Volume 32, Number 9 · May 30, 1985
The Fall of the Soviet Jews
By Martin Gilbert
The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948–1967
by Benjamin Pinkus
Cambridge University Press, 612 pp., $59.50
Soviet Jewry in the Decisive Decade, 1971–80
edited by Robert O. Freedman
Duke University Press, 167 pp., $34.75
Forty years ago, on May 9, 1945, the defeat of Nazi Germany was celebrated throughout the Soviet Union. On that day, the 2.5 million Jews of the Soviet Union were not without hope for a better future. More than a million Jews had been murdered by the notorious Nazi Einsatzgruppen killing squads on Soviet soil. Several hundred thousand more Jews had fallen in battle in the ranks of the Red Army. More than two hundred Jews had risen to the rank of general in the Red Army, a figure confirmed by Benjamin Pinkus in his comprehensive documentary study. From the earliest months of the war, Soviet Jews had been active behind German lines in the ranks of the partisans. A Red Army officer, Alexander Pechersky, had been among the leaders of the revolt of Jewish slave laborers in the Sobibor death camp.
Review, 4260 words
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