An Appeal to the Jews of the World

Soviet newsreel (August 30, 1941), which features Soviet Union's most prominent Jewish writers and artists issue an appeal to Jews throughout the world, asking them to join the Soviet people "in the war against Fascism". The group included actor Solomon Mikhoels, writer Ilya Ehrenburg, pianist Yaakov Zaks, poet Peretz Markish and film director Sergei Eisenstein. The meeting, which took place in the Moscow Hall of Columns led to formation of the Jewish Antifascist Committee in 1942. Mikhoels and Markish later fell victim to the Stalinist purges in the 1940s and '50s. The Jewish Antifascist Committee was liquidated in 1948 and its leading members imprisoned. This film stands as a record of how the Soviet regime eased its ethnic policies in order to appeal to anyone who could support the fight against the Nazis.