Day in the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region
Photo: Regional Library
December 4, 1945
The first secretary of the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Alexander Naumovich Bakhmutsky, and the chairman of the regional executive committee, Mikhail Naftulovich Zilbershtein, sent a letter to Stalin, which, along with a request for socio-economic support for the region, contained a proposal for its transformation into an independent autonomous republic, directly subordinate to Moscow. They motivated their project by the fact that “after the Soviet state saved millions of Jews from physical extermination by the Nazis, there is a direct need for the further development of Jewish socialist statehood in the USSR.”
This appeal was received ambiguously among the Soviet leadership. On the one hand, considerable material, technical and human resources were quickly allocated to the region. 50 Jewish teachers and 20 doctors “primarily of Jewish nationality” were sent to Birobidzhan. The newspaper “Birobidzhaner Stern” (12+) began to be published not once, but three times a week, and another regional newspaper, “Birobidzhan Star” (12+), increased in volume to four pages, and in circulation – up to 10 thousand copies. A newspaper and book publishing house and a quarterly literary, artistic and socio-political almanac (12+) in Hebrew were also established in the region.
However, on the other hand, the proposal to transform the Jewish region into an autonomous republic was rejected immediately and decisively as “unfounded”. Obviously, Stalin perceived it as an attempt by “Jewish nationalists” to take revenge for the defeat with the Crimean project. Despite this, Bakhmutsky’s initiative to resume the organized resettlement of Jews in Birobidzhan and provide them with appropriate material benefits was supported in the Kremlin.
In 1947-1948, nine echelons of immigrants arrived in Birobidzhan, 1904 Jewish families, 877 of whom were sent to agricultural enterprises, and 1027 to industry.
However, due to the fact that the region was soon overwhelmed by a wave of repression, plans for the development of the region were curtailed, including the resettlement program. The initiatives of Alexander Naumovich Bakhmutsky were regarded at the top as a manifestation of nationalism.
A decision of the Politburo appeared “On the mistakes of the secretary of the regional committee of the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Khabarovsk Territory, Comrade A.N. Bakhmutsky and the chairman of the regional executive committee, Comrade M.E. Levitin,” by which they were both removed from their posts. The discussion of this resolution was devoted to the VII regional party conference held in Birobidzhan a month later, held under the Stalinist slogan “Nationalism is the last position from which the bourgeoisie must be thrown off in order to finally defeat it.” Bakhmutsky and Levitin were accused of bourgeois nationalism and expelled from the party. In addition, the Politburo removed Bakhmutsky from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Bakhmutsky's further fate was dramatic. On January 28, 1951, he was arrested and charged with treason and anti-Soviet propaganda. On February 23, 1952, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Major General of Justice A.G. Suslin, found him guilty of the fact that since 1944 he “carried out counter-revolutionary activities aimed at undermining and weakening the Soviet Union… maintained contacts” with Mikhoels, Fefer and other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, “did not fight against the admiration of foreignness and, in essence, approved propaganda of bourgeois Jewish nationalism and cosmopolitanism,” divulged information that constituted a state secret (about the locations of tin, coal and other minerals, about the presence of defense enterprises in the region, about the placement of Japanese prisoners of war). For all this he was given a death sentence. M.N. should have been shot along with him. Zilberstein, who until 1947 was the chairman of the regional executive committee of the Jewish Autonomous Region. However, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR replaced their capital punishment with 25 years in the camps.
Along with them, other former leaders of the Jewish Autonomous Region were convicted at the closed trial: Zilbershtein's successor Levitin, the secretary of the regional committee of the Jewish Autonomous Region for ideology Z. S. Brokhin, the secretary of the regional executive committee A. M. Rutenberg, the editor of the literary amanakh “Birobidzhan” (12+) Kh.I. Maltinsky, executive secretary of Birobidzhaner Stern (12+) N. M. Fridman, editor of Birobidzhan Star (12+) M. M. Fradkin. Having received long camp sentences, all of them, with the exception of Levitin, survived, which became possible due to the fact that the sentence imposed on them was overturned on December 28, 1955. However, the main person involved in the case, the former head of the JAO Bakhmutsky, who was released on January 23, 1956, did not enjoy it for long: in 1961 he died, barely reaching the age of fifty.
December 4, 1953
Children's hospital. Photo: Photo: Regional Library
By order of the city executive committee No. 481, a children's city hospital was opened in Birobidzhan. In a two-story wooden house on the street. Pushkin housed a hospital, a dairy kitchen, and a clinic.
In 1972, a new building was put into operation on Pionerskaya Street. In 1988, the children's hospital was reorganized into a regional one.
Today, the regional state health care institution “Children's Regional Hospital” is an institution that provides qualified and specialized medical care to patients at a high technological level. The clinic provides medical care to the city's children from the neonatal period to 18 years of age.
In 2019, the children's hospital building underwent major renovations. The hospital includes a hospital and a clinic. The hospital has somatic, surgical, resuscitation and anesthesiology departments and an early childhood department.
As part of the regional program to improve public health, the hospital carries out medical examination of children in the first year of life; children in THC and children left without parental care currently staying in the inpatient department of the institution.
The employees of the children's regional hospital carry out research, inventive and rationalization work. The hospital is a member of the Russian Association of Children's Hospitals.
