The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. 2, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee (review)

Increasingly, scholars are coming to the realization that each victim and survivor of the Holocaust experienced the Nazi genocidal project in a unique way and traveled his or her own path either to death or to survival. Nothing illustrates this more convincingly than the latest edition in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s series of encyclopedias of camps and ghettos. Until recently, the Holocaust in Eastern Europe has remained under-studied, though the region was home to the majority of victims. As a result of increased scholarly attention and the opening of archives in the former Soviet Union, the subject is beginning to come to the forefront of Holocaust studies. The massive two-volume set edited by Martin Dean and Geoffrey Megargee for the USHMM’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos series focuses specifically on the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. It stands without doubt as the definitive reference guide on this topic in the world today. This is not hyperbole, but simply a recognition of the meticulous collaborative research that went into assembling such a massive collection of information.

The volume is organized into two parts: volume A covers ghettos in incorporated German territories and Poland, while volume B focuses on ghettos in the occupied Soviet Union. The ghetto locations are indexed according to the regions established by the Nazis. An index and copious, detailed maps help users locate specific cities and villages if they are not familiar with Nazi administrative boundaries. The encyclopedia also includes introductory materials on Nazi ghetto policy, Jewish councils, and modes of survival, all of which help to situate the entries that follow. Brief historical introductions to the various Nazi territories of the occupied East also help to orient readers. These short pieces help those less familiar with convoluted Nazi boundary-drawing in the East by demonstrating the very real ramifications these boundaries had for the local populations.

Martin Dean has sought to include as many locations with ghettos as could be identified. The entries range from a half-page on Shatsk, a small village thirty-five miles southeast of Minsk, to a five-page entry on Warsaw. In this truly collaborative effort, entries have been contributed by numerous scholars, each an expert on the location in question. When we consider that the encyclopedia covers more than 1,150 distinct locations, we can begin to understand the value of this work.

The authors begin by tracing the administrative/national identity of each location before, during, and after the war. They then provide estimates of the Jewish population at the time of the Holocaust. Entries continue by establishing when and how the town was occupied by the Germans. Authors attempt to clarify the natures of the ghettos (e.g., closed or open, long-term or transitory) insofar as sources allow. They also describe the major killing actions and deportations in as much detail as possible. Indeed, most entries are fantastically rich with information. We learn, for example, that the head of the Ukrainian police in Shepetovka in Ukraine was relieved of command because his wife was Jewish, and that the ghetto there consisted of “three streets of one-story houses … surrounded by barbed wire and closely guarded by the Ukrainian police” (p. 1,467). In Gniewoszów, Poland, the ghetto was established in the Granica section of the village; the facades of the houses there were boarded up and Jews could use the rear exits only. There were no walls or barbed wire surrounding the ghetto. On November 15, 1942, the last remaining Jews in Gniewoszów were shipped to Treblinka (p. 225). These...