1942 April 6, JEWISH ANTI-FACIST COMMITTEE (Russia)
Was founded, with its goal being to drum up Jewish support for the Soviet war effort. Although it was headed by the famous actor Solomon Mikholes, it was actually the initiative of the Soviet government. Other important members were Ilya Ehrenburg (the Russian author), Solomon Lozovsky, a member of the Communist Central Committee, and David Bergelson (a well know Yiddish writer).. After the war, the group had planned to publish the Black book of Soviet Jewry, in New York and Moscow. Stalin was vehemently opposed to any contact with the west, and any recognition of the Jewish rather than soviet aspect of the holocaust. Mikohels was killed by the secret police in January 1948. Bergelson and Lozovsky were liquidated by Stalin in 1952 as were most of the other members. Only Ehrenburg and Lina Shtern the scientist survived the purge.
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