Yitzhak Arad (1926–2021)
Author of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps
About the Author
Yitzhak Arad has written and edited many books, including In the Shadow of the Red Banner: Soviet Jews in the War Against Nazi Germany, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust, and The Pictorial History of the Holocaust. He served for 21 years as the show more Chairman of the Directorate of Yad Vashem-The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. show less
Image credit: Tomer Appelbaum
Series
Works by Yitzhak Arad
Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union (1982) 121 copies, 1 review
The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads (1989) 38 copies
Ghetto in flames : the struggle and destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust (1981) 37 copies
In the Shadow of the Red Banner: Soviet Jews in the War Against Nazi Germany (2010) 30 copies, 12 reviews
The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Revised and Expanded Edition: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka (2018) 29 copies
Parashat ḥayim = פרשת חיים 1 copy
וילנה היהודית במאבק ובכליון 1 copy
וילנה היהודית במאבק ובכליון 1 copy
Associated Works
Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder (2003) — Editor, some editions — 46 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Arad, Yitzhak
- Other names
- Rudnicki, Itzhak
Tolya - Birthdate
- 1926-11-11
- Date of death
- 2021-05-06
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Tel Aviv University
- Occupations
- historian
resistance fighter
Holocaust survivor
army general
chairman of Yad Vashem
editor (show all 8)
memoirist
author - Organizations
- Yad Vashem (chairman 1972-1993)
- Short biography
- Yitzhak Arad was born Icchak Rudnicki in Święciany, Poland (present-day Švenčionys, Lithuania). Growing up, he joined the Zionist youth movement Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyyoni.
After Nazi Germany invaded his country in World War II, his parents were murdered. Aged 15, he was put to work by the Germans cleaning confiscated Soviet weapons. He, his sister, and a group of friends eventually stole a gun and escaped. They formed an underground group in the ghetto and later escaped from the ghetto into the forest. In 1943, he joined the Soviet partisans of the Markov Brigade, but suffered from their anti-Semitism. Apart from a foray into the Vilna Ghetto in April 1943 to meet with underground leader Abba Kovner, he stayed with the Soviet partisans until the end of the war. He fought the Germans and their helpers and participated in acts of sabotage such as the mining of trains.
After the war ended, Arad entered Palestine by boat in violation of the British blockade. He adopted his Hebrew name and joined Israel's fight for independence. He rose to the rank of brigadier general in the IDF. Following his retirement from active service in 1972, Arad earned a doctorate at Tel Aviv University and began an academic career there as a lecturer on Jewish history. His specialty was the history of the Holocaust in areas of the Soviet Union. He served as the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, from 1972 to 1993. He testified at war crimes trials in Israel and was a consultant for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Among his many published works were
Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews of Vilna (1982);
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (1987); and the two-volume History of the Holocaust: Soviet Union and Annexed Territories (2004). He also wrote a memoir, The Partisan: From the Valley of Death to Mt. Zion, published in 1979. - Nationality
- Poland (birth)
Israel (naturalized) - Birthplace
- Święciany, Poland (now Lithuania)
- Places of residence
- Tel Aviv, Israel
- Place of death
- Tel Aviv, Israel
- Map Location
- Lithuania
Members
Reviews
Have you ever heard of the over 500,000 Jews who fought under the Soviet banner in World War II? If not, Yitzhak Arad's "In the Shadow of the Red Banner" serves as a powerful and long overdue corrective. This meticulously researched book shines a light on the immense contribution of Soviet Jewry to the war effort, a story buried for decades under layers of Soviet silence and anti-Semitism.
Arad doesn't simply recount statistics; he breathes life into these forgotten heroes. We meet soldiers show more like David Draiman, who defied prejudice to become a decorated tank commander, and partisans like Faina Gotkis, who led daring missions behind enemy lines. Their bravery and sacrifice shine through every page, a testament to the human spirit's resilience even in the face of oppression.
But "In the Shadow of the Red Banner" isn't just a feel-good tale. Arad doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable truths. He exposes the Soviet regime's deliberate downplaying of Jewish contributions and the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish soldiers and civilians alike. This complexity adds depth and nuance to the narrative, reminding us that history rarely unfolds in black and white.
While the book excels in its historical analysis, the pacing can feel uneven at times. Certain chapters delve deep into military strategy and operations, potentially losing readers less interested in the minutiae of battlefield tactics. Additionally, the lack of personal anecdotes from individual survivors might leave some yearning for a more emotional connection to the human cost of the war.
Despite these minor drawbacks, "In the Shadow of the Red Banner" stands as a crucial work of historical reclamation. It challenges us to remember not just the victors of World War II, but also the countless individuals whose stories were silenced for far too long. By bringing these forgotten heroes out of the shadows, Arad compels us to confront uncomfortable truths and celebrate the enduring power of courage and resilience in the face of adversity.
Would I recommend it?
Absolutely! If you're interested in a fresh perspective on World War II, one that sheds light on the often-overlooked contributions of Soviet Jewry, then this book is a must-read. Just be prepared for a deep dive into the historical context and military strategy, alongside the inspiring stories of individual heroism. Remember, sometimes the most important stories are the ones hidden in plain sight, waiting to be unearthed and shared. show less
Arad doesn't simply recount statistics; he breathes life into these forgotten heroes. We meet soldiers show more like David Draiman, who defied prejudice to become a decorated tank commander, and partisans like Faina Gotkis, who led daring missions behind enemy lines. Their bravery and sacrifice shine through every page, a testament to the human spirit's resilience even in the face of oppression.
But "In the Shadow of the Red Banner" isn't just a feel-good tale. Arad doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable truths. He exposes the Soviet regime's deliberate downplaying of Jewish contributions and the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish soldiers and civilians alike. This complexity adds depth and nuance to the narrative, reminding us that history rarely unfolds in black and white.
While the book excels in its historical analysis, the pacing can feel uneven at times. Certain chapters delve deep into military strategy and operations, potentially losing readers less interested in the minutiae of battlefield tactics. Additionally, the lack of personal anecdotes from individual survivors might leave some yearning for a more emotional connection to the human cost of the war.
Despite these minor drawbacks, "In the Shadow of the Red Banner" stands as a crucial work of historical reclamation. It challenges us to remember not just the victors of World War II, but also the countless individuals whose stories were silenced for far too long. By bringing these forgotten heroes out of the shadows, Arad compels us to confront uncomfortable truths and celebrate the enduring power of courage and resilience in the face of adversity.
Would I recommend it?
Absolutely! If you're interested in a fresh perspective on World War II, one that sheds light on the often-overlooked contributions of Soviet Jewry, then this book is a must-read. Just be prepared for a deep dive into the historical context and military strategy, alongside the inspiring stories of individual heroism. Remember, sometimes the most important stories are the ones hidden in plain sight, waiting to be unearthed and shared. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
This book changed my entire view of the Holocaust. Until I read it, I was only really familiar with Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was both a labor and an extermination camp. While that was horrible enough, I also knew that some folks survived, which made things seem somehow bearable. However, these three camps were completely extermination camps. Except for a few people needed to do things like retrieve gold from teeth, everyone who was shipped to these camps was gassed. The brutal mechanization show more and utter unsurvivability of the system finally penetrated my brain. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone not yet aware of the horror of this time. show less
For more than a hundred and twenty years, from the late 18th until the early 20th century, the Russian Empire had restricted Jews to live in its western most regions. Stretching from the Black Sea to the Baltic, the former "Pale of Settlement" was home to most of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union when the German Wehrmacht invaded the USSR in 1941. At that time, Jews comprised less than 2% of the entire population of the USSR, but in those western border lands (Western Ukraine, show more Byelorussia, Lithuania), the population was more typically 10-15% Jewish.
As the Nazi war machine descended upon western Russia like a modern day plague of locusts, the local populations soon found themselves behind the fast moving front in occupied territory. In regions sufficiently far from the 1941 western borders, the Soviet government was able to evacuate key workers and draft young men into the military, but large numbers of Jewish civilians were trapped. Between the native anti-semitism of the non-Jewish populations in the USSR, the geographical distribution of Jews in the invaded lands and the continual drumbeat of Nazi propaganda, a myth arose during the war that there were no Jews fighting at the front in the Red Army. This myth persists until today within the territories of the former Soviet Union.
In the Shadow of the Red Banner is Yitzhak Arad's answer to the calumny of Jewish non-participation in the war. With meticulous research, Arad documents and quantifies the contributions of Jewish civilians, soldiers and partisans in the Great Patriotic War. Due to the chaos of the war, and the rabid anti-semitism of the post war Stalinist regime, information is sparse. Nevertheless, Arad manages to comb through the records and memoirs of the period to build a solid picture of the activities of Soviet-Jewish citizens during the war.
Yitzhak Arad is perhaps uniquely qualified to author such a text. Born in 1926 in the Second Polish Republic, Arad was a mere 13 years old at the outbreak of World War II. His hometown was in the western, Soviet, region of Poland, so it was not until 1941 that the Germans arrived there. At the age of 15, he twice managed to escape from German captivity, eventually joining (along with several other young Jewish partisans) the Markov Brigade in the Narocz Forest of Belarus. As a partisan, he fought the Germans and their local collaborators until the region was liberated by the Red Army in 1944.
After the war, Arad emigrated illegally to the British Mandate of Palestine, arriving on Christmas night 1945. He quickly joined the Haganah, the underground Jewish militia, and was taken into the Palmach, the special strike force within the militia. After the state of Israel was established, he joined the IDF, eventually rising to the rank of Brigadier General before retiring in 1972. From 1972 until 1993, Arad served as the director of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Authority. As an historian, he specialises in the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.
Drawing upon personal experience and decades of research, Yitzhak Arad constructs a detailed picture of the contribution of Jews to the defeat of Germany in the Soviet Union. Arad divides his account into separate sections covering Jews soldiers in the Red Army, Jewish contribution to the economy and arms development, the Jewish underground in the ghettos and finally the Jewish partisans in the forests of western Russia.
The first section of the book details the heroics of Jewish soldiers fighting at the front from the outbreak of war until the fall of Berlin. This is the most difficult section to read since it is little more than a survey of the Jewish servicemen who won awards for valor over the course of the war. Few individuals receive more than a couple of paragraphs drawn from the citations for their awards. To provide some sort of narrative flow, Arad weaves these stories into a brief chronological history of the Soviet war effort calling out Jewish contributions along the way. He is only partially successful in generating a continuous narrative from these records, and the general reader is likely to be lost and frustrated by the continuously changing circumstances.
Where Arad's book shines is in the later chapters on the Jewish underground and partisan actions behinds the lines. Jewish partisans had to fight not just the Nazi invaders, but the anti-semitic elements of the population in their own country. The Germans were experts in using propaganda to redirect the anger and frustrations of the local populace against the Jewish partisans, blaming them for the horrors inflicted on the civilian population by the Wehrmacht. This was fairly simple as all of the partisans, Jews as well as non-Jews, were forced to plunder local farms and villages in economic actions to survive.
Arad surveys the forest partisan brigades to estimate the number of Jews hiding and fighting in the woods against the Germans. By his estimates nearly 20% of the forest populations were Jewish, a larger percentage than their local prewar constituency. Given the large numbers of Jews killed in Einsatzgruppen aktions in the western Soviet Union, the Jewish contributions to the partisan movement was significant.
The war between Germany and Russia was a nightmarish hell for both sides. With In the Shadow the Red Banner, Yitzhak Arad has produced a definitive account of the Jewish contributions to that war and the particular hell that the Soviet Jews had to endure. show less
As the Nazi war machine descended upon western Russia like a modern day plague of locusts, the local populations soon found themselves behind the fast moving front in occupied territory. In regions sufficiently far from the 1941 western borders, the Soviet government was able to evacuate key workers and draft young men into the military, but large numbers of Jewish civilians were trapped. Between the native anti-semitism of the non-Jewish populations in the USSR, the geographical distribution of Jews in the invaded lands and the continual drumbeat of Nazi propaganda, a myth arose during the war that there were no Jews fighting at the front in the Red Army. This myth persists until today within the territories of the former Soviet Union.
In the Shadow of the Red Banner is Yitzhak Arad's answer to the calumny of Jewish non-participation in the war. With meticulous research, Arad documents and quantifies the contributions of Jewish civilians, soldiers and partisans in the Great Patriotic War. Due to the chaos of the war, and the rabid anti-semitism of the post war Stalinist regime, information is sparse. Nevertheless, Arad manages to comb through the records and memoirs of the period to build a solid picture of the activities of Soviet-Jewish citizens during the war.
Yitzhak Arad is perhaps uniquely qualified to author such a text. Born in 1926 in the Second Polish Republic, Arad was a mere 13 years old at the outbreak of World War II. His hometown was in the western, Soviet, region of Poland, so it was not until 1941 that the Germans arrived there. At the age of 15, he twice managed to escape from German captivity, eventually joining (along with several other young Jewish partisans) the Markov Brigade in the Narocz Forest of Belarus. As a partisan, he fought the Germans and their local collaborators until the region was liberated by the Red Army in 1944.
After the war, Arad emigrated illegally to the British Mandate of Palestine, arriving on Christmas night 1945. He quickly joined the Haganah, the underground Jewish militia, and was taken into the Palmach, the special strike force within the militia. After the state of Israel was established, he joined the IDF, eventually rising to the rank of Brigadier General before retiring in 1972. From 1972 until 1993, Arad served as the director of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Authority. As an historian, he specialises in the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.
Drawing upon personal experience and decades of research, Yitzhak Arad constructs a detailed picture of the contribution of Jews to the defeat of Germany in the Soviet Union. Arad divides his account into separate sections covering Jews soldiers in the Red Army, Jewish contribution to the economy and arms development, the Jewish underground in the ghettos and finally the Jewish partisans in the forests of western Russia.
The first section of the book details the heroics of Jewish soldiers fighting at the front from the outbreak of war until the fall of Berlin. This is the most difficult section to read since it is little more than a survey of the Jewish servicemen who won awards for valor over the course of the war. Few individuals receive more than a couple of paragraphs drawn from the citations for their awards. To provide some sort of narrative flow, Arad weaves these stories into a brief chronological history of the Soviet war effort calling out Jewish contributions along the way. He is only partially successful in generating a continuous narrative from these records, and the general reader is likely to be lost and frustrated by the continuously changing circumstances.
Where Arad's book shines is in the later chapters on the Jewish underground and partisan actions behinds the lines. Jewish partisans had to fight not just the Nazi invaders, but the anti-semitic elements of the population in their own country. The Germans were experts in using propaganda to redirect the anger and frustrations of the local populace against the Jewish partisans, blaming them for the horrors inflicted on the civilian population by the Wehrmacht. This was fairly simple as all of the partisans, Jews as well as non-Jews, were forced to plunder local farms and villages in economic actions to survive.
Arad surveys the forest partisan brigades to estimate the number of Jews hiding and fighting in the woods against the Germans. By his estimates nearly 20% of the forest populations were Jewish, a larger percentage than their local prewar constituency. Given the large numbers of Jews killed in Einsatzgruppen aktions in the western Soviet Union, the Jewish contributions to the partisan movement was significant.
The war between Germany and Russia was a nightmarish hell for both sides. With In the Shadow the Red Banner, Yitzhak Arad has produced a definitive account of the Jewish contributions to that war and the particular hell that the Soviet Jews had to endure. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
It is astonishing to realize that more than 60 years after the conclusion of World War II, new books are still being released that expose previously unpublished details of the unparalleled depth of anti-Semitism that occurred during the war. History is burdened with false claims that Jewish men did not fight on the Russian front, and we are left with visions of meek Jews submissively surrendering to the Nazis. With the aid of archival sources from Germany, Israel, Russia, and states that show more were previously part of the Soviet Union, Yitzhak Arad assembled this compilation of facts, details, reports, and first hand accounts of how the Russian Jews fought the Nazis and contributed in many ways to Germany’s ultimate loss.
"In the Shadow of the Red Banner" illustrates the full extent of Jewish participation in the war activities. There are chapters devoted to heroic service in the army, the underground, partisan activities, and detailed explanations of the various ghetto uprisings along with many examples of their distinguished contribution in the development and manufacturing of weapons, and in medical services. At the time, their help was unwanted, unappreciated, and scarcely recognized.
Yitzhak Arad states, “the annihilation of the Jews in the occupied territories began the day the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and did not stop until the Germans were expelled.” It was not difficult for Nazi propaganda to brainwash the citizens of conquered Soviet territories, since anti-Semitism was deep rooted from the Czarist regime and still prevalent when Stalin was in power. The Jews knew that captivity by the Germans was sure death, but they were just as likely to die at the hands of local citizens who willingly collaborated with the Nazis. So they fought loyally for their country and literally for their lives.
A brief introduction recounts the Soviet/German political philosophy and military strategy which played a large part in the success and failure of various countries during the war. Explanations are also provided regarding Jewish sentiments about communism and their participation in the Russian Revolution, which ties in strongly since Hitler blamed the Jews for the spread of communism.
The most enthralling chapters of the book involved resistance fighting within the ghettos and with the partisan fighters in the vast forests of Russia. With profound bravery, many Russian Jews escaped the ghettos unarmed and improperly clothed. They robbed and killed German soldiers and local police stations and entered the dense forests to participate in resistance activities: ambushing German forces, destroying bridges, railroads, and phone wires, and disrupting the German war machine which kept Germans continuously fighting behind their own lines instead of on the front. And amidst all the starvation, death, and destruction of civilization, there were amazing stories of Jewish family camps in the forests housing as many people as 1200 people; women, children, and unarmed men who served the partisan fighters by setting up make-shift hospitals, bakeries, soap manufacturing, sausage factories, and tailor shops….never knowing if the partisans or local farmers with incomprehensible cruelty would ruthlessly turn them in to the Germans.
Anyone interested in Russian history, World War II, the holocaust, or Jewish chronicles would find this book a welcome addition to their library. It is an incredible documentary, reference book, and memoir for the half million Soviet Jews who fought against Nazi Germany. show less
"In the Shadow of the Red Banner" illustrates the full extent of Jewish participation in the war activities. There are chapters devoted to heroic service in the army, the underground, partisan activities, and detailed explanations of the various ghetto uprisings along with many examples of their distinguished contribution in the development and manufacturing of weapons, and in medical services. At the time, their help was unwanted, unappreciated, and scarcely recognized.
Yitzhak Arad states, “the annihilation of the Jews in the occupied territories began the day the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and did not stop until the Germans were expelled.” It was not difficult for Nazi propaganda to brainwash the citizens of conquered Soviet territories, since anti-Semitism was deep rooted from the Czarist regime and still prevalent when Stalin was in power. The Jews knew that captivity by the Germans was sure death, but they were just as likely to die at the hands of local citizens who willingly collaborated with the Nazis. So they fought loyally for their country and literally for their lives.
A brief introduction recounts the Soviet/German political philosophy and military strategy which played a large part in the success and failure of various countries during the war. Explanations are also provided regarding Jewish sentiments about communism and their participation in the Russian Revolution, which ties in strongly since Hitler blamed the Jews for the spread of communism.
The most enthralling chapters of the book involved resistance fighting within the ghettos and with the partisan fighters in the vast forests of Russia. With profound bravery, many Russian Jews escaped the ghettos unarmed and improperly clothed. They robbed and killed German soldiers and local police stations and entered the dense forests to participate in resistance activities: ambushing German forces, destroying bridges, railroads, and phone wires, and disrupting the German war machine which kept Germans continuously fighting behind their own lines instead of on the front. And amidst all the starvation, death, and destruction of civilization, there were amazing stories of Jewish family camps in the forests housing as many people as 1200 people; women, children, and unarmed men who served the partisan fighters by setting up make-shift hospitals, bakeries, soap manufacturing, sausage factories, and tailor shops….never knowing if the partisans or local farmers with incomprehensible cruelty would ruthlessly turn them in to the Germans.
Anyone interested in Russian history, World War II, the holocaust, or Jewish chronicles would find this book a welcome addition to their library. It is an incredible documentary, reference book, and memoir for the half million Soviet Jews who fought against Nazi Germany. show less
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- Works
- 22
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 558
- Popularity
- #44,765
- Rating
- 4.2
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