The claim that Jews did not contribute
sufficiently in the war effort of their host country, or to put it
otherwise, stayed in the rear instead of fighting, is not new and was
never limited to Russia. Suffice it to mention the accusations made
against German Jewry during the First World War and its aftermath at the
official level and in public opinion. In the Tsarist Empire such
charges were especially pronounced during the First World War when they
were made by the country’s military and civil authorities. The situation in the Soviet Union
during the Second World War was different. Soviet government never
accused its Jewish citizens of sitting on the fence. Yet, Soviet public
opinion was permeated to no small extent by such accusations. This came
partly from traditional centuries-long perception of Jews as a nation
that did best to refrain from getting involved in fighting. Much more
perilous, however, was the Nazi propaganda claim that attempted to
inculcate in the Soviet population the idea of Jewish cowardice and of
their sending non-Jews to fight for Jews.
In a way, it seems to me that Nazi
propaganda succeeded, at least partly, in this respect. That Soviet Jews
excelled on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviet-German
war in 1941-45 came to be known in the USSR, was known to masses of
Soviet Jews by virtue of the fact that very many of them served in the
army, worked in military plants, and, to a smaller extent, were involved
in anti-German activities in the occupied territories. Yet, apart from a
circle of those with whom Jews fought and worked to achieve the victory
over Nazi Germany, this was far from being clear to many in the midst
of the Soviet population.
Furthermore, the fact that many Soviet
Jews, whether in the occupied territories or in those under Soviet
control, struggled and were “not led to slaughter like cattle” remained
for years far from being clear to Western and Israeli audience. This had
to do with the main Holocaust narrative underlining suffering and
martyrdom. In Israel, Jewish heroism was largely associated with the
Warsaw ghetto uprising. But the main reason why this knowledge escaped
the attention of Western and Israeli public was “Iron curtain”. During
the Cold War, the overwhelming trend in Holocaust research was to
downplay the affinity of Soviet and Jewish interests in the Second World
War. Only the fall of the USSR made it possible for Holocaust scholars
to acknowledge high profile fighting of Jews on the Soviet side or
alongside the Soviet side. And Yitzhak Arad, himself a Jewish fighter
who fought on the Soviet side against the Nazis, and who rose to
prominence in Israel both as a public figure and a leading Holocaust
historian, is probably the ideal one to chronicle the heroic saga of
Jews who struggled “under the Red banner” against Nazi Germany.
Arad’s account is truly panoramic, multidimensional account and
encompasses, to borrow his own words, “the broad spectrum of Jewish
activities during the war in their entirety: the army, the underground,
the partisans, the battle waged by the prisoners of war for survival and
the development and manufacture of weapons” (p. xvii).The volume provides a solid background
describing the developments in Eastern Europe from the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 to the German invasion of the
Soviet Union in June 1941. The author then studies meticulously the
participation of Jews in fighting in the ranks of the Red Army on the
fronts, in the branches (including medical corps, political
administration, air forces, navy, and intelligence) throughout the
entire war period. Part two covers Jewish participation in the war
industries. Arad then turns to depicting the Nazi occupation of the
Soviet territories and the activities of varied partisan movements
operating there. This serves him as a background for the Jewish armed
resistance in the occupied territories (underground in ghettos -- the
subject where the book is particularly strong -- and fighting in
forests) described in the next chapters.
One of the delights of this volume is
the verve with which its author knowingly describes the Jewish fighting.
He does not write in numbers -- although his conclusions rely heavily
on statistics, Arad admits that in too many cases such data are
controversial or simply unavailable – but describes in details hundreds
of examples of Jewish heroism.
In the Shadow of the Red Banner
corresponds to no small extent with previous books by Yitzhak Arad, in
particular with his “History of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union” (two
volumes in Hebrew and one volume in English). In my opinion, part of
this background information, could be omitted from the present volume,
without jeopardizing its integrity.
I feel a certain amount of discomfort
because in such a big (in all senses) book Yitzhak Arad did not tell us
explicitly how he gauges Jewish contribution to the Soviet military
effort, below the average, at the average, or over the average. Nor did
he provide a clue to the question that haunted me: why did the Jews
fight the way they did? Was it only fighting against the Nazis because
understandably, they had no choice? If so, what about the first period
of the war, when the news of German mistreatment of Jews did not reach
Jewish soldiers and civilians?
Despite my concerns and questions, In
the Shadow of the Red Banner, offers a rich and comprehensive history of
Jewish contribution to the Soviet victory. The author should be
particularly praised for a wide range of sources in several languages
and an updated bibliography. In short, this is a wonderful and
well-written study of a critically important case that continues to have
impact both for the Jewish audience and beyond its borders.
D-r Kirill Feferman, Martyrdom and Resistance 37, 3 (January-February 2011).