"When I read the lists of those honored, I always look to see if there are any Jewish names and I am very happy when there are." Such knowledge helped Soviet Jews challenge antisemitism (that was increasing during the war among the people and members of the Soviet bureaucracy), which included the view that Jews were "bad soldiers."
A particular role in circulating information about the participation of Jews in combat and about Jewish heroism was played by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), which began operating in the spring of 1942. Approximately one third of all the publications prepared by or with the JAC dealt with Jews on the front lines. Some of them were published in the Committee's Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt, the first issue of which appeared in June 1942. Hundreds of other materials were sent to Jewish telegraphic agencies and Jewish newspapers abroad. These articles not only recounted the military exploits of Jews but often put the accounts into their more general ethnic context. The materials stressed the ethnic origin of the heroes and their following of the ancient Jewish heroic tradition, as embodied by Samson, the Macabbees, Bar Kochba etc. Many of the articles were intended to make the point that, in addition to the war they shared with the other Soviet peoples, Soviet Jews had their own war, their own score to settle with the Nazis. In 1942 the Soviet Yiddish prose writer Dovid Bergelson wrote that the Soviet Jews were fighting "Far zayn foterland un zayn yidishn folk," i.e., for their [Soviet] homeland and their Jewish people. As the details of the Nazi mass murder of Jewish civilians became increasing known during the war, the ethnic consciousness of a large proportion of Jewish soldiers and officers grew and increasingly motivated them in their fighting.
The 100 accounts of Jews in the Red Army that are included in the present project highlight those who received formal recognition, primarily as Heroes of the Soviet Union, of their military achievements. However, there are also many biographies of those whose services did not receive such a high level of recognition. Among those included on our website are generals, officers, and privates; tank crew members, submariners, pilots, translators and doctors; men and women; very young people who had recently left their childhoods behind and middle-aged people. These people acted on different fronts: they defended Moscow, took part in the battle for Stalingrad, liberated Ukraine and Belorussia, fought against Axis troops in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, and participated in the capture of Berlin. The stories tell about their pre-war experience as members of the intelligentsia, professional military men, or factory workers and - for those who survived the war - about events of their post-war life. Such an approach allows us to better understand the effect the war had on Jewish Red Army personnel.
Their biographies, included in the project in alphabetical order, often contain quotations from wartime articles and letters, as well as post-war memoirs. These texts cast light on the Jewish identity of these people and their reaction to the Holocaust.