Jews in WW2

In the summer of 1942, the debut edition of Aynikayt published two documents that were designed to sketch the national framework of the Anti-fascist Committee and its organ, Aynikayt. The lines were drawn in the paper's appeal to world Jewry to demonstrate unity in the struggle against the Nazis, foremost by furnishing the red Army with enough material aid to manufacture 1,000 tanks and 500 warplanes.

Ten days after the appeals to the Jews were published, an editorial in Aynikayt repeated the demand to speed up preparations for the opening of a second front in Europe and to step up fundraising for the purchase of weapons that the Red Army needed. The editorial emphasized the following fact: For year now, the multinational Soviet people has been waging that carries the significance of saving all of humankind, including the Jewish people. It is this contribution, in Aynikayt's opinion that will show the whole world the identity of interests between the struggle of Soviet Russia and that of the Jews, who are dispersed across the face of the earth.

Driven by the theese appeals and their national passion, Soviet Jews fought together against the enemy of both humankind and of the Jewish people. For example Aaron Chernyak, senior lieutenant David Triers, and major Shleifman were Jewish Soviet soldiers of the Red Army, fighting Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front of WWII - the Great Patriotic War. From different backgrounds and with different destinies, they felt a connection based on their Jewish ancestry, as well as a connection in response to society’s preconceptions. Reading David Trier’s inscription Chernyak is compelled to disprove the myth that Jews hid in the evacuation city of Tashkent to avoid participation in combat. He is eager to dispel these rumors, through example of the experiences of his comrades-in-arms and his own. At the same time, Chernyak is proud of his contribution to the defense of the “Motherland” – the Soviet Union.



Aaron Chernyak, born on June 21 1921 in Smolensk, Russia, was drafted by the Red Army in 1939. On July 2, 1941 he arrived at the front, a soldier in the artillery forces, and continued fighting on the front lines until May 9, 1945. In 1942, Chernyak was fighting with the 500th Light Artillery Regiment. A particular profile seemed to characterize the unit. In this regiment, as if on purpose, there were mostly Jews. Many of the officers were Jews.

There is more information about Chernyak's combat path here: Edit [Moderator]: Link removed

This year is the 70th anniversary of that great victory. However, the U.S.-led NATO governments have turned the world’s celebration of the defeat of Nazism into an ideological offensive against the Soviet Union and against today’s Russian Federation.

The story of Aaron Chernyak proves that Great Patriotic War was not a struggle between Germans and Russians or any revisionist meme. As african-americans was discriminated and hardly could be enlisted in the US army, multiethnic and multinational Soviet Red Army was waging a struggle against brutal fascist invaders intent on the complete annihilation of most people in Eastern Europe. Historically, it was a fact that the Red Army was carrying the heaviest burden and making the greatest sacrifices of all in the war against the Nazis. Not only Russians but all the peoples of the multinational USSR had also suffered the greatest casualties that Nazi-led German imperialism had inflicted. And the share of Soviet Jews in the Red Army on the front, the number of those dying in action, and the proportion of those receiving citations for heroism surpassed immeasurably those of Jews in the American and British armies and volunteers from the Yishuv in Palestine. Let's not forget about it.