How Jewish Colonies in Crimea Were Sacrificed
are no Jews there now, to whom
was their land given after the war?
What has become of the Jewish Who now benefits from the huge
colonies in the Crimea which were efforts which the Agrojoint made
established by American Jewry there? Who inherited the property
through the Agrojoint—an affiliate that belonged to the Jewish settlers
of the Joint Distribution Committee annihilated by the Nazis?
* * * •
—in the most difficult prewar years
of Jewish life under the Soviet re-
In Moscow, I was told that there
gime? What has happened to the was nothing for me to see in the
250,000 Jews who were settled there Crimea now; that the Nazis killed
successfully in the years following about 90,000 Jews in the Crimea;
1924 and who became excellent that of the evacuated Jews, few re-
hind workers over an area of 300,- turned from the distant places in
000 acres?
Central Asia to which they were
This question has been on my transported by the Soviet authori-
mind since the end of the war and, ties with some of their cattle; and
long before my recent .trip to the that the settlements in the Crimea
Soviet Union.
have been rebuilt but that they
With Dr. Joseph Rosen, the won- were no longer Jewish. It was indi-
derful personality and head of the cated to me that even if I found a
Agrojoint who put so much love and Jew here or there, in the settle-
effort into organizing and carrying
he wou ld be b of
out the conversion of "declassed" one of the collective farms now in-
Jews into admirable farmers, from habited by Ukrainians.
time to time I visited the colonies
The Crimea was never a part of
as the only American-Jewish jour-
nalist stationed in the USSR. I the Ukraine. The territory h as a
rich
history as part of Russia, and
made a good many personal friends
there among the colonists. What not of the Ukraine. The Turkish-
happened to the farms they built Russian War at the end of the last
with their own hands in rain and in • century was fought over Crimean
wind on a land never cultivated group. During the first years of the
Bolshevik regime, there were
before?
clashes in the Crimea be-
What happened tb the Jewish bloody
post offices in the colonies where tween Czarist military groups and
postage was cancelled with official the Red Army which finally ended
stamps in Yiddish characters? in the defeat of the Czarist forces.
It was therefore puzzling to learn
What happened to the net of Jewish that
the Kremlin decided quietly,
schools and other institutions which
in
1954, to turn over this rich stra-
the colonists established? What
happened to the colony which car- tegic Crimea to the Ukrainians and
ried the name of Sholom Aleichem to make it a part of the Soviet
and to the other settlements in the Ukraine. Why this was done has
Crimea named after Jewish writ- never been explained publicly.
Before the outbreak of World War
ers? What happened to the settle-
ment of Kalinindorf with its three- I II, the Crimea had a large popula-
tion
of Tartars. Although the Jews
room jail which was always empty
because no crimes were committed were settled there atfer the Soviet
revolution
on land which had never
in the Jewish region?
* *
been inhabited—where they had to
On my recent trip to the Soviet dig wells for fresh water—the Tar-
Union I hoped to receive permis- tars were displeased with the fact
sion from the Soviet authorities to that Jews were brought from other
revisit the regions where Jews — parts of the Soviet Union and set-
former small traders and people tled on the land in the Crimea. The
without any definite profession—in- Tartars lost nothing by having the
vested so much of their blood and Jews as neighbors since none of
sweat to become productive citi- their land was taken away for Jew-
zens, I knew Hitler's army had ish colonization. On the contrary,
ravaged the Jewish settlements they benefited much from the mod-
during the Nazi occupation of the ern methods in farming which Dr.
Crimea. However, I knew, too, that Rosen introduced for the Jewish
thousands of Jewish colonists had farmers. In fact, they learned from
succeeded in escaping into the the Jewish settlers how to work
Soviet interior before the Nazi land by tractors—which the Agro-
armies entered their settlements. joint brought from the United
What happened to these colonists? States — instead of by primitive
Did they return to their homes after agricultural methods.
When the Nazi armies started
the war? Did they get their land
back? Do any signs of Jewish life their march on the Crimea, the
remain in the areas where the Jew- younger elements among the Jew-
ish colonies were located? If there ish settlers were in the Red Army
By BORIS SMOLAR
(Copyright 1969, JTA
inc.)
fighting on the front. The Soviet
authorities did not want any horses,
or cattle, or other inventory to fall
into the hands of the Germans.
They therefore evacuated many
Jewish colonists with their inven-
tory in cattle trains into the far
interior of the country. The Tartar
population, however, resisted eva-
cuation. When the Nazis later en-
tered the Crimea, they were jubil-
antly welcomed by the Tartars. The
Tartars also saw to it that Jews in
hiding were discovered by the
Germans and annihilated.
When the Nazi armies were de-
feated aid forced to retreat from
the Crimea, Stalin ordered the de-
portation of the entire Tartar popu-
lation from Crimea as traitors.
Hundreds of thousands of them
were deported en masse to remote
places in Siberia. They were, how-
ever, permitted to return to their
homes after the death of Stalin.
But the strategic and rich peninsula
—where the Czar had one of his
residences because of the warm
climate—was no longer a Tartar
area. Thousands of Ukrainians
were brought over from the Ukran-
ian towns destroyed by the Nazis
during the war and were settled in
Crimea. The Jewish colonies there
became Ukrainian collective farms.
Soon the Crimea ceased to be a
part of the Russia Soviet Republic
and became an integral part of the
Ukranian Soviet Republic.
* * *
This is the story as presented to
me in Moscow in official circles.
In Jewish circles in Moscow, I
heard an epilogue to this story
throwing light on the mass-liquida-
tion of Jewish intellectuals by Sta-
lin. The facts related to me—which
I regretfully could not verify be-
cause I did not stay long enough in
Moscow—are as follows:
After the German armies retreat.
ed from the Crimea, and following
the mass deportation of the Tartars
for cooperating with the Nazi occu-
pation forces, leading Jewish Com-
munists in Moscow, concentrated
around the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee — the central body of
Soviet Jewry which assisted in the
fight against the Nazis in the diffi-
cult war years—had an idea. They
wanted the restoration of the
Crimea as a Jewish region.
There was plenty of empty land
in Crimea. It was not cultivated
and it remained neglected. The
leading Jewish Communists felt
that after the destruction of Jewish
life by the Nazis in hundreds of
towns in the USSR, the surviving
Jews—even those who had served
in the Red Army on the front—
could not return to their former
homes because they were not want-
ed there. What could be more prac-
tical, they asked, than to bring all
these Jews to the Crimea and en-
courage them to start an organized
Jewish life there anew?
A memorandum to this effect was
submitted by the Jewish Anti-
Fascist Committee to the Kremlin.
It was signed by Solomon Mik-
hoels, the prominent and Soviet-
decorated actor who was the head
of the Yiddish State Theater in
Moscow. and by Itzik Feffer, the
noted Soviet-Yiddish poet who was
promoted to the rank of colonel of
the Red Army for his services dur-
ing the war years. Both were top
leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee and both of them were
the Jews most trusted by the ICrem-
lim. They had even been sent by
the Kremlin to the United States as
a Soviet-Jewish delegation to ap-
peal for American Jewish aid to
Russia in the critical weeks when
the Nazi armies reached Stalin-
grad.
When the memorandum reached
Stalin, none suspected at that time
that he was paranoic to the extent
of planning to round up all Jews
throughout the Soviet Union and
isolate them in Siberia. It was long
before the notorious "doctors'
trial," the verdict of which was
planned to be a signal for a wild
hunt of anybody whose identity
documents were marked with the
word "Jew." When Stalin saw the
project outlined in the Jewish me-
morandum, he took it as another
confirmation of his suspicion that
there existed a conspiracy of "Jew-
ish chauvinism" in the country in
which even leading Jewish Com-
munists participated. In his per-
verted mind, he saw the Jewish
memorandum an effort to strength-
en this "Jewish conspiracy." In his
eyes, the Jews in the Soviet Union
were not only his personal enemies
but also "the internal enemy" of
the country.
• • .
The tragic result is well-known.
Mikhoels and Feffer paid with their
lives. Mikhoels was killed and
Feffer died in a camp in Siberia.
More than 200 other Jewish intel-
lectuals—most of them loyal Com-
munists — were "liquidated" by
order of Stalin. The Jewish Anti-
Fascist Committee was closed. So
were all Jewish cultural - institu-
tions.
This was the price—I was told in
Moscow — Stalin exacted for the
suggestion to revive the Jewish
colonies and to normalize Jewish
life by settling in the Crimea the
Jews left homeless after the war.
Fortunately, Stalin died on March
5, 1953, a day before the notorious
"doctors' trial" was scheduled to
open. The trial has never taken
place, and the physicians whom he
accused of participating in-a "Jew
ish plot" to poison him, were re-
leased and rehabilitated. Had Stalin
lived, deportations of Jews to
Siberia would have been started on
a large scale, in the opinion today
of many Jews in Moscow and Len-
ingrad.
A year after Stalin's death, his
successor, Nikita Khrushchev ceded
the Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic. To a delegation of the
Canadian Communist Party, Khru-
shchev declared that he fully
agreed with Stalin's policy not to
settle Jews in the Crimea because
"in case of war,. the. Crimea can
become an anti-Soviet bastion."
Proliferation of Israel Theater
By MENDEL KOIIANSKY
eventually to strike roots, and it
was not until 1932 that it settled in
Tel Aviv. The Jewish population of
the country was small and poor;
many did not know enough Hebrew
The recent announcement that to appreciate a performance in
the Israel government is soon to that language, and the presence of
give Habima the status of a State a theater of international stature in
Theater, together with the expec- their midst was a luxury beyond
tation that the Cameri company their means.
will'become the Tel Aviv Municipal
Now, 37 years later, Habima is
Theater amount to a quiet revolu-
a dozen
lion in the country's theatrical set only one of more than
i Hebrew,
up. With the Haifa Municipal Thea- companies performing in
of Israel ap-
_
ter, until now the only publicly I with the population
and only
sponsored company in existence, proaching 3,000,
the
most
recent
immigrants
still
Israel will soon boast a modest net-
work of three theaters able to pur- ; not knowing the language, the th in e:
sue artistic aims without having to' ater is as much part of the
keep an eye on the box office, side tion's cultural life as are the
by side with the many companies scee
ranging from experimental and There are many reasons for the
uncommon popularity of the thee-
avant-garde groups to the purely unc
ter i in Israel. The most outsanding
commercial concerns.
is the fact that theater in the coun-
try reaches even the smallest ur-
go through many struggles before ban and rural communities, unlike
reaching its present flourishing' the situation in other countries
state as a major element in the where attending a performance is
cultural life of the country. It sells a privilege reserved for those liv-
more than 2,000,000 tickets a sea ing in the large centers. All compa-
son—an astonishing figure which vies, with the exception of the Hai-
gives Israel the highest per capita fa Theater, are based in Tel Aviv
theater attendance in the world. but they spend much time on the
The young men and women who road. Among the regular theater
50 years ago founded in Moscow goers are members of kibutzim
the Hebrew drama studio which which are periodiCally visited by
they named Habima, were part of all theaters. Performances are us-
the powerful Zionist movement ually held in kibutz auditoriums,
sweeping European Jewry at the I and in some cases several settle-
end of World War I. The theater ments join forces to arrange per-
The impact of Israel Bonds on Israel's economic growth is dra- for them was primarily an instru- formances in the regional open-air
matically demonstrated in the construction of the new Arad Chemical ment for the revival of Hebrew as amphitheater, taking advantage of
Industries complex between Arad and Dimona, both of which are a spoken language. When some the fact that in Israel the skies are
development towns that were also created with Israel Bond funds. seven years later Habima, by clear for about eight months in the
Shown above is the sand tower which will be used to process the then already a famous ensemble, year. The theater also visits army
hydrochloric and phosphoric acids produced there. Skilled workmen toured Europe, their visits had tre- bases, and the army regularly ar-
are placing together steel sections used for the base of the reactor. mendous impact on the Jewish ranges collective visits of soldiers
Upon completion, the plant will produce 166,000 tons of these acids communities in Poland, Latvia, Li- to the home halls of the theaters.
It was the beginning of the 1960s
annually, and employ over 300 workers. With the aid of Israel Bonds, thuania, Austria and Germany—a
Israel will now be able to refine and convert raw chemical materials sure sign of the resurrection of that saw what amounted to a veri-
Jewish
culture
in
its
own
language.
table theater explosion in Israel. A
locally, and export them.
It was only in 1928 that Habima new major company, the Haifa
•- THE DETROIT. JEWISH NEWS first came to the land where it was Municipal Theater, was established
72—Friday, March 28,1969
(Mendel Kohansky is an Israeli drama
critic whose book 'The Hebrew Theater
—Its First Fifty Years" is shortly to be
by the Israel Universities
Press.)
New Arad Chemical Complex
-
and countless small and medium
sized experimental and not so ex-
perimental groups rose to fill every
available hall and cellar in Tel
Aviv, and the purely commercial
theater made its triumphal entry.
The theatergoer who until then
could pick from among three or
four productions an evening, sud-
denly found himself confronted
with a choice running the full gam-
ut of the modern theater, from the
classics to an American-style musi-
cal, including the latest in the Eu-
ropean avant-garde.
Part of this proliferation was the
establishment of the American
musical as an integral component
of the entertainment scene. "My
Fair Lady" became an unprece-
dented success, followed by other
musicals of American origin, and
later by Israel-originated musicals
which broke all attendance records.
One major problem with which
the Israeli theater has so far
struggled unsuccessfully is the lack
of a sizable body of original plays.
The repertory of the theaters con-
sists of translated plays, with no
more than four or five original
plays performed per season, few of
which are of high quality. Every-
one recognizes the fact that no
good national theater can develop
without national playwriting, and
much has been done in recent
years to promote it. The theater
managements give careful consid-
eration to every original play sub-
mitted, and the Public Council for
Culture and the Arts offers prizes
and other .inducements to budding
playwrights. If the results have so
far been disappointing, the causes
should be sought in the mysterious
chemistry of artistic creation. Hid-
den as it is from us, we do know,
however, that the art of playwrit-
ing flourishes only in countries
which have had a theater tradition
of many years' standing.