Tag #143871 - Interview #78254 (Pyotr Bograd)

In 1990 we established the Association of Jewish Veterans of the War [see Moscow Council of the Jewish War Veterans] [42] to demonstrate that Jews were at the front, but not in Tashkent, as many people say. [Editor's note: Tashkent is a town in Middle Asia; it was the town where many people were evacuated during the Great Patriotic War, including many Jewish families. Many people had the idea that the entire Jewish population was in evacuation rather than at the front and anti-Semites spoke about it in mocking tones.] Since then I've been a member of the presidium of this association. In 1995 my comrades offered me to head a group of interface with veterans of Israel. Before taking this office I went to Israel at the invitation of the Union of Veterans of World War II in May 1994. There were 25,000 veterans of the Great Patriotic War, our compatriots.