(Jewish Group) A lifetime of anti-Jewish propaganda -- from Stalinist Russia to Kanye West
By 1952, seven years after Hitler’s defeat, Stalin was consolidating his own version of a final solution to the Jewish problem. According to him, class struggle was becoming more brutal, and Soviet society needed to vigilantly fight class enemies. That year, the lens of class justice focused on a new villain.
“Rootless Cosmopolitans,” a euphemism for Jews, became a boogeyman in the media. Professionals with Jewish names lost their jobs. There were rumors about expelling all Jews to the Jewish autonomous republic in the Far East. Jews with a good grasp of reality were gathering warm clothes and suitcases.
In the meantime, my parents, a Jewish couple living in the city of Gomel, did not listen to these rumors. My father fought in the Great Patriotic War, Russia’s name for World War II, from 1941 to 1945. He was wounded twice and awarded medals for courage.
In 1941, my mom was trapped in the city of Leningrad, surrounded by German forces. Subsisting on 125 grams (4.4 ounces) of bread a day, she clung to life, and not only survived the siege herself, but saved her girlfriend from certain death.
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