The 70th Anniversary of the Execution of the Members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

On Friday, August 12, the global Jewish community marks the 70th anniversary of the execution of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). Commemorative events dedicated to these tragic occurrences took place this week in Israel and abroad. The press service of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress reflects on how the memory of the JAC is maintained within the Jewish community.

The Jerusalem Post published an op-ed by EAJC Director General Dr. Haim Ben Yakov under the headline “Jews in a Totalitarian Prison.” The author recalls the history of the organization, established in late 1941 at the initiative of the Central Committee apparatus of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as a propaganda organ. The objective of the JAC was to foster favorable public opinion towards the USSR within the Anti-Hitler coalition countries and to organize fund-raising campaigns within Western Jewish communities for the needs of the Red Army. The committee's success in achieving this goal, coupled with its explicit loyalty to the Soviet authorities, did not prevent the destruction of most JAC members during one of the first post-war anti-Semitic campaigns, conducted by the NKVD under Stalin's orders. JAC Chairman Solomon M. Mikhoels was assassinated, and 13 of its members were executed. However, in late 1955, all members of the JAC were posthumously rehabilitated due to the absence of any criminal offense in their actions. Researchers believe that the 'trigger' for these campaigns was the wave of enthusiasm that swept through Soviet Jewry following the creation of the State of Israel, and the immediate catalyst was the mass demonstrations of solidarity during the visits of the first Israeli ambassador, Golda Meir, to the Moscow synagogue. This essentially fell onto well-prepared ground of the regime’s developing, state-sanctioned anti-Jewish policy, which had began long before Golda Meir's synagogue visit.

“Jewish theater actor and director Benjamin Zuskin was sentenced to death for 'staging plays that glorify Jewish antiquity, describe the traditions of Jewish shtetls, and the tragic death of the Jewish people, thereby awakening national sentiments in Jewish audiences,' — writes Ben Yakov. — Journalist and literary critic Miriam Eisenshtadt was executed for publishing a list of 135 Jewish war heroes in the 'Eynikeyt' publication, accompanied by essays on some of them. In a note left to her husband and daughter, she wrote: 'The charges against me are monstrous. I will sign nothing, which means we will never see each other again'”.

In anticipation of August 12, commemorative events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the execution of the JAC members were held at the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. Specifically, on August 4, prose writer and literary historian Natalya Gromova delivered a lecture titled «The Apogee of Stalinism and the Destruction of Jewish Culture in the USSR (1945–1953)», and on August 11, a literary-theatric presentation titled «We Mourn You with Every Letter of the Alef-Beis...» was staged. The events were organized by the International Yiddish Center at the World Jewish Congress, with the coordination and support of the ANU Museum and the Nadav Foundation.

In her lecture, Natalya Gromova spoke about the circumstances preceding the complete obliteration of Jewish culture in the USSR, including the resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU on culture and art, the 'anti-cosmopolitan' campaigns, the Soviet authorities’ ban of 'The Black Book'—a collection of testimonies and evidence about Nazi crimes against the Jewish population in the occupied territories of the USSR and Poland,—the murder of director, actor, and educator Solomon Mikhoels, the dissolution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the 'Leningrad Affair', the 'Theater Critics Affair', the arrests of Jewish writers, and other repressions.

The production «We Mourn You with Every Letter of the Alef-Beis...», written by Mordechai Yushkovsky, was staged by the artistic director of the Malenky Theater, Michael Teplitsky. Recognized Israeli actors Elena Yaralova, Andrei Kashker, and Nikolai Tuberovsky read celebrated poetry and prose within the performance.

The execution of those sentenced in the JAC trial stands as one of the most tragic chapters in the campaign to eradicate Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. The night of August 11-12, 1952, entered Jewish history as the 'Night of the Murdered Poets,' although among the 13 executed, there were 4 poets and 1 prose writer: poets David Hofstein, Lev Kvitko, Peretz Markish, Itzik Feffer; writer David Bergelson; actor and director Benjamin Zuskin; journalists, editors, and translators Ilya Vatenberg, Chaika Vatenberg-Ostrovskaya, Leon Talmy, Emilia Teumin, Joseph Yuzefovich; head of the Soviet Information Bureau Solomon Lozovsky; and Boris Shimeliovich, chief physician of the Botkin Central Clinical Hospital. While the lists of those executed and repressed in connection with the JAC trial alone number in the hundreds, and other anti-Jewish trials across the country were countless, it is the 'Night of the Murdered Poets' that is observed as the symbolic date of remembrance for all who perished during that dark era.

To mark this anniversary, the International Research and Education Center for Holocaust and Genocide History of the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) along with the Holocaust Center prepared a collection of papers from the academic conference dedicated to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The Lechaim website publishes a selection of these. The complete collection is available in digital format on the website of the Holocaust Center. The edition includes contributions from researchers in Russia, Israel, the United States, and France. Scholars analyzed both key and lesser-known aspects of the activities of the JAC and its leadership, including efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

On August 12, the Telegram channel “Pyaty Punkt” referenced a publication from the December 1989 issue of the journal 'Izvestia of the CPSU Central Committee', in which the national leadership rehabilitated the members of the JAC and formally acknowledged the state's role in their persecution.

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress is actively involved in projects aimed at honoring the memory of the repressed members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In collaboration with the Last Address project, the EAJC has installed several memorial plaques in recent years to commemorate the members of the JAC. In particular, plaques were installed in memory of Itzik Feffer, Leon Talmy, Benjamin Zuskin, and others. In 2020, the EAJC and the GULAG History Museum published a booklet on the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee titled «The Unquenchable Lamp».

Furthermore, in 2020, Moscow hosted the premiere screening of a unique six-part documentary project by the Babel bookstore (Tel Aviv) and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress titled “The Markish Affair.” All episodes of the film are available on the EAJC YouTube channel.

In early 2021, Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, with the support of the EAJC, published a Hebrew translation of the book 'From Border to Border' by David Markish, the son of the late Peretz Markish. “This is an important book—both for me and for the Jewish people,” D. Markish noted in a private letter to EAJC Director General Dr. Haim Ben Yakov.

The EAJC intends to continue initiating and supporting programs and acts aimed at preserving the memory of the repressed members of the JAC. May their memory be a blessing.