Precisely 25 years ago, when we were distributing 250,000 food packages around Moscow, the "Memorial" office was one of many distribution sites. When an elderly recipient saw the U.S. flag on one side of the box, and the Joint Distribution Committee menorah on another, he told my colleague that Stalin's regime had sent him to the Gulag, falsely accused as a spy for the CIA and the Joint. Now, he was receiving a modest but vital gift from the U.S. Government and the Joint. And now, this.
Showing posts with label Stalin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stalin. Show all posts
July 26, 2017
Remember Stalin? He's back.
Precisely 25 years ago, when we were distributing 250,000 food packages around Moscow, the "Memorial" office was one of many distribution sites. When an elderly recipient saw the U.S. flag on one side of the box, and the Joint Distribution Committee menorah on another, he told my colleague that Stalin's regime had sent him to the Gulag, falsely accused as a spy for the CIA and the Joint. Now, he was receiving a modest but vital gift from the U.S. Government and the Joint. And now, this.
November 1, 2010
50 years after the Night of the Murdered Poets (originally published Aug. 12, 2002)
Fifty years ago, on August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow on orders from Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Although the world learned of this travesty in March 1956, reports had filtered out during the prisoners’ extended incarceration that something was amiss. The Jewish world, and no less the world at large, did little at the time to investigate their status or protest their incarceration.
The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created by the Soviets to promote U.S. support during World War II, was a group of Jews loyal to the Soviet cause and was by all accounts a success. Two of the Committee’s organizers – Isaac Fefer and Solomon Mikhoels – conducted a seven-month American tour in 1943, speaking to mass audiences including a packed rally in New York’s Polo Grounds, and gaining warm receptions from leading politicians, entertainers, and intellectuals. Later, as the aging Stalin consolidated his post-war power, he saw the Committee’s international work as a threat, and its Jewish flavor offered a prototype and pretext for stepped up persecution of Soviet Jews. Fifteen Soviet Jews were arrested in connection with the Committee from 1948 to 1949, with their interrogation and trial lasting until July 1952.
Fifty years ago, the lessons of the Holocaust were still raw and the lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement were yet to be claimed. Yet Itzik Fefer, in the chilling transcript of the secret trial [reprinted in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, editors, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, Yale 2001] answered the presiding officer’s challenges with no expectation of reward – quite the opposite. When asked, “Were the Jews really the only ones to suffer during the Great Patriotic War?” he replied unapologetically, “Yes, you will not find another people that has suffered as much as the Jewish people. Six million Jews were destroyed out of a total of 18 million – one-third. This was a great sacrifice. We had a right to our tears, and we fought against fascism.”
The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created by the Soviets to promote U.S. support during World War II, was a group of Jews loyal to the Soviet cause and was by all accounts a success. Two of the Committee’s organizers – Isaac Fefer and Solomon Mikhoels – conducted a seven-month American tour in 1943, speaking to mass audiences including a packed rally in New York’s Polo Grounds, and gaining warm receptions from leading politicians, entertainers, and intellectuals. Later, as the aging Stalin consolidated his post-war power, he saw the Committee’s international work as a threat, and its Jewish flavor offered a prototype and pretext for stepped up persecution of Soviet Jews. Fifteen Soviet Jews were arrested in connection with the Committee from 1948 to 1949, with their interrogation and trial lasting until July 1952.
Fifty years ago, the lessons of the Holocaust were still raw and the lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement were yet to be claimed. Yet Itzik Fefer, in the chilling transcript of the secret trial [reprinted in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, editors, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, Yale 2001] answered the presiding officer’s challenges with no expectation of reward – quite the opposite. When asked, “Were the Jews really the only ones to suffer during the Great Patriotic War?” he replied unapologetically, “Yes, you will not find another people that has suffered as much as the Jewish people. Six million Jews were destroyed out of a total of 18 million – one-third. This was a great sacrifice. We had a right to our tears, and we fought against fascism.”
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