Stalin and the Jews: the red book: the tragedy of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the Soviet Jews

Abstract

* Comprensive account of the fate of Soviet Jews and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee *A painful but necessary exploration of one of the twentieth century's great human tragedies *Written by a Polish Holocaust survivor This is the complete history of the state-sponsored terrorism of the Jews under Stalin. Lustiger's book sets itself apart from others on the subject as it analyses and documents how Soviet and Russian governments manipulated anti-Semitism in Russia. The story is an epic one, from the twilight of Imperial Russia, through the 1917 Revolution, to World War II and beyond. At the heart of the narrative is the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which was established in 1942 in order to enlist Jewish support for the Soviet war effort in the face of the Nazi threat. Stalin initially gave the committee his impimatur, but he was soon to revoke his approval with the utmost ruthlessness, imprisoning, torturing and eventually murdering the two leaders of the committee, Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter. The deaths of Erlich and Alter, however, were merely the prologue to Stalin's sinister ambitions. In 1953 he prepared to execute the Doctors'Plot, a scheme which would lay the groundwork for the eventual exile of all Soviet Jews to Siberia. The plan was due to begin on Purim Day, 28 February, but providence intervened and Stalin suffered a stroke that very same day, putting an end to his horrific plan. Stalin and the Jews is an eloquent and comprehensive testimony to the privations and persecution suffered by Soviet Jews in the Stalin era. As Roman Brackman writes in his Introduction,'Arno Lustiger has done more than offer the most exhaustive, indeed encyclopedic, account of the monumental tragedy that befell the Soviet Jews during the rule of Joseph Stalin. He has saved them from a second death and destruction through the failure of posterity to honor their memory.'