Zvi Preigerzon wrote memoirs about his time in the Gulag in 1958, long before Solzhenitsyn and without any knowledge of the other publications on this subject. It was one of the first eyewitness accounts of the harsh reality of Soviet Gulags. Even after the death of Stalin, when the whole Gulag system was largely disbanded, writing about them could be regarded as an act of heroism. Preigerzon attempted to document and analyze his own prison camp experience and portray the Jewish prisoners he encountered in forced labor camps. Among these people, we meet scientists, engineers, famous Jewish writers and poets, young Zionists, a devoted religious man, a horse wagon driver, a Jewish singer of folk songs, and many, many others. As Preigerzon put it, "Each one had his own story, his own soul, and his own tragedy."

About the Author

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

Book Information
ISBN 9781644699041
Author Zvi Preigerzon
Format Paperback
Page Count 244
Imprint Cherry Orchard Books
Publisher Academic Studies Press
Weight(grams) 22g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 14mm