Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag

Zvi Preigerzon

Published by Academic Studies Press 2022

Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag

Zvi Preigerzon
Edited by: Alex Lahav

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644699058

Overview
Contents

About this book

One of the first ever eyewitness accounts of the harsh reality of Soviet Gulag

Author / Editor information

Preigerzon Zvi :

Zvi Preigerzon (1900-1969) was a Hebrew writer, who lived in the USSR. He was imprisoned in the Gulag for his Zionist views and writings about the life of Jews in the USSR and their suffering during the Holocaust. He is the author of When the Menorah Fades and several other books, short stories, and poems.

Zvi Preigerzon (1900-1969) was a Hebrew writer who lived in the USSR. He was imprisoned in the Gulag for his Zionist views and writings about the life of Jews in the USSR and their suffering during the Holocaust. He is the author of When the Menorah Fades and several other books, short stories, and poems.

Reviews

“This memoir, covering the author’s years in and out of labor and prison camps up to his release in 1955, describes the oppressive network of the Gulag; its social hierarchies, whose prisoners ranged from hardened criminals to Party members; and his relationships with Jews of every stripe, from former student radicals to Lubavitcher Chassidim… [T]he author’s heartfelt style shines through. His love of heritage is expressed in modern Hebrew language and literature, and his straightforward prose shows a certain innocence, as well as acceptance of the society around him. … [A] fascinatingly human glimpse into a world perceived as soulless, as well as testament to a painful Russian legacy…”

— Hallie Cantor, AJL News & Reviews

“Few of the millions of men and women who survived the Gulag were able to leave a record of what they had witnessed and endured. Such memoirs are a testament to the writer’s courage as well as an invaluable source on one of the great horrors of the twentieth century. Arrested on a trumped-up charge in 1949, Zvi Preigerzon, a respected professor of mineralogy and a published Hebrew writer and poet, was tortured by the secret police and subsequently spent several years in some of the most terrible camps in the Soviet penal system until his release after the death of the dictator Stalin. Preigerzon’s reminiscences, composed in spare but highly descriptive prose and beautifully translated by his grandson, contain moving descriptions of the author’s struggle to retain his religious and professional identity under the most brutal of circumstances. Vivid portraits of the people, good, evil, and fair-to-middling, he met behind the barbed wire and stories of covert and overt acts of resistance by the author and his fellow prisoners round off this epic account of how one man’s spirit triumphed over rampant, pervasive ideological evil.”

— Richard Tempest, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages, University of Illinois

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Author’s Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Part 1: Arrest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 2. Interrogation
Citizen Lieutenant Colonel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	4
Lefortovo Prison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
My Hebrew Writing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
The MGB Informer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
The Interrogation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	10
The Initial Protocols Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
Taraskin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
The Letter to Ben-Gurion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
The Concluding Protocol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
The Encounter with Baazov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Form 206 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Part 3: Butyrka Prison
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
The Sentencing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Church Cell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
The Jewish Theater Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
Part 4: On the Way to Karaganda
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The Stolypin Carriage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Part 5: Karaganda
Sand Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
Camp Rules Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
My Morning Prayer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
Meir Baazov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
The Invention Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
Thieves and Bitches Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
Part 6: The Eynikeyt Group
Alik Hodorkovsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
Eliyahu Mishpatman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
Sasha Sukher Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
Misha Spivak Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
Volodya Kerzman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Meir Gelfond Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
Zhmerynka Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
The Ghetto Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
The Zionist Group Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
Part 7: The People in Karaganda Camp
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Yechezkel Pulerevitch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Aharon Kricheli Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Dr. Leon Lemenev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
Itzhak Kahanov (Kogan) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Motl Grubian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Kreinman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
Leib Pashtandiker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
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Michail Yankovsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Bokov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
Ermakov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Other Characters in Karaganda Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
Part 8: In Karaganda Transfer Camp
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Abraham Shtukarevich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
Israel Avrovich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Zinovy Shulman and Lublin Gymnasia in Odessa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Gitterman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Part 9: On the Way to Inta
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Michael Ibambletov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Kononenko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Alexey Ivanovich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Ostrovsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
Part 10: Inta Mineral Prison Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
Part 11: 4th Abez Prison Camp
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The Engineering Team Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Suchoruchko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
Lihachev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Kalinin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Kargin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Boris Ivanovich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Zeleny Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Isaak Hoffman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Shmuel Halkin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Leib Strongin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Gregory Shitz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Yakov Shternberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Weissman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
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Part 12: Vorkuta
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Stalinsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Kostia Amarnetov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
1st River Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Stein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Shkolnik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Reminiscence of Odessa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Kaplinsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Capitalnaya Mine Technical Control Department Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
Coal Sorting Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Getting Paid Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
Part 13: The 9th Vorkuta Prison Camp
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The Beginning of Coal Enrichment Work Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
The Laboratory of Professor Stadnikov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Part 14: My Fellow Jewish Prisoners in the 9th Vorkuta Camp
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David Cohen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Leonid Kantargy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
Yosef Kerler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Rotenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
Hesin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Solomon Fayman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Shaya Bilik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
Mordechai Shenkar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
Leonid Aronov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
Shmuel Ferdman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Menachem Levi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Boris Dinaburg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	184
Michail Shulman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Sasha Eisorovich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
George Grin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Part 15: Work on Coal Enrichment. Fresh Winds
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The Rudnik Laboratory and Transfer to the 40th Prison Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
The Home of Haim and Nehama Solz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Part 16: Release from Vorkuta Prison Camp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Images Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: College/higher education;General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 244
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 23
Keywords: Gulag; Jews in Gulag; Jewish culture in the Soviet Union; Persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union; Stalin and Jews; USSR; Soviet Russia; antisemitism; religious persecution

eBook

Published: September 27, 2022
ISBN: 9781644699058