“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

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.

Introduction

Author’s Foreword

Part 1. Arrest

Part 2. Interrogation
Citizen Lieutenant Colonel
Lefortovo Prison
My Hebrew Writing
The MGB Informer
The Interrogation
The Initial Protocols
Taraskin
The Letter to Ben-Gurion
The Concluding Protocol
The Encounter with Baazov
Form 206

Part 3. Butyrka Prison
The Sentencing
Church Cell
The Jewish Theater

Part 4. On the Way to Karaganda
The Stolypin Carriage

Part 5. Karaganda
Sand Camp
Camp Rules
My Morning Prayer
Meir Baazov
The Invention
Thieves and Bitches

Part 6. The Eynikeyt Group
Alik Hodorkovsky
Eliyahu Mishpatman
Sasha Sucher
Misha Spivak
Volodya Kerzman
Meir Helfand
Zhmerynka
The Ghetto
The Zionist Group

Part 7. The People in Karaganda Camp
Yechezkel Pulerevitch
Aharon Kricheli
Dr. Leon Lemenev
Itzhak Kahanov (Kogan)
Motl Grubian
Kreinman
Leib Pashtandiker
Jabotinsky
Michail Yankovsky
Bokov
Ermakov
Other Characters in Karaganda Camp

Part 8. In Karaganda Transfer Camp
Abraham Shtukarevich
Israel Avrovich
Zinovy Shulman and Lublin Gymnasia in Odessa
Gitterman

Part 9. On the Way to Inta
Michael Ibambletov
Kononenko
Alexey Ivanovich
Ostrovsky

Part 10. Inta Mineral Prison Camp

Part 11. 4th Abez Prison Camp
The Engineering Team
Suchoruchko
Lihachev
Kalinin
Kargin
Boris Ivanovich
Zeleny
Isaak Hoffman
Shmuel Halkin
Leib Strongin
Gregory Shitz
Yakov Shternberg
Weissman
The Coachman

Part 12. Vorkuta
Barracks Number 18
Kuznetsov
Stalinsky
Kostia Amarnetov
1st River Camp
Stein
Shkolnik
Reminiscence of Odessa
Kaplinsky
Capitalnaya Mine Technical Control Department
Coal Sorting
Getting Paid

Part 13. The 9th Vorkuta Prison Camp
The Beginning of Coal Enrichment Work
The Laboratory of Professor Stadnikov

Part 14. My Fellow Jewish Prisoners in the 9th Vorkuta Camp
David Cohen
Leonid Kantargy
Yosef Kerler
Rotenberg
Hesin
Solomon Fayman
Shaya Bilik
Mordechai Shenkar
Leonid Aronov
Shmuel Ferdman
Menachem Levi
Boris Dinaburg
Michail Shulman
Sasha Eisorovich
George Grin

Part 15. Work on Coal Enrichment: Fresh Winds
The New Laboratory
Fresh Winds
The Rudnik Laboratory and Transfer to the 40th Prison Camp
The Home of Haim and Nehama Solz

Part 16. Release from Vorkuta Prison Camp

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