The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry Under Soviet Rule, 1939-1941

The Lesser of Two Evils describes the quandary and fate of the two million Eastern European Jews following the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939, which divided the regions of Eastern Poland, the Baltics, and eastern Rumania between Nazi Germany and the USSR. The Jews in these areas were thus faced with deciding who was the “lesser of two evils”—the Soviets or the Nazis.