Holocaust and WWII: Jews in the Red Army

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role of Jews in the Red Army in general and during WWII in particular. Historians estimate that a relatively high number of Jews (1.5 to 1.7 million) fought in the combined Allied Forces during WWII. At the same time, the fact that about 500,000 Jews enlisted or were conscripted into the Red Army has been largely ignored. After the demise of Communist regimes in the 1990s, however, the role of Jews serving in the Red Army began to be mentioned in cultural narratives. Today, especially in Israel, the increased focus on Jewish identity is often rooted in military and armed resistance during WWII. One author has termed this cultural phenomenon as “the migrating past.”^[1] Citing examples from established scholarship and examining some previously unpublished documents, this paper sheds light on the heroic aspect of Jewish history during the war. This aspect of heroism, which has not always been recognized, today has moved into the mainstream cultural narrative of Russian Jews, affecting their Jewish identity.

[1] (Roberman 2007, p. 1035)