Stalin's Secret Pogrom : The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

by Edited and with introductions by Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov; Trans

• ISBN13: 9780300104523
• ISBN10: 0300104529
• Edition: Abridged
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2005-10-20
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In the spring and summer of 1952, fifteen Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish writers and poets, were secretly tried and convicted; multiple executions soon followed in the basement of Moscow's Lubyanka prison. The defendants were falsely charged with treason and espionage because of their involvement in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and because of their heartfelt response as Jews to Nazi atrocities on occupied Soviet territory. Stalin had created the committee to rally support for the Soviet Union during World War II, but he then disbanded it after the war as his paranoia mounted about Soviet Jews. For many years, a host of myths surrounded the case against the committee. Now this book, which presents an abridged version of the long-suppressed transcript of the trial, reveals the Kremlin's machinery of destruction. Joshua Rubenstein provides annotations about the players and events surrounding the case. In a long introduction, drawing on newly released documents in Moscow archives and on interviews with relatives of the defendants in Israel, Russia, and the United States, Rubenstein also sets the trial in historical and political context and offers a vivid account of Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign.

Author Biography

JOSHUA RUBENSTEIN is the Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International USA and a longtime associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. VLADIMIR P. NAUMOV is executive secretary of the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression and editor of the Russian-language edition of this volume.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Vladimir P. Naumov
Acknowledgments	xxi
Note on the Translation	xxiv
Chronology	xxvi
Introduction. Night of the Murdered Poets	1	(64)
Joshua Rubenstein
PART ONE. Court Record of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court, May 8--July 18, 1952	65	(340)
Testimony by the Defendants	75	(2)
Isaac Fefer	77	(24)
Emilia Teumin	101	(6)
Peretz Markish	107	(19)
David Bergelson	126	(13)
Leyb Kvitko	139	(14)
David Hofshteyn	153	(14)
Joseph Yuzefovich	167	(10)
Solomon Lozovsky	177	(56)
Boris Shimeliovich	233	(17)
Solomon Bregman	250	(11)
Statements by Isaac Fefer and Joseph Yuzefovich in Closed Judicial Session	259	(2)
Testimony by the Defendants	261	(1)
Solomon Bregman Continued	261	(3)
Leon Talmy	264	(16)
Ilya Vatenberg	280	(14)
Khayke Vatenberg-Ostrovskaya	294	(7)
Benjamin Zuskin	301	(17)
Lina Shtern	318	(28)
Experts' Testimony in Closed Judicial Session, June 26	334	(5)
Experts' Testimony in Closed Judicial Session, June 27	339	(2)
Experts' Testimony in Closed Judicial Session, June 28	341	(4)
Determination Regarding the Defendants' Petitions	345	(1)
Testimony by the Defendants	346	(1)
Lina Shtern Continued	346	(2)
Additional Testimony	348	(57)
Determination to Separate Solomon Bregman's Case	380	(1)
Statement by Isaac Fefer in Closed Judicial Session	381	(1)
The Defendants' Final Statements	382	(11)
The Sentence	393	(12)
PART TWO. The Resolution: Post-Trial Documents	405	(12)
Certificate That the Sentence Was Carried Out, August 12, 1952	405	(1)
Death Certificate for Solomon Bregman, January 23, 1953	406	(1)
Determination to Cease Solomon Bregman's Prosecution, June 3, 1953	407	(2)
Determination to Annul the Sentence and Terminate the Case of Lozovsky et al., November 22, 1955	409	(8)
Notes	417	(10)
Index	427