Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, abbreviated as JAC, was an organization created in the Soviet Union during World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany, particularly from the West. It was organized by the Jewish Bund leaders Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter at the initiative of Soviet authorities in the fall 1941; both were released from prison to facilitate their participation. Following their re-arrest in December 1941, the committee was reformed on Joseph Stalin's order in Kuibyshev in April 1942 with official Soviet support. After the war, Stalin and elements of the Ministry of State Security became suspicious of the committee's influence and connections with the West. Beginning in 1948, as part of the persecution of Jews during the last chapter of Stalin's rule (for example, the "Doctors' plot"), most prominent members of the JAC were arrested on trumped-up spying charges, tortured, and tried in secret proceedings. In 1952, many were executed in the basement of Lubyanka Prison. They were officially rehabilitated in 1988.