Transportation of Rostov Region Residents to Forced Labor in the Third Reich in 1942–1943: Traumatic Experience and Survival Methods of “Eastern Workers”

Introduction. Transportation to forced labor is a special stage of a kind of “initiation” of Soviet citizens into slaves of the Third Reich, “Untermenschen,” associated with violent separation from their home, relatives, and established way of life, with a one-time transition to a destructive situation of loss of personal freedom, humiliation of human dignity, and physical and psychological exhaustion. Methods and materials. The author relied on the approaches of historical anthropology, historical psychology, and the history of everyday life. The source base of the study was formed by the documents of the Rostov Regional Commission for the Accounting of Damage and Atrocities Inflicted by the Nazi Occupiers on Institutions, Enterprises, and Citizens of Rostov and the Rostov region and the memories of natives of the Don who survived Nazi slavery. Analysis. The article describes the key stages of organizing the transportation of “Eastern workers”: from collections in the region to the distribution point in the Third Reich. The first psychological shock was caused by the forced separation from home and relatives, which “Eastern workers” experienced during the departure from the collection points of the cities and districts of the region. During transportation, people entered the stage of psycho-emotional overload associated with both psychophysiological stressors (hunger, lack of sleep, pain) and with the experience of aggression and violence, humiliation of personal dignity, perception of their own and others’ suffering, death of other people, group isolation, and uncertainty of the future. The article also reflects forms of resistance through escapes during stops at stations and the possibility of rescue by partisans during combat operations. Results. The transportation of residents of the Rostov region in 1942–1943 to Nazi Germany was one of the first stages of the psychological and physiological breakdown of Soviet citizens by the Nazis, who were destined to become “slaves” of the Third Reich. Funding. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 23-28-01114, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-01114/.