Evacuation of 1941-43

Categories / Army. Navy/Blokade
EVACUATION OF 1941-43. The relocation of people, equipment and capital from Leningrad during the Siege, conducted according to regulations set by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) and the Soviet of People's Commissars of the USSR, issued on 27 June 1941; and by instructions given by the State Defence Committee of 7 August 1941. Plans for potential evacuations had been developed in 1932-34, and by 1941 had become out of date. About 36% of the 488,700 people who were evacuated in the summer of 1941 were evacuated to a territory later captured by German troops, and were forced to return to Leningrad soon after the beginning of the Siege. Equipment, workers and employees from a number of industrial enterprises, establishments and institutes of higher education, as well as portions of museum collections, were removed from Leningrad in July - August of the same year. Unorganised evacuation from Leningrad was banned; on 8 September 1941, sale of local train tickets was ceased. In the summer of 1941, evacuation was carried out by ships across Ladoga Lake and by planes; 36,700 Leningraders were evacuated (including workers from the Kirovsky and Izhorsky plants, and important members of the intelligentsia). Mass evacuation started after the opening of the Road of Life across the ice; it functioned from 26 November 1941 to 8 December 1941. On 12 December, the Leningrad Front War Council adopted a decision to suspend the evacuation (most likely due to a planned attempt to lift the siege); this decision cost the lives of thousands of Leningraders. Evacuation resumed on 22 December 1942 according to a decree issued by the Soviet of People's Commissars on 18 December 1942. Over a million Leningrad citizens were evacuated in 1942. Residents of suburban areas, refugees and the wounded were also evacuated. Due to an imperfect documentation system, accurate evacuation statistics are unknown. Some evacuees die from malnutrition and its consequences, either on the way to or after arriving to refugee camps. The evacuation of Leningrad citizens was officially ceased on 1 November 1942 according to a decree issued by the Executive Committee of the Leningrad Soviet of Working People's Deputies. At the beginning of 1944, shortly after the Lifting of the Siege, a gradual resettlement started (see Resettlement of 1944-45).

Reference: Жизнь и смерть в блокированном Ленинграде: Ист.-мед. аспект. СПб., 2001. С. 68-73.

A. Y. Chistyakov. Жизнь и смерть в блокированном Ленинграде: Ист.-мед. аспект. СПб., 2001 Siege of 1941-44
Road of Life
Leningrad Front
Lifting of the Siege, 1944
Resettlement of 1944-45