by Mark Weber
Ilya
Ehrenburg, the leading Soviet propagandist of the Second World War, was a
contradictory figure. A recent article in the weekly Canadian Jewish News
sheds new light on the life of this „man of a thousand masks.“ [1]
Ehrenburg was born in 1891 in
Kiev to a non-religious Jewish family. In 1908 he fled Tsarist Russia because
of his revolutionary activities. Although he returned to visit after the
Bolshevik revolution, he continued to live abroad, including many years in
Paris, and did not settle in the Soviet Union until 1941. A prolific writer,
Ehrenburg was the author of almost 30 books. The central figure of one novel, The
Stormy Life of Lazik Roitschwantz, is a pathetic „luftmensch,“ a recurring
character in Jewish literature who seems to live „from the air“ without visible
means of support.
As a Jew and a dedicated
Communist, Ehrenburg was a relentless enemy of German National Socialism.
During the Second World War, he was a leading member of the Soviet-sponsored
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. (At fund-raising rallies in the United States
for the Soviet war effort, two leading members of the Committee displayed bars
of soap allegedly manufactured by the Germans from the corpses of murdered
Jews.)
Ehrenburg is perhaps most
infamous for his viciously anti-German wartime propaganda. In the words of the Canadian
Jewish News: „As the leading Soviet journalist during World War II,
Ehrenburg's writings against the German invaders were circulated among millions
of Soviet soldiers.“ His articles appeared regularly in Pravda, Izvestia,
the Soviet military daily Krasnaya Zvezda („Red Star“), and in numerous
leaflets distributed to troops at the front.
In one leaflet headlined „Kill,“
Ehrenburg incited Soviet soldiers to treat Germans as sub-human. The final
paragraph concludes: [2]
„The Germans are not human
beings. From now on the word German means to use the most terrible oath. From
now on the word German strikes us to the quick. We shall not speak any more. We
shall not get excited. We shall kill. If you have not killed at least one
German a day, you have wasted that day ... If you cannot kill your German with
a bullet, kill him with your bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the
front, or if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German in the meantime.
If you leave a German alive, the German will hang a Russian and rape a Russian
woman. If you kill one German, kill another -- there is nothing more amusing for
us than a heap of German corpses. Do not count days, do not count kilometers.
Count only the number of Germans killed by you. Kill the German -- that is your
grandmother's request. Kill the German -- that is your child's prayer. Kill the
German -- that is your motherland's loud request. Do not miss. Do not let
through. Kill.”
Ehrenburg's incendiary
writings certainly contributed in no small measure to the orgy of murder and
rape by Soviet soldiers against German civilians.
Until his death in 1967, „his support
for the Soviet state, and for Stalin, never wavered,“ the Canadian Jewish
News notes. His loyalty and service were acknowledged in 1952 when he
received the Stalin Prize. In keeping with official Soviet policy, he publicly
criticized Israel and Zionism.
The Canadian Jewish News
further writes:
„ … The recent disclosure that
Ehrenburg arranged to transfer his private archives to Jerusalem's Yad Vashem
library and archive, while still alive, comes as a stunning revelation. The
reason this information has come to light only now is that Ehrenburg agreed to
transfer his archive on condition that the transfer, and his will, remain
secret for 20 years after his death. On Dec. 11 [1987], with the 20-year period
expired, Israel's daily Maariv related Ehrenburg's story…”
The collection includes
material about the important wartime Jewish partisan movement. Among the
documents in the collection is one concerning a pogrom in Malalchovka, a
village near Moscow, which took place in 1959.
This new revelation about one
of the most influential figures of the Stalinist regime shows that, whatever he
may have said for public consumption, Ehrenburg never privately disavowed
Zionism or forgot his ancestry.
Notes
1.
Rose Kleiner, „Archives to throw new light on Ehrenburg,“ Canadian Jewish News
(Toronto), March 17, 1988, p. 9.
2.
Alfred de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam (London: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 2nd
edition, 1979), pp. 6546, 201; Erich Kern (ed.), Verheimlichte Dokumente
(Munich: FZ- Verlag, 1988), pp. 260-61, 353-55.
From: The Journal of Historical Review,
Winter 1988-89 (Vol. 8, No. 4), pp. 507-509.
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