Hundreds of thousands of Jews evacuated from various sections of Nazi-occupied Russia have been settled throughout the Soviet Union where they have the possibilities of continuing their lives as “Soviet citizens and Jews,” it was stated today by Jacob Sternberg, Soviet-Jewish writer who recently returned from a tour of many of the regions where the Jews have been settled.
What makes this evacuation different from that of 1914 when many Jews were forced to leave the same areas, is the fact that today “the progressive and national culture of the Jews” accompanies then, Sternberg pointed out. Jewish literature and the Jewish theatre flourish in these new Jewish settlements, some of which are in far-distant Siberia.
He stressed that at the very outset of the Nazi invasion of Russia, many Jewish communities in the western Ukraine, United Russia, Moldavia, Lithuania and Latvia, fell to the Germans. All the Jews would have fallen into the hands of the Germans if not for their timely and brilliant evacuation, carried out with the aid of the Government, the Russian-Jewish writer declared. What destruction occurred, and it was on a large-scale, was the work of the Jews themselves, who did not wish to leave “even a rag” for the invader, he said.
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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.
