In this groundbreaking book based on archival and field research and previously unknown historical evidence Maxim D. Shrayer introduces the work of Ilya Selvinsky the first JewishRussian poet to depict the Holocaust Shoah in the occupied Soviet territories.amp160In January 1942 while serving as a military journalist Selvinsky witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre of thousands of Jews outside the Crimean city of Kerch and thereafter composed and published poems about it.Shrayer painstakingly reconstructs the details of the Nazi atrocities witnessed by Selvinsky and shows that in 1943 as Stalins regime increasingly refused to report the annihilation of Jews in the occupied territories Selvinsky paid a high price for his writings and actions. This book features over 60 rare photographs and illustrations and includes translations of Selvinskyamp8217s principal Shoah poems.