In2HiDef
11-21-2010, 03:01 PM
‘Let the Jewish people know we fought’
By JOANNA PARASZCZUK ([email protected])
11/19/2010 12:22
Most Israelis are ignorant of the fact that 1.5 million Jews fought Hitler and Nazism during World War II.
http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=153487
Red Army veteran Shalom Scopas defies his 85 years as he dashes about the mini-museum of World War II memorabilia he has created in the basement of his Holon home. His bright blue eyes sparking with pride, he points out rows of medals, sepia snapshots of himself as a dashing young man in his smart Soviet uniform, and letters of gratitude from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Dmitry_Medvedev) and former president Vladimir Putin (http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Vladimir_Putin).
Scopas is one of half a million Soviet Jews who joined the Red Army to fight against the Nazis. Forty percent of these Jewish recruits died in battle, the highest percentage of all the USSR’s ethnic groups.
Soviet Jews were not the only ones to join the fight against the Nazis. One and a half million Jews from all over the world fought in World War II, including 150,000 women. A quarter million of these Jewish fighters fell in battle.
“Yet most Israelis, especially young people, don’t know that so many Jews stood up and fought Hitler and Nazism,” says Scopas. “It’s very sad.”
Scopas was born in 1925 in Panevezys, one of the largest centers of Jewish life in Lithuania. The Baltic state was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and a year later by the Nazis.
As the German forces approached Panevezys in June 1941, panic gripped the town. Scopas’s mother told him to flee to Russia with his older brother, Hillel.
The 16-year-old managed to hitch a ride out of Panevezys on a Red Army truck, but Hillel didn’t make it.
It was the last time Scopas was to see his family. Four days later, the Nazis entered Panevezys. Lithuanian Nazi collaborators murdered Rochel Leah and sons Hillel, Shimon and Avraham on August 28, 1941.
By 1943, Panevezys’s Jewish community had been obliterated. Scopas reached Russia and in 1942 joined the Red Army.
“I was Jewish. I wanted to fight the Nazis,” he says, switching from Hebrew to Russian as his memories take him back in time. Scopas was assigned to the razvedchiki, specially trained troops who went behind enemy lines to capture what the Russians dubbed yazyki (“tongues”) – German soldiers who were pumped for information about enemy plans.
“We were sent out on undercover missions,” Scopas relates. “One day we went to bring back ‘tongues’ from a German military hospital in the forest. We captured several Germans. One of the captive officers lit a cigarette.
I said in Yiddish: ‘Put it out, the smoke will give away our position. He refused... I killed him on the spot.
“I had to. I still have nightmares. It was terrible. War is awful, a terrible thing.”
On January 12, 1945, Scopas went behind enemy lines for what would be his last retrieval mission.
“When we went out, I carried a medal, ‘For Courage’, in my breast pocket. We attacked a line of Nazis in the forest. In the fighting, we lost three comrades. Then the enemy lobbed a grenade at me from close range. I woke up days later in hospital covered in wounds. The doctor said if it hadn’t been for that medal over my heart, I’d have been a goner for sure.
“A piece of the medal was missing where shrapnel hit it! It saved my life.”
The Red Army’s Jewish soldiers knew nothing about the death camps until the end of the war. “When we found out, it was terrible. We were in shock. Horrified. We wept and wept,” Scopas remembers.
Scopas made aliya in 1959, fleeing rampant anti- Semitism in the USSR. Despite his many decorations and the honor he has received in Russia and Israel for his wartime bravery, the traumas of war have not left him.
“I am disabled. I still feel trauma, sometimes depression,” he admits. “War is cruel and terrible.”
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Zvi Kan-Tor, who over the past decade has pushed forward plans for a dedicated museum to commemorate Jewish fighters like Scopas, describes the extent of the global Jewish contribution to the war as “enormous.” Jews fought in the ranks of the Allied Forces, in underground movements, as partisans and in the ghettos themselves, in every single battle in Europe, North Africa and the Far East, on land, air and sea.
“THE BIGGEST army that fought against the Nazis was the Jews. No other nation on earth provided so many soldiers,” explains Kan-Tor. Yet the fact that so many Jewish soldiers enlisted to fight against Nazism, or fought as partisans has thus far been overlooked in Israeli and Jewish history.
“In Israel people are not aware of the extent of Jewish heroism in World War II,” stresses Kan-Tor. “It’s a historical injustice.”
To shed light on this neglected chapter of Jewish history, Kan-Tor and a team of other World War II experts and veterans have revealed plans for a museum dedicated to the subject, The Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II.
Why is this museum being created only now, 62 years after the State of Israel was founded? “There is a deficit in our education,” believes Kan-Tor.
“In the first years of the State of Israel, the country faced tremendous difficulties. The trauma of World War II, then the War of Independence, financial troubles, international pressures. Huge waves of aliya brought Jews from all over the world. At the same time, Israel needed to build a new nation, a new country.”
To do this, Israel needed Israeli heroes, says Kan-Tor.
“We grew up on our own heroes, from the Lehi, the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’i Leumi. It’s painful to say it, but those from poor, old broken Europe were not heroes then,” he continues sadly. “At that time, even Shoah survivors were not heroes.” This sounds unthinkable to contemporary Israeli ears.
But the young Jewish state was determined to build a strong national identity that would enable it to rise from the ashes of World War II – and fight its own wars.
As the years passed, Israeli Jews were forced to come to terms with the enormity of the Shoah.
“In 1961 came a watershed: the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Everyone heard what happened in that trial, and suddenly, people started to talk,” says Kan-Tor. “We realized, we understood that Shoah survivors had so much to tell us.”
In 1953, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established by government decree. In the 1960s, a permanent museum to honor and remember the six million who perished was created in Jerusalem.
With the 1980s came another turning point: the fall of the Iron Curtain opened up Eastern Europe to outside visitors.
“Now we could visit Poland,” says Kan-Tor. “We saw the camps. We knew those who we thought victims were really heroes.”
THE DISINTEGRATION of the USSR in 1989 opened the gates for hundreds of thousands of Jews from former Soviet countries to make aliya. Now Israelis saw another side to the events of World War II.
“We saw Russian olim wearing medals,” remembers Kan-Tor. “They brought with them new customs like Veterans’ Days. We heard Russians talking about the Great Patriotic War. Here were Jews who fought against the Nazis.”
The Jewish soldiers had a unique role in the war, says Dr. Tamar Ketko, a World War II expert and curator of the new museum. “They had a double identity. They were recruited as Soviet, American or British soldiers but they also fought as Jews.”
As more became known about the extent of the Jewish contribution in World War II, ideas started to germinate about commemorating the Jewish fighters. Like all ideas, it started out small – a single room at the Armored Corps Memorial in Latrun.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUK ([email protected])
11/19/2010 12:22
Most Israelis are ignorant of the fact that 1.5 million Jews fought Hitler and Nazism during World War II.
http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=153487
Red Army veteran Shalom Scopas defies his 85 years as he dashes about the mini-museum of World War II memorabilia he has created in the basement of his Holon home. His bright blue eyes sparking with pride, he points out rows of medals, sepia snapshots of himself as a dashing young man in his smart Soviet uniform, and letters of gratitude from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Dmitry_Medvedev) and former president Vladimir Putin (http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Vladimir_Putin).
Scopas is one of half a million Soviet Jews who joined the Red Army to fight against the Nazis. Forty percent of these Jewish recruits died in battle, the highest percentage of all the USSR’s ethnic groups.
Soviet Jews were not the only ones to join the fight against the Nazis. One and a half million Jews from all over the world fought in World War II, including 150,000 women. A quarter million of these Jewish fighters fell in battle.
“Yet most Israelis, especially young people, don’t know that so many Jews stood up and fought Hitler and Nazism,” says Scopas. “It’s very sad.”
Scopas was born in 1925 in Panevezys, one of the largest centers of Jewish life in Lithuania. The Baltic state was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and a year later by the Nazis.
As the German forces approached Panevezys in June 1941, panic gripped the town. Scopas’s mother told him to flee to Russia with his older brother, Hillel.
The 16-year-old managed to hitch a ride out of Panevezys on a Red Army truck, but Hillel didn’t make it.
It was the last time Scopas was to see his family. Four days later, the Nazis entered Panevezys. Lithuanian Nazi collaborators murdered Rochel Leah and sons Hillel, Shimon and Avraham on August 28, 1941.
By 1943, Panevezys’s Jewish community had been obliterated. Scopas reached Russia and in 1942 joined the Red Army.
“I was Jewish. I wanted to fight the Nazis,” he says, switching from Hebrew to Russian as his memories take him back in time. Scopas was assigned to the razvedchiki, specially trained troops who went behind enemy lines to capture what the Russians dubbed yazyki (“tongues”) – German soldiers who were pumped for information about enemy plans.
“We were sent out on undercover missions,” Scopas relates. “One day we went to bring back ‘tongues’ from a German military hospital in the forest. We captured several Germans. One of the captive officers lit a cigarette.
I said in Yiddish: ‘Put it out, the smoke will give away our position. He refused... I killed him on the spot.
“I had to. I still have nightmares. It was terrible. War is awful, a terrible thing.”
On January 12, 1945, Scopas went behind enemy lines for what would be his last retrieval mission.
“When we went out, I carried a medal, ‘For Courage’, in my breast pocket. We attacked a line of Nazis in the forest. In the fighting, we lost three comrades. Then the enemy lobbed a grenade at me from close range. I woke up days later in hospital covered in wounds. The doctor said if it hadn’t been for that medal over my heart, I’d have been a goner for sure.
“A piece of the medal was missing where shrapnel hit it! It saved my life.”
The Red Army’s Jewish soldiers knew nothing about the death camps until the end of the war. “When we found out, it was terrible. We were in shock. Horrified. We wept and wept,” Scopas remembers.
Scopas made aliya in 1959, fleeing rampant anti- Semitism in the USSR. Despite his many decorations and the honor he has received in Russia and Israel for his wartime bravery, the traumas of war have not left him.
“I am disabled. I still feel trauma, sometimes depression,” he admits. “War is cruel and terrible.”
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Zvi Kan-Tor, who over the past decade has pushed forward plans for a dedicated museum to commemorate Jewish fighters like Scopas, describes the extent of the global Jewish contribution to the war as “enormous.” Jews fought in the ranks of the Allied Forces, in underground movements, as partisans and in the ghettos themselves, in every single battle in Europe, North Africa and the Far East, on land, air and sea.
“THE BIGGEST army that fought against the Nazis was the Jews. No other nation on earth provided so many soldiers,” explains Kan-Tor. Yet the fact that so many Jewish soldiers enlisted to fight against Nazism, or fought as partisans has thus far been overlooked in Israeli and Jewish history.
“In Israel people are not aware of the extent of Jewish heroism in World War II,” stresses Kan-Tor. “It’s a historical injustice.”
To shed light on this neglected chapter of Jewish history, Kan-Tor and a team of other World War II experts and veterans have revealed plans for a museum dedicated to the subject, The Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II.
Why is this museum being created only now, 62 years after the State of Israel was founded? “There is a deficit in our education,” believes Kan-Tor.
“In the first years of the State of Israel, the country faced tremendous difficulties. The trauma of World War II, then the War of Independence, financial troubles, international pressures. Huge waves of aliya brought Jews from all over the world. At the same time, Israel needed to build a new nation, a new country.”
To do this, Israel needed Israeli heroes, says Kan-Tor.
“We grew up on our own heroes, from the Lehi, the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’i Leumi. It’s painful to say it, but those from poor, old broken Europe were not heroes then,” he continues sadly. “At that time, even Shoah survivors were not heroes.” This sounds unthinkable to contemporary Israeli ears.
But the young Jewish state was determined to build a strong national identity that would enable it to rise from the ashes of World War II – and fight its own wars.
As the years passed, Israeli Jews were forced to come to terms with the enormity of the Shoah.
“In 1961 came a watershed: the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Everyone heard what happened in that trial, and suddenly, people started to talk,” says Kan-Tor. “We realized, we understood that Shoah survivors had so much to tell us.”
In 1953, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established by government decree. In the 1960s, a permanent museum to honor and remember the six million who perished was created in Jerusalem.
With the 1980s came another turning point: the fall of the Iron Curtain opened up Eastern Europe to outside visitors.
“Now we could visit Poland,” says Kan-Tor. “We saw the camps. We knew those who we thought victims were really heroes.”
THE DISINTEGRATION of the USSR in 1989 opened the gates for hundreds of thousands of Jews from former Soviet countries to make aliya. Now Israelis saw another side to the events of World War II.
“We saw Russian olim wearing medals,” remembers Kan-Tor. “They brought with them new customs like Veterans’ Days. We heard Russians talking about the Great Patriotic War. Here were Jews who fought against the Nazis.”
The Jewish soldiers had a unique role in the war, says Dr. Tamar Ketko, a World War II expert and curator of the new museum. “They had a double identity. They were recruited as Soviet, American or British soldiers but they also fought as Jews.”
As more became known about the extent of the Jewish contribution in World War II, ideas started to germinate about commemorating the Jewish fighters. Like all ideas, it started out small – a single room at the Armored Corps Memorial in Latrun.