Pleading for Jewish unity as an essential element of Allied unity in the fight against Hitlerism, Prof. Solomon Michoels and Lieut.-Col. Itzik Feffer, the Jewish delegation from Russia, last night reported how huge numbers of Russian, Polish, Rumanian and German Jews were saved from Nazi extermination through timely evacuation by the Soviet authorities.
Speaking before an audience of 47,000 people who came to welcome them at the Polo Grounds, the two Russian-Jewish representatives also pictured the heroism of the Jews in Russia both on the battlefield and on the home front and emphasized that if the Russian Army had not defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad, Palestine and other countries in the Middle East would have suffered the same fate as many Russian cities now under Nazi occupation.
“As long as a single Fascist lives, our lives are insecure and all peoples, especially the Jews, are in danger,” Feffer said. “The Jews of the Soviet Union and the United States are the majority of the Jewish people. Together we are ten million Jews. Upon us lies the responsibility of the fate of the Jewish people. The enemy has already destroyed about four million of our people, almost a fourth. Unity is the surest guarantee of victory. He who speaks against the unity of our people aids the enemy.”
Prof, Mikhoels said that “the Red Army avenges the bestial atrocities of the Nazi enemy. Shoulder to shoulder with all the peoples of the Soviet Union, the Jews of our country wage battle against the enemy. We are witnessing now the most righteous, yea, the holiest but also the bloodiest and most gruesome, war. The unity and brotherhood of the United Nations will decide the struggle.”
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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.
