Solomon Michoels, president of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Russia,and Itzik Feffer, Jewish poet and member of the same committee, who arrived in the United States this week as a delegation representing the Jews of Russia, today issued a joint statement emphasizing that the purpose of their visit is “to unite the efforts of the Jews of all countries in the sacred struggle” for the complete destruction of Hitlerism. The delegation will leave Washington on Monday for New York.
“We bring with us greetings to their American brothers from the Jews of the Soviet Union who shoulder to shoulder with other peoples of the U.S.S.R. are waging a fierce fight against the most cruel enemy of all mankind, against the oppressor and exterminator of peoples and murderer of the Jewish people, against Fascism,”their statement said. “Our aim is to achieve without sparing any efforts the complete destruction of Hitlerism in all its forms and manifestations.
“We believe that we shall succeed in helping to unite efforts of the Jews of all countries in this sacred struggle. The unity of these efforts is the imperative demand of the day, a matter of life and future not only for our own people but of all freedom loving peoples. The peoples of the Soviet Union permeated by the spirit of this struggle wish to achieve, hand in hand with the peoples of the United States, Great Britain and all the peoples of the United Nations, a decisive victory in the shortest possible time. This struggle demands courage, heroism and self-sacrifice. These qualities are necessary not only for those at the front but for all of us in our every-day life, no matter how far away from the front we may be.
“The blood of our brothers and sisters who have been mutilated, tortured, hanged and shot by Hitlerite hangmen calls for revenge, for decisive actions, for the mobilization of all the people’s forces, for the subordination of all interests to one aim – struggle and victory. To consolidate the efforts of the people in the struggle against Fascism, to increase and multiply the ranks of the fighters against Fascism-those are the tasks confronting us.”
The delegation came to the United States on the invitations of the Jewish Council for Russian War Relief and the Committee of Jewish Writers and Artists.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
