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| In this photo made Thursday, April 11, 2013, Soviet Jewish World War Two veteran Boris Ginsburg poses for a portrait at his house in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod. Ginsburg, born in Belorussia, was kept by a German garrison in the Lenin ghetto since 1941 until its destruction by partisan units in September 1942. In 1942 he joined the partisans for two years and in 1944 he joined the Red Army as a combat soldier and fought till the and of the war. Ginsubrg demobilized in 1947 and immigrated to Israel in 2001. About 500,000 Soviet Jews served in the Red Army during World War Two, and the majority of those still alive today live in Israel. |
JERUSALEM
(AP) -- Once a year, Israel's Jewish war veterans don suit jackets and
uniforms dripping in Red Army medals, the shiny bronzes and silvers
pinned to their chests in tight rows like armor.
About
500,000 Jews served in the Soviet Red Army during World War II. Most of
those still alive today - about 7,000 - are said to live in Israel.
Every
year on Victory Day, which falls on Thursday this year, they parade in
uniform throughout Israel to celebrate Nazi Germany's surrender to the
Soviet Union.
Afterward, they return home to their modest apartments, where some tick off the days in solitude - and poverty.
"The
ceremonies are beautiful. People like to come and say nice words. But
nice words don't put food on your plate," said Abraham Michael Grinzaid,
87, head of an association of Soviet war veterans. "The rest of the
year, no one thinks of us."
About 1.5 million
Jews fought in Allied armies, including 500,000 in the Red Army, 550,000
in the American army, 100,000 in the Polish army and 30,000 in the
British army, according to Israel's Holocaust museum Yad Vashem.
Some
of those who fought in the Red Army served in the highest levels of
command. About 200,000 Soviet Jewish soldiers fell on the battlefield or
into German captivity. Those who survived built families and careers in
the Soviet Union, until the Communist regime collapsed and many of them
ended up in Israel.
They formed a veterans'
association, opening 50 chapters across the country. Today, most of them
are nearly 90 years old, but they gather regularly for lectures and
concerts. Some sing in the 42 veterans' choirs nationwide.
Israel
is home to the world's largest population of Holocaust survivors.
Memorials to Holocaust victims and underground partisans are aplenty.
But only in recent years has the Jewish state begun to salute its Jewish
war veterans.
That's mostly because many of
the veterans immigrated just two decades ago and key war archives are
only now being opened, allowing researchers to discover the full extent
of Jewish soldiers' role in fighting the Nazis, said Red Army scholar
Yitzhak Arad.
It wasn't until last year that
Israel erected its first monument to Soviet Jewish soldiers who served
in WW II.
A museum dedicated to Jewish Allied fighters is still under
construction.
Grinzaid, of the veterans
association, complained that some Soviet war veterans in Israel receive
government stipends amounting to just $50 a month, a pittance compared
to the financial support Israeli Holocaust survivors receive.
But
Roman Yagel, the head of another group of Soviet veterans, countered
that veterans receive generous Israeli support. He accused Grinzaid of
securing stipends for undeserving veterans who did not fight on the
battlefield with weapons in hand - one example of bitter political
infighting within the Soviet veteran community.
Holocaust
survivors are frequently invited to speak about the horrors they
experienced. But Soviet war veterans arrived in Israel as pensioners and
most never learned Hebrew so few Israelis know their stories.
Grinzaid
was 17 1/2 when he enlisted in the Red Army. He was a paratrooper and
served in an intelligence unit, earning five medals for his
participation in battles across Europe. When Russian President Vladimir
Putin came to Israel last year, he shook his hand.
Another
Soviet veteran, Matvey Gershman, 87, helped liberate the Majdanek
concentration camp in Poland.
He remembers walking past storerooms
filled with women's hair and children's shoes.
Suddenly, he stumbled upon a woman sitting and crying.
"I
said, `Grandmother, why are you crying? It's all over,'" Gershman
recalled. "She lifted her head, looked at me, and said, `I am 20 years
old.'"
Gersham used to march in Israel's annual Victory Day parade before he had heart problems.
One
year, he walked to the parade with his daughter and grandson, wearing
his navy blue uniform featuring a cascade of medallions. Israeli
teenagers on the street pointed at him and laughed.
"They
treated him like he was a clown," said his daughter, Rimma. "He doesn't
want to go out with these medals on anymore. He's embarrassed. They
don't know what it is at all."
