ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: When was the first commemoration held, and why that year?
In the spring and summer of 1952, fifteen Soviet Jews, including prominent Yiddish writers, poets, and actors, were secretly tried and convicted, and on August 12 of that year, multiple executions took place in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison. The defendants were falsely charged with treason and espionage because of their involvement in the Jewish Antifascist Committee, and because of their response as Jews to Nazi atrocities on occupied Soviet territory. Stalin had originally created the Anti-Fascist committee to rally support for the Soviet Union during World War II, but he then disbanded it after the war as his paranoia about Soviet Jews grew.
To commemorate the execution of the Yiddish writers, every year on August 12 the Congress for Jewish Culture holds an event in New York. This week we are speaking with Shane Baker, executive director of the Congress for Jewish Culture, about the organization and this year’s program.
