Archive Treasures- Victory in Europe Day

On May 8, countries around the world mark Victory in Europe Day—the date on which Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel signed Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. Although fighting in Europe persisted until May 24, and the war in Asia and the Pacific didn’t officially end until September 2, the date became etched in collective memory as the end of the Second World War on European soil at the conclusion of five and a half bloody years, and the defeat of the Nazi regime, twelve years after it came to power.

Levy, H, and Russia Today Society. Soviet Jews at War. London: Wrightsons Ltd., for the Russia To-Day Society, 1943.

Between 1939 and 1945, approximately 1.5 million Jewish soldiers served in Allied armies, including around 500,000 in the Red Army and 550,000 in the United States Armed Forces. Roughly 33,000 Jewish soldiers who served in the Polish army fell in battle against the Nazi invasion in September 1939. Over 100,000 Jewish men and women served in British and British Commonwealth militaries, including some 30,000 volunteers from Mandatory Palestine, and another 6,700 refugees from Axis countries and Nazi-occupied territories who enlisted in the British Army to fight for the liberation of their homelands. Many others fought with partisan units, in various Free European forces, and in irregular military formations. They fought not only as Jews, but as full-fledged soldiers, out of commitment to their countries, their comrades-in-arms, and the fight against Nazism.

Handbook and Religious Calendar for Jewish Veterans and Servicemen and Women in the Canadian Armed Forces. Montreal: Canadian Jewish Congress, 1945.