Documentation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAF) in the Soviet Union

Established at the height of World War II, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (EAK - Yevreyskiy antifashistskiy komitet) was a Soviet Jewish organization set up in order to provide assistance to the Soviet Union in its war against Nazi Germany. Headed by the actor and theatrical director Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels as Committee Chairman and Shakhne Epshteyn, the newspaperman, as Secretary, the Committee was established at the initiative of the Soviet Secret Police in Samara in 1942. The purpose of the Committee was to promote matters related to the Soviet Union during the war through the Jews living in the United States. Jewish public figures who were loyal to the regime made contact with foreign representations in Samara, and through them, they were able to reach the British and American governments. The JAF arranged trips for its emissaries to western countries in order to influence the policy makers in these countries. To this end, the emissaries were supposed to arouse public opinion among the western Jews so they would influence their governments to aid the Soviet Union. The Committee moved to Moscow in 1943, and became an important Yiddish cultural center in the Soviet Union during the war. The Committee succeeded in raising funds for the Red Army from the Jewish communities in the west. YV archives Description of the collection : Official Committee documentation, testimonies of survivors, Red Army soldiers, underground members, lists of Jewish victims, notices and announcements, investigative reports against Nazi criminals, survey reports, letters, radio broadcasts, articles and photographs. There are three main collections in the records group:A. Documentation regarding the Holocaust from the"Black Book", including valuable testimonies, diaries and memoirs that were processed for literary presentation and others that were only published partially, testimonies and memoirs regarding the Holocaust that were sent to the JAF and to Ilya Ehrenburg, but were not published for ideological reasons, and included in the"Unknown Black Book"(Jerusalem, 1980, 1993), articles based on the testimonies and published in the"Einigkeit"newspaper (the JAF newspaper), Soviet radio broadcasts transmitted to listeners in other countries and articles by JAF members that were sent for publication in newspapers outside of the Soviet Union; B. Private letters sent by Soviet Jews to the Committee leadership and to the author Ilya Ehrenburg with requests for financial and legal assistance, as well as requests from those supporting the establishment of the State of Israel, and proposals for support for the State during the War of Independence, letters regarding aliya to Israel or a move to Birobidzhan;C. Reports of Committee meetings until liquidation of the Committee in 1948; JAF correspondence with the Soviet authorities, survey reports regarding the important events in the lives of Jews outside the Soviet Union. The collection also includes photographs prepared mainly for the"Einigkeit"newspaper, although most of them were not published. There are photographs of Committee leaders and activists in the Jewish Anti-Fascist movements abroad, photographs of Jewish soldiers and Soviet partisans, photographs taken in parts of Europe and the Soviet Union during the Holocaust pertaining to deportation of Jews, ghettos, riots, camps, murder, the victims, ghetto fighters and underground members, survivors, survivors of the Sobibor camp and more, as well as photographs of Jewish children from the Soviet Union in orphanages after the war.