DRAGUNSKI, DAVID ABRAMOVICH

DRAGUNSKI, DAVID ABRAMOVICH (1910–1992), Soviet army officer. Born in Sviatsk, Btyansk district, Russia, he started his army career in 1933. During World War II he commanded a tank battalion and a tank brigade. He was twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union and finished the war as a colonel. After studying in the Military Academy he was promoted to major-general in 1953, lieutenant-general in 1961, and colonel-general in 1970. During World War II he was a member of the jewish anti-fascist committee , and in 1947 his biography was published by the Committee in Yiddish. He represented Soviet Jewry at the opening of the Holocaust museum in Paris and in other places. He was used by the Soviet authorities to attack Israel, Zionism, and the movement to immigrate to Israel. He appeared at an anti-Zionist press conference in Moscow in March 1970 and headed the delegation of Soviet Jewry in Brussels in February 1971 for an international conference to defend Soviet Jews' rights. In 1968 he published his war memoirs. (Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)