
Plaque on the memorial at the Bronnaya Gora massacre site Photo credit: Debra Brunner, The Together Plan
As 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, we reflect on a pivotal chapter of human history. For much of Western Europe, the war’s conclusion is remembered as a victory over tyranny and genocide. Yet, in the Soviet Union, the narrative diverges. Known as the Great Patriotic War, it was a fight not just against the Nazis but for the survival of the motherland itself. While this history is celebrated with solemnity, the Jewish experience during the war and its aftermath remains shadowed by deliberate silencing and systemic oppression.
When Nazi Germany violated the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, it unleashed unprecedented horrors. The Wehrmacht, accompanied by Einsatzgruppen death squads, began a campaign of extermination targeting Jewish populations. These atrocities along with the horrors that befell the Jewish communities in Western Europe, later recognised as the Holocaust, claimed the lives of millions. However, within the Soviet Union, the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish tragedy was never acknowledged. Instead, the victims were referred to broadly as “Soviet citizens,” erasing their identity and the true motive behind their persecution.
Hitler’s antisemitic ideology falsely equated Jews with socialism and the Soviet state itself, making them scapegoats for Germany’s woes. Ironically, even Stalin’s regime perpetuated oppression against Jews, creating a complex and tragic paradox. Following the non-aggression pact, Stalin purged Jewish officials as a gesture of goodwill toward Hitler. Throughout the Soviet era, Jews faced systemic discrimination: limited access to education, professional advancement, and religious expression.
Stalin’s persecution of Jews culminated in the late 1940s and early 1950s during the infamous “Doctors’ Plot” and other fabricated accusations of Jewish disloyalty. Jewish poets, doctors, and activists were arrested, tortured, and executed. Plans to deport Soviet Jews to remote camps*—a chilling echo of Nazi policies—were reportedly halted only by Stalin’s death in 1953.
The erasure of Jewish identity continued post-war. Religious and cultural practices were suppressed under the guise of promoting atheism. Jewish families clung to their heritage in secrecy, preserving Yiddish language, humor, and traditions as acts of quiet resistance. Soviet Jews were marked as “Jewish” in their passports—a label that isolated them, much like the yellow Star of David under Nazi rule, or the yellow patch for those in some of the ghettos in the Soviet Union.
Even Holocaust memorials in the Soviet Union reflected this erasure. At Bronnaya Gora, a mass execution site near Brest, Belarus, a monument commemorates the victims as “Citizens of Jewish nationality of the Soviet Union and West Europe.” The wording downplays the reason for their murder: they were Jews. Language matters in memory, and such phrasing dilutes the unique atrocity of the Holocaust.
- Plaque on the memorial at the Bronnaya Gora massacre site Photo credit: Debra Brunner, The Together Plan
- Minsk Ghetto prisoners wearing yellow patches – BundesarchivHerrmann, Ernst, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Doctors’ plot propaganda poster, Polin Museum Image Attribute -Hmzarougui, CC BY-SA 4
The Together Plan has taken significant steps to address this silence and educate future generations. Through its ‘Making History Together’ education programme, the charity has created a compelling journey for teenagers to uncover the hidden history of what happened to the Jews in the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944. This journey transforms participants into history detectives, piecing together the fragments of a silenced past. But the programme offers more than historical discovery—it is a path of personal growth, challenging young people to develop character, empathy, and a deeper understanding of humanity.
Alongside this programme, The Together Plan has developed two travelling exhibitions, one in English for audiences in the UK and another in Russian for Belarus. These exhibitions bring the untold stories of Soviet Jews to life, fostering a greater awareness of their experiences and the broader implications of the Holocaust in this often-overlooked region.
- Making History Together, English version, London 2022
- Making History Together travelling exhibition, Russian language version, Minsk 2023
The charity has created many films which are now being used as part of ‘Making History Together’ and on the anniversary of the 80th year since the end of the Second World War or the Great Patriotic War, we would like to share three of them with you here:
Leonid Simonovski – child survivor from Mogilev in the south east of Belarus. His mother knew they were going to be killed and so she made her son, Leonid (age 8) run into the forest and never come back. We captured this incredible short film in St Petersburg where Leonid shares his memories of that time in his life.
Click here to watch the film.
Sam Webb (Wabnick), born in 1924, interviewed in January 2021, he speaks about life in pre-war Brest-Litovsk. Click here for the interview. The Together Plan is currently building a significant memorial in Brest which will tell the story of the destruction of the 26,000 strong Jewish community in Brest-Litovsk between 1941 and 1944.
Click here to watch the film.
Frida Reizman escaped the Minsk Ghetto as a child. Over 100,000 Jewish people perished in this brutal ghetto without walls. In 2020, we walked the streets of Minsk with Frida to hear her story. Frida has never left Minsk and it was only after the fall of Communism that she was able to start telling the stories of the ghetto.
Click here to watch the film.
Today, The Together Plan seeks to uncover and preserve these buried stories. The Jewish experience in the Soviet Union during and after the war is a critical part of history that must be remembered and shared. It reminds us of the resilience of those who clung to their identity despite unimaginable adversity and systemic efforts to erase them.
As we commemorate the end of the Second World War, let us also honour the stories that were silenced and strive to bring them into the light. Remembering is an act of justice, and it is through remembrance that we ensure such tragedies never happen again.
For more on Jewish history, heritage, and identity in Belarus, visit The Together Plan. Together, we can reclaim and preserve this vital legacy.
The Together Plan is working to build a Jewish Heritage Route through Belarus which will bring 700 years of Jewish history into the light. The charity is working to support communities in Belarus and this initiative has self-sustainability at its core. When people are able to discover their heritage and travel to the sites that will be mapped – in doing so they will be able to support the Jewish communities in Belarus today, many of whom are participating through our heritage projects to bring their own hidden history into focus. This is also a journey of discovery and reconnection for them as so much of their history was suppressed.
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If you are in the USA – you can support via our sister non-profit Jewish Tapestry Project by clicking here.
* Reference: From Silence to Spiel: Representing Stalin’s Alleged Jewish Deportation Plan – Oleg Ivanov