by Katya Gusarov

“I was born in the town of Shpikov, Podolia. My father—who died when I was five years old—was a watchmaker. In 1932, my family moved to Kiev. At the end of 11th grade, I was accepted into a special artillery-training academy, and from there I transferred to a school for junior officers. In May 1941, having reached the rank of lieutenant, I was sent to the border near the region of Przemysl. On 22 June, I first encountered the Nazi enemy. We defended our outpost, and continued to fight even when the German forces surrounded us. After all, we were never ordered to retreat,” says Leonid, with a furtive smile. “The order arrived only two weeks later. We set out land mines and left.”

Thus began the military odyssey of Leonid Bernstein, an ordinary Jew and undisputed hero of WWII. Leonid was among the hundreds of thousands of Jews who served in all the Allied armies against the Nazis. Their most outstanding contribution was in the Red Army, where Jews served in all positions and at all levels of command. Over 100,000 Jews from the Red Army were captured by the Nazis; few survived. Many others—including those who managed to escape the Nazis in the late 1930s—served in the armies of the western Allies, especially in the United States and British Armed Forces. Some 30,000 Jews from Eretz Yisrael enlisted in the British Army, 5,000 of whom formed a separate unit known as the Jewish Brigade. The story of their heroism will be highlighted on 9 May at a wreath-laying ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany, at Yad Vashem’s Monument to the Jewish Soldiers and Partisans, and at a state ceremony at the Armored Corps Memorial Complex at Latrun.

After a daring escape from the Germans, the injured Leonid eventually found sanctuary in the village of Ternovka, where he managed to obtain false documents under a Russian name. There he formed the first nucleus of the local underground organization, engaging mainly in sabotage and disseminating information from Soviet sources at the front. In early 1943 Bernstein and his group contacted the partisan otriad (detachment) led by Peotr Dubovoy. But before being accepted into the otriad he had to pass an “initiation test.” He blew up two trainloads of Germans and equipment making their way to the front, and subsequently became head of the otriad’s sabotage and espionage unit. Following an unsuccessful attempt to plant a land mine at the Shevchenko railway station, he was captured again. “At that moment,” Bernstein recalls, “I literally saw my life pass before my eyes.” And yet, against all odds he escaped and rejoined his comrades.

In May 1944, Bernstein parachuted into a POW camp near the town of Sanok. Many of the camp inmates joined Bernstein’s unit, increasing its ranks to nearly 400. In September the unit participated in the Slovakian revolt against the Germans, after which Bernstein managed to rejoin the Soviet army. After the war, Bernsetein was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and received the Order of the Patriotic War four times, as well as military decorations from Poland and Czechoslovakia. He was made an “honorary citizen” of four Polish cities and two cities in Czechoslovakia. Despite being nominated twice for Russia’s highest military decoration—the Order of Hero of the Soviet Union—Bernstein never received it. “No Jewish partisan,” he says, “even received any decoration higher than the Order of the Red Banner.”

Since 1993, Leonid Bernstein has been living in the northern region of Israel. Now a great-grandfather, he is still active in many social organizations, serving on the board of the Disabled War Veterans Organization, the Association of World War II Veterans, and the Association of Ukrainian Immigrants in Israel. He spends much of his time writing books aimed at passing on his military expertise to future generations. In his books Bernstein emphasizes the contribution of each individual fighter to the success of many espionage and sabotage operations, and recalls details of each one of his soldiers. Bernstein believes the secret of his success as a commander was his thorough preparation for each operation, and the personal attention he gave to each soldier. “These two things prevent unnecessary casualties and contributes to the fighters’ respect for the commander,” he says.

Although he was an undisputed hero who fought for the freedom of his homeland, it is clear that even he suffered from anti-Semitism, from sidelong glances to statements such as ‘Jews don’t know how to fight.’ Nevertheless, he emphasizes, “the fact that I am a Jew actually helped me to a certain extent: I knew I had to prove myself, to be better than the rest.”

The author works in the Righteous Among the Nations Department