Revenge and Only Revenge for the Blood and the Sufferings of Our People!

A speech by the commander of a submarine battalion who had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner and who was serving in the Baltic Military Fleet,  Captain 2^nd class G. Goldberg [delivered at the Third Anti-Fascist Meeting of Representatives of the Jewish People, Moscow 1944]

Brothers and Sisters!

…

   During its entire history, full of sufferings, our Jewish people did not have such a fierce enemy that harbored a total hatred for the Jewish people as fascist Germany. We know of many cases of the brutal extermination of the Jewish population: in Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Kishinev, and many other cities and villages of the temporarily occupied areas of the Soviet Union; and we will never forgive to the German fascism for that. Revenge and only revenge for the blood and sufferings of the people!

   The great fight of the Soviet people against bestial fascism is a fight for the existence of all of our multinational state, of all its peoples, that means – of the Jewish people too, and the Jewish people knows this and is taking a most active part in this great struggle for peace, justice, and for a free and joyous life.

   We remember the rule: "Be the best among the sons of your family and the best first-line fighter in the array of the Soviet peoples."

   Jewish fighters, from private to general, are participating in the great struggle of the freedom loving peoples against fascist Germany in all combat forces and with all kinds of weapons…

From: Evreiskii narod v bor'be protiv fashizma: Materialy III Antifashistskogo mitinga predstavitelei evreiskogo naroda… (Moscow: Der Emes, 1945), pp. 29-30.