Jews Urged to Pledge Aid to USSR on First Anniversary of Soviet-nazi War

Jews throughout the world were called upon today to observe the first anniversary of the Nazi attack on Russia by pledging on June 22 – the day of the anniversary – to fully support the Soviet armies in their fight “to annihilate the Nazis in 1942,” and to help in raising a fund for 1,000 tanks and bombers as a Jewish contribution to the Soviet war effort.

The call was issued by the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee here. It stated that Soviet Jews on that day will take a vow to avenge “the tortured, the burned, the massacred Jewish woman and children,” in addition to the general oath which they took as Soviet citizens a year ago, on the day when Nazi forces invaded Soviet territory.

Announcing that the tanks which will be built from Jewish contributions will be named after Jehuds Halevi, Bar Kochba, Spinoza, as well as after Soviet-Jewish war heroes, the appeal says that “responsibility for the existence of the Jewish people lies with all Jews collectively as with every Jew individually.” It refers to the Jewish fights “against the Humans of all times” and emphasizes that “the Jewish people must be saved from extinotion.”

“Together with all peoples of our country,” the appeal reads, “the Jews of the Soviet Union vowed to sacrifice themselves, to give up their property and their very lives in the struggle with sanguinary fascism. With our blood, with the blood of our children and of our brothers and sisters, we signed this vow. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, are now fighting on all fronts, from east to west and from north to south, on airplanes and ships, on tanks and submarines, at machine-gun and trench-mortar, in cavalry and partisan detachment, at ammunition lathe and in collective farm field, under hail of bombs. Wherever they are, they carry deep in their hearts the oath and fulfil it as loyal sons of their Soviet fatherland, as loyal sons of the Jewish people.”