Soviet Tanks and Bombers Will Be Named After Bar Kochba, Spinoza, Heine

Soviet tanks and bombers will be named after Bar Kochba, the leader of the Jewish insurrection against the Roman emperor Hadrian in 132-55 C.E., it was announced here today at a plenary session of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee.

The announcement was made in connection with the drive which the Committee has proclaimed for a fund to build 1,000 tanks and 500 airplanes as a Jewish contribution to the Soviet war effort, in addition to the general participation of the Jews in the war on land, on sea, in the air and in defense work.

The sum of 1,000,000 roubles, approximately $200,000, was subscribed today to this fund by the Jews of Biro-Bidjan, the Jewish autonomous region in the Far East. A call to the Jews abroad to donate contributions towards the fund was issued by the Committee last week.

“The tank columns and war planes built from this fund,” S. Michoels, the president of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee, declared at today’s session, “will bear the name of Bar Kochba and other fighters for Jewish freedom. They will also be named after Spinoza, Heinrich Heine, the Jewish writer Shalom-Aleichem and other Jewish personalities.”

DATA ON JEWISH HEROISM COLLECTED IN SOVIET RUSSIA

Parallel with raising funds to provide tanks and planes for the Soviet armies, the Jewish Committee will also collect date on the participation of Soviet Jews in the present war, on the front and in the defense industries, Mr. Michoels announced. The Committee, he said, has already taken steps to secure the records of many Jews who distinguished themselves on the battlefields and as partisans fighting in guerrilla units behind the German lines. Records will also be compiled concerning the role which Jewish women are playing in the battles at the front and in war work in factories and on the farms.

“It is important that not only we in the USSR know of our Jewish heroes, but that the entire world know of them,” Michoels stated. He added that all the data which will be compiled by the Committee will be published and sent abroad.

Pointing out that the Jews in Soviet Russia do not need any special relief from abroad because they enjoy the same protection from the state as do all other citizens, Michoels emphasized that in making the appeal to Jews in the democratic countries to contribute to the fund for the 1,000 tanks and 500 planes, the Committee was concerned with “the life and the honor of the Jewish people itself.” The fate of the Jews, he said, is now being decided where the struggle against the Nazis is most intense – on the Soviet battlefields.

It was revealed at today’s session that a number of Soviet Jewish writers have composed a special voluntary oath for Jews. This oath will be taken by the Jews in Russia as “sons of the Jewish people,” pledging themselves to sacrifice their lives in the fight against Fascism, in addition to the general vow which they took, together with all other people of the USSR, on the day when the Nazi armies invaded Soviet territory.