Jews in the Red Army

Front and Civilian Rear Correspondence, 1941–1945

Leonid Smilovitsky, Stefani Hoffman

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111438085
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

This monograph deals with the contribution of Soviet Jews, soldiers and commanders in the Red Army, to the victory over Nazi Germany as reflected through the private correspondence between the front and the civilian rear. The basis for the research is the author's unique collection of personal items (letters, diaries, documents, and photographs) of Jews who served in the Red Army and members of their families. This collection was supplemented by archival documents and information obtained from academic and popular publications, periodicals, and memoirs of the participants in the war and their families.
The book elucidates a wide spectrum of topics related to the work of the military field post. The topics encompass not only battles but also everyday military life, soldiers' personal lives, relations between men and women, the work of the military censorship, letters of Soviet soldiers and officers in Yiddish, and Soviet Jews' correspondence with foreign entities.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 General Information About Military Letters
• Chapter 2 Evacuation and Life in the Civilian Rear
• Chapter 3 Basic Topics in Correspondence
• Chapter 4 Relations with the State
• Chapter 5 The Tragedy of the War
• Chapter 6 Re-evacuation
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Illustrations
• About the author
• Name Index
• Geographical Index