To the Editor:
In order to rescue an innocent bystander from being hurt, I take the liberty of calling the attention of the reviewer of my book Underground (in the June number of COMMENTARY) to the fact that the “alleged Soviet decree, issued by Kalinin at the end of 1941, ordering the evacuation of Jews from the path of Germans,” did not appear in a “pro-Soviet Yiddish book” but in a most authoritative study on the subject written by Moshe Kaganovich, who is in charge of the Central Historical Commission of the Union of Jewish Partisans in Italy. The quotation in dispute appears on page 188 of his highly praised book, Participation of Jew, in the Partisan Movement of Soviet Russia, published by the Union of Jewish Partisans in 1948, in Rome, Italy.
Now, while I do not specialize in party labels, I have reason to believe that Moshe Kaganovich is a perfectly kosher Mapainik, and his book, according to the title page, was “edited by the Labor Zionist Committee for Relief and Rehabilitation Inc. in America (673 Broadway, New York),” which, to my knowledge, no one has ever suspected of pro-Soviet leanings.
Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum
New York City
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To the Editor:
Dr. Tenenbaum’s letter confirms one of the points of my review of his book—his uncritical treatment of some of his source material. For despite Dr. Tenenbaum’s facts on the editorial sponsorship of the book, it does suffer from a pro-Soviet bias. Kaganovich cites numerous cases of anti-Semitic acts and attitudes on the part of the Russian partisans. Yet he seems compelled to defend the Soviet Union’s official position on anti-Semitism, using vague generalizations to rebut his own evidence. These appear on pp. 146, 160, 178, 187-188, 194, and elsewhere.
The critical reader of Kaganovich’s book can distinguish between his facts and his wishful thinking—in which category the supposed Kalinin decree falls—and can separate the valid presentation from the invalid conclusions. Surely, it was not too much to ask this critical judgment also of Dr. Tenenbaum.
Lucy S. Dawidowicz
New York City
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