Jews on the land

Exhibition on the history of Jewish agricultural settlements of Southern Ukraine opened at Taras Shevchenko National Museum. Particular attention is paid to times of famine in the 1920s and the 1930s, as well as the time of the Great Terror. During this period (from 1924 to 1938) the Jewish population of Ukraine received support from the American organization “Joint.”

The center of the exhibition is the materials from the martyrology book of American archivist Mykhailo Mitsel, born in Kyiv. The book is titled Last Chapter: Agro-Joint in the years of the Great Terror. The book was published in Russian by the publishing house “Dukh i Litera” in 2012. Center for Jewish Studies of the National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy” also joined the data collection for the exhibition. The exhibition was organized with the assistance of the Kyiv office of “Joint” organization that now operates in Ukraine.

The exposition features archival documents, photos, propaganda and thematic posters from those years, paintings of the avant-garde artist Mark Epstein that illustrate the daily life of Jewish farmers. Exhibits cover the history of agricultural settlements in Ukraine from the time they were founded (mid 19th century) until the end of the 1930s. However, most of the materials present the life of peasantry in the hardest 1920s and 1930s.

Apart from the documents and graphic images, visitors of the exhibition “Jews on the Land” can also see objects from everyday life of those times – agricultural tools used in the Southern Ukraine (from the collection of the National Center of Folk Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum”) and watch the documentary Jews on the Land (filmed in the USSR in 1927).

“Joint” or “American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee” is now the largest Jewish charity organization established in 1914 and nowadays it is actively working to help the Jewish population worldwide, as well as people of other nationalities. Cooperation with Ukraine began in the early 1920s: the Committee supported the project of restoring Jewish colonies in the South of Ukraine and signed an agreement with the government of the USSR. According to the agreement signed in 1924 a new agricultural unit – “Agro Joint” was founded and 172 new agricultural settlements were established. By January 1937 the organization served more than 200 farms, with over 13,000 families living there.

“Agro Joint” provided the most diverse assistance: financial, technical, and with human resources. During the famine of the 1920s the organization held free food joints, medical care units, shelters and orphanages. In 1922 – the height of the famine, a specific number of food aid was recorded: according to available documents, “Joint” provided free “bowl of soup every day” for about two million people in Ukraine and the USSR, supported the inhabitants of the Russian land, including the Volga region, thus, the total figure was even more impressive… The organization purchased tractors, combines, and cars for the development of settlements. This whole campaign was led by Yosef Rezyn. A separate stand is devoted to him at the exhibition.

In 1937-38 nearly all workers of “Agro Joint” were repressed and the organization ceased its operation in the USSR.

At the opening of the exhibition Amir BEN-ZVI, “Joint” representative in central and western Ukraine, thanked Taras Shevchenko National Museum for “such a nice event” and said with emotion:

“Personally for me, it is hard to imagine those times in the 1920s and 1930s, even a film can’t convey what was happening then… ‘Joint’ from the first years of its operation in the Soviet Union was able to help hundreds of thousands of people. They helped not in the ways we do it today, providing social assistance, but with some food and all the agricultural equipment so that people would be able to get themselves means for living – food. Then there was a break in the activity of ‘Joint’ in Ukraine for nearly 60 years… Thank God that today we are back here again and we can help various institutions and nations again in a peaceful mode.”

Mykhailo Mitsel started working on his book with the idea of preserving the memory of the activities of the workers of “Agro Joint.” Based only on the three names of the ‘Agro Joint’ employees and in cooperation with the archives of SBU in Ukraine and the Federal Security Service of Russia, Mitsel managed to gather so many facts that it was enough to write a book and organize an exhibition. Mitsel spent eight years working on his book. He did his research in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Simferopol, and Moscow.

“The theme line of the book is an attempt to show various aspects of the Great Terror of 1937, which was imprinted in the memory of generations, at different levels and from different angles. The expression ‘1937’ has already become a constant to describe the terrible repressions, it is clear to everyone, even to the younger generations who were born after the collapse of the USSR. This feeling is transmitted through the collective memory… The main feature of the Great Terror is quasi-justice, since all repressions were recorded in protocols, as well as all the ‘confessions,’ that were obtained through torture. We show only the tip of the iceberg, the story of a tortured institution and it all was multiplied by many years. If another author, intended to write the history of any other minority from that time, came after me, I am certain, he would find facts of the same character… What concerns the exhibition, it surpassed even my expectation, which is incredibly nice,” said Mykhailo MITSEL.

Leonid FINBERG, Director of the Center for History and Culture of East European Jews, Deputy Director of the Center for European Humanities at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and editor-in-chief of the publishing house “Dukh i Litera,” noted:

“The history of this land, and especially the events of the 20th century, has not yet been written. And every book of such kind that is based on archival documents and testimonies of people is an event. Well-known Ukrainian historian Zhanna Kovba said about this book: ‘It is about humanity in the depths of hell.’ We supplemented the exhibition with materials from our research: following the initiative of our younger members we decided to show the full panorama of the life of Jewish agricultural settlements in Ukraine, not so much the tragedy but the fantastic figures of help provided by ‘Joint’ to people that lived in Ukraine. To some extent, I think this book and this exhibition restore our human dignity, because only knowing the past we can have the right to live today and look into the future.”

The exhibition also features some artifacts from the collections of Vakhtang Kipiani and Ihor Holfman, as well as from the archive of Yosyf Zisels. The exhibition is open until April 29.