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Bjlfl Journal VOLUME 4 No. 6 JUNE 2004 BJlfl journal H^l l^^lg ^ Association of Jewish Refugees The demons inside dictators' minds Whereas May comes on strong on the very taken up by his struggle with Trotsky, first day, June reaches its high point two- whom he fought as an intellectual thirds of the way through the month. On 21 internationalist - hence Stalin's slogan June, the date of the summer solstice, the 'Socialism in one country' - but not as a sun reaches the northernmost point of its Jew. In contrast to the polyglot highbrow ecliptic - the longest day ofthe year. Trotsky, Stalin would point to his trusted In the Third Reich the occasion used to l)uddy', the Jewish proletarian, i.e. ex- be marked by Sonnwendfeiern - cobbler, Lazar Kaganovich. For all that community singing, dancing and athletic Kaganovich was known by the contests around bonfires lit on hilltops and antisemitically tinged nickname in forest glades - as part ofthe Nazi drive to 'Kosherovich' among the Kremlin elite, he turn the country back from Christian to never entirely forfeited Stalin's trust. And there was another curious factor. Possibly pagan practices. Lazar Kaganovich The night of 21 June 1941 was also the because well brought up daughters of the date the astrology-conscious Hitler chose Hitler's Slavophobic inhumanity drove Tsarist bourgeoisie disdained professional to launch his most audacious enterprise, them back into Stalin's arms. revolutionaries as marriage partners, an the invasion of Russia. The invading forces The world Hitler envisioned after amazing number of Soviet high-ups - were staggeringly successful at first - but victory bore the hallmarks of his race- Molotov, Marshal Voroshilov, KGB chief foiled to land a decisive knock-out blow on mania. It was to be 'cleansed' of all Jews, Yezhov, etc. - had married less the retreating Red Army. Then, in and the vast spaces of Russia were to be conventionally minded Jewesses. October, the first snowfall heralding the inhabited by a severely culled Slav Early on, these Jewish wives in the bitter Russian winter brought the population in a state of perpetual serfdom Kremlin brought a badly needed touch Wehrmacht's advance to a temporary halt. to their German overlords. of glamour to Stalin's court. The whole Why did Hitler allow his troops the Whereas Hitler's pathological mindset phenomenon was symbolised by the ludicrously short time-span of four was fully formed by his late twenties, appointment of Polina Molotov as the months to vanquish an enemy who had Stalin's proceeded on its downward spiral first commissar of the Soviet worsted Napoleon? The answer lies in the into total paranoia throughout the best perfumery industry. pathological racism which addled his part of his life. In the thirties the rise of Hitler made brain. Reared in a home suffused with Pan- This had something to do with the Stalin stress the Soviet Union's anti-racist Germanism - his father was a Schonerer widely disparate origins of their credentials and allow another polyglot supporter - he hated 'mongrelised' Vienna, superficially similar totalitarian Jewish intellectual, Maxim Litvinov, to a city full of Slavs and Jews. ideologies. Nazism harked back - via (ill- represent Russia vis-d-vis the outside Convinced by his Slavophobia that the digested) Nietzsche to Gobineau's racism world. At Geneva Litvinov tirelessly Russians were a subhuman rabble, he and Fichte's Teutomania - to a rejection of preached 'collective security' to an proceeded on the assumption that the the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. unfortunately unresponsive West to Wehrmacht would 'finish the job' in one Marxism-Leninism, on the other hand, preserve peace. brief campaigning season. (Consequently was a bastardised offspring of that very Then in May 1939 Stalin replaced he omitted to provide his troops with same Enlightenment. Litvinov with Molotov, signalling to adequate winter clothing, causing This meant that the multinational Soviet Hitler that the way was open for a widespread frostbite.) Union over which Stalin ruled after 1924 Nazi-Soviet pact. (At the same time, he His pathological racism also militated subscribed - officially at least - to notions ordered Molotov to 'clear out the against a successful outcome of Operation of racial equality. It also meant that in the synagogue', i.e. purge the many Jews Barbarossa in another way. Russian - and newly established ruling apparatus staffing the foreign ministry.) especially Ukrainian - revulsion at Soviet minorities that had been discriminated With the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet rule with its forced collectivisation and against under the Tsar - such as Poles, Pact, the Russian media stopped reporting man-made famines had tumed many Georgians and Jews - were over- overnight the antisemitic atrocities that inhabitants of the German-occupied represented. occurred in German-occupied Eastern territories into potential collaborators, but The beginning of Stalin's reign was Europe. Soviet Jews therefore had no AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2004 Clients or friends? The changing role of the befriender Ronald Channing Maxim Litvinov inkling of the fate that was to overtake them once the Germans invaded - a fate symbolised by the dreadful massacre in Babi Yar near Kiev. At the height of the war the hard- Volunteer befrienders at AJR seminar led by Gill Yentis pressed Stalin, re-enacting his earlier role Volunteers who generously give of their new phone system - though changing a as a stalwart anti-antisemite, set up a time to visit AJR members in their homes light bulb may be equally important. Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in often find a reward in making deep Organisational changes may be Moscow and sent its chairman, the Yiddish friendships. But the nature of their role is significant too: for example, safe access actor Solomon Mikhoels, to the USA and continually subject to change and it is to the home - the lift, stairs and lighting; Britain to drum up support for the these changes, and how best they can be moving furniture or taking someone Soviet Union. accommodated, which constituted the shopping alone may not always be the Meanwhile in the territories newly theme of a recent seminar for 20 best thing to do; and the bef riender's car liberated from the Germans Soviet volunteer befrienders led by Gill Yentis at insurance should be extended. officialdom refused to treat Jewish theAJR's offices in Stanmore. There had to be recognised survivors as special cases, saying that all boundaries to the relationship. Soviet citizens had suffered equally at the Many people were pleased to become Befrienders were advised not to give hands ofthe Nazis. After 1945, in the run­ 'befrienders' especially to visit individuals their phone number to the friend, for up to the Israeli War of Independence, the within their own communities, but it is example. The dangers of being Soviets aided the Jewish cause, both not always clear what they should do. Do depended on for more and more tasks diplomatically and with arms shipments they offer listening skills or use talking had to be recognised too. from Czechoslovakia. skills to fill in those embarrassing silences? As time passes, the friend's Most preferred to call their hosts This was followed by another volte-face health, memory and mobility may well 'friends' though, in the final analysis, on Stalin's part. When Golda Meir arrived deteriorate, though this may not be 'clients' may be equally valid, as the visits as Israel's first ambassador to Moscow, admitted to. Also, close family and should not impinge on the befriender's Polina Molotov was observed chatting to friends are lost, mentally active people own family obligations and lifestyle. In her in Yiddish. This earned the Soviet can be frustrated by just having the TV to the end, it was clear from the articulate Prime Minister's Jewish wife a sentence of watch all day, and computerised gadgets contribution and enthusiasm of the eight years' banishment in Siberia, and and much else of modern technology befrienders that, as long as the advice of symbolised his growing suspicion that the probably prove incomprehensible! the AJR's Volunteers Coordinator was sympathies of Soviet Jews did not lie with followed and a little common sense was their socialist homeland, but with Israel On the positive side, trust and applied, being a befriender brought its and America. As Stalin's paranoia understanding may be increased, and a own special rewards. deepened over the last five years of his readiness to listen and share things To find out more about becoming, or life, Jews were cumulatively targeted. should enrich the relationship, yet avoid inviting, a befriender please contact First came the KGB's murder of Mikhoels, being over-obligated. Knowledge of how AJR's Volunteers Coordinator, Carol which coincided with a vicious media to cope with the new technology is Hart, on 0208 385 3070. campaign against 'rootless cosmopolitans'. helpful - how to tune a radio or set up a There followed the judicial murder of exponents of Yiddish culture such as AJR Journal Perets Markish and Leib Kvitko - a Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief rni JACKMAN • chapter of horrors climaxed by the Ronald Channing Executive Editor notorious Doctors' Plot. Howard Spier Editorial and Production **-^ SILVERMAN AJR Journal, Jubilee House, COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS It is rumoured that Stalin was even Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 4RL contemplating the mass deportation of Tel: 020 8385 3070 Fax: 020 8385 3080 Soviet Jewry to Siberia when he shuffled e-mail: [email protected] 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA off his mortal coil, thereby lifting the www.ajrorg.uk Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 shadow of fear from millions. AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2004 The longest hatred Richard Grunberger NEWTONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors advise on Mel Gibson's The Passion, which revives Lustlummel (lascivious lout) of the Property, Wills, Family Trusts the charge of Jewish deicide, also Berggasse, and charged Dr Ehrlich, and Charitable Trusts features some antisemitic grace notes.
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