Tag #148634 - Interview #95166 (Semyon Vilenskiy)

fter the war our knowledge of the fascist genocide awakened the Jewish self-identification in me and my Jewish comrades. The press published information about the genocide, but they didn’t mention that native residents of the occupied areas had their part in it. Actually, we didn’t know the Jewish language, Jewish history. There were people of the Russian culture in my surrounding: the future philologists, writers and historians. This self-identification revealed itself within the Russian language and literature. There were poems, in which those, who arrested us discovered nationalistic motives. This was described in protocols and this was identified as a criminal action. The Jews, who did not know the Jewish language [Yiddish], found refuge in the brilliant Jewish theater in Moscow with its leader Mikhoels [19].