Gen. Cherniakhovsky is Not Jewish; His Name Confused with Jewish General Cherniavsky

Gen. Ivan D. Cherniakhovsky, Soviet commander of the Third Byelorussian Army which is now at the gates of Germany, is not a Jew despite the fact that he is being hailed in the United States and in England as a Jewish front commander, it was established here today by the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The correspondent checked and rechecked on Gen. Cherniakhovsky’s genealogy, aided in this work by Soviet Jewish leaders who, after a thorough investigation, declare that Gen. Cherniakhovsky “is positively non-Jewish.”

It is taken for granted here that Gen. Cherniakhovsky’s name was confused abroad with the name of the Soviet Jewish General Mikhail Cherniavsky. Lieut. General Mikhail Cherniavsky who is well-known in the military world abroad as a tank-troops commander, is one of the Soviet commanders of the Second Baltic Army and has to his credit many victories over the Germans on that front. He comes from a poor Jewish family in Kiev and his father, Leib Cherniavsky, is reported here as having been engaged under the Czar “in a purely Jewish profession – in raising and pressing grapes and selling Sabbath wine.”

Lt. General Cherniavaky who is now 45 years old, was an electrician before the outbreak of the Russian revolution. He joined the Red Army as a volunteer when it was formed in the early years of the revolution. He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy and was appointed head of a Soviet tank school six years before the outbreak of the present war. His school was considered a model military educational establishment and turned out hundreds of tank commanders. When the war broke out, the Jewish general was put in charge of all tank schools in the Red Army.

Transferred later to command tank troops at the Baltic front, Gen. Cherniavsky succeeded in breaking through the German line at Idritsa and was lauded by Marshal Stalin in an order of the day as second-in-command of the Second Baltic Army.