Origins, 189. See also Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 85.

  34 Quotation: Urbański, Zagłada, 32. On Łowicz, see Grynberg, Relacje, 239-240.

  35 Rutherford, Prelude, 9, quotations at 88 and 102.

  36 For general descriptions of the three camps, see Cienciala, Crime, 29-33; also Abramov, Murder, 46, 83, 101; and Młynarski, W niewoli, 113-114. On the Christmas Day observances, see Młynarski, W niewoli, 156-157.

  37 Cienciala, Crime, 33. On the outlines and skeletons, see Czapski, Wspomnienia, 16, 31; and Młynarski, W niewoli, 115-117. For the ravens, see Berling, Wspomnienia, 34.