Category Archives: WWII

I know it’s quite out of date at this point. I had planned to share some impressions and photos from Victory Day a few weeks ago but my self-imposed hiatus got in the way.  I had pretty much abandoned the idea, but then a colleague of mine posted her thoughts and I said to myself, why the hell not.  Otherwise, my impressions would have just remained in my head and the pictures exiled to the abyss that is my hard drive.

Basically, my impressions can be summed up as follows:

1.  Security nightmare.

This picture from Chekhovskya station is indicative of the security hell that the Moscow authorities concocted on Victory Day.  I understand that heavy security was necessary.  There were rumors, theories, and expectations that  another terrorist attack would occur on Victory Day.   Nevertheless, I couldn’t help note the irony that what was done to provide security only ..read more

From BBC in 2001.

Stalin and the Betrayal of Leningrad

[google 2377554150130975596]

Two references to Russia being the next Nazi Germany in two days. The one from the left came yesterday. Fortunately, Daniel Silva is no intellectual heavy hitter and his Russia paranoia is likely to quietly dissipate into the ether.

Today’s however comes from someone who carries a big intellectual bat.  Namely, the ever loving Richard Pipes.  Pipes needs no introduction.  His Russophobia is well documented in print and Cold Warrior service. Always willing to challenge evil everywhere, Pipes has joined the Russia as Fascist bandwagon. Need proof? Just look at his letter to the Financial Times where he compares Russia’s behavior toward Georgia as akin to “Germany’s aggression against Czechoslovakia.” Here is the letter in full:

Sir, Peter J. Rooney (Letters, July 17) urges us to abandon the “insignificant statelet” of “tiny Georgia” to Russian aggression because its defence may lead to a military confrontation with Russia. This advice reminds me of ..read more

Meet Don Kozlents. This octogenarian medal of valor holder is one of the millions of Red Army veterans of WWII. Like so many others, most of his family perished at the hands of the Nazis. He fought in the Battle of Kursk, where he was wounded when he crawled out of a pit to reconnect the wires of his primitive radio. A shell hit him, shattering his arms. Ironically, the very faulty radio equipment that brought him out of his hole was the very thing that protected him from the shell’s fatal blow. To this day shrapnel from the shell float in his body. As Kozlents spreads his metals out on his kitchen table in his apartment in Rishon Letrzion in Israel, he tells Haaretz‘s Lily Galili, “I did good work as a soldier. I was there for Russia, but as a Jew for ..read more

When I was in Russia last October I met a woman named Alexandra in the Komsomol archive. Last year, I wrote about how she was researching “Komsomol capitalism” for an article she was writing for Der Spiegel.

One of the things I didn’t mention was her claim that her father, who turns out to be Lev Besymenski, had been one of the Russian officers to search Hitler’s bunker. Like many Russians, he took souvenirs back with him. But Besymenski didn’t simply grab cutlery and other trinkets. He took something closer to his passion: music. More specifically, 100 shellac specimens from Hitler’s private record collection.

Alexandra claimed that one summer she stumbled upon a collection in their dacha’s attic. The collection consisted of classical and opera music by Russian and Jewish composers. I remember who she expressed disgust at the at Hitler’s hypocrisy at being a ..read more

Sixty-Six years ago tomorrow, Adolf Hitler put Operation Barbarossa into action. The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union with initial overwhelming success. What Stalin knew, when he did, and what he did about it continues to be hotly debated. Like most topics in Soviet history, scholars are in a struggle to wrestle the Soviet response to the Nazi invasion from the politics of the Cold War. But these issues are for the most part academic and have little bearing on societies wider remembrance of June 22, 1941.

The real weight of WWII on Russia’s consciousness is difficult to measure. Opinion pulls show that 64% of Russians lost relatives in the war. Millions and millions of Soviet citizens were mobilized in the war effort. If there ever was a historical example of total war, Soviet Russia is it. However, this generation ..read more