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Night of the Murdered Poets

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On August 12, 1952, fifteen Soviet Jews were falsely charged with capital offenses. Thirteen of them were executed in the Lubyanka Prison basement in Moscow, Russia. This night of massacre is known as the Night of the Murdered Poets.

Joseph Stalin's increasingly violent antisemitism was unleashed in September 1948 and June 1949 when the arrests were first made. All were falsely accused of espionage and treason as well as many other crimes. After their arrests, they were tortured, beaten, and isolated for 3 years before being formally charged. There were five Yiddish writers among these defendants, all of whom were a part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

The threat of an attack on Soviet Russia by Nazi Germany catalyzed the start of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee [1] (JAC), a committee reaching out to Jews worldwide to support the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. Solomon Mikhoels, a Yiddish actor and director, headed the Committee. Other members of the committee were prominent Yiddish literary figures, actors, and doctors who wanted to help influence Jewish support for Russia through their writing and also using radio broadcasts from Russia to different countries. In 1943, Mikhoels and the vice chairman of the Anti-Fascist Committee, Itzik Fefer, traveled to the U.S. and England to help raise money.

As Nazi Germany secured its stronghold in Soviet Russia, Jewish culture and identity was destroyed in the Holocaust. The last influence left in Russia, were the Yiddish figures in the JAC, and soon the initial purpose for the committee was changed. The committee felt it had a duty to change priorities, and focus on the rebuilding of Jewish communities, farms,culture, and identity. Not everyone agreed with the direction things were headed in and many thought the JAC was “intervening in matters in which it should not interfere."[2] JAC members would later realize that these were valid concerns.

At the onset of the Cold War, the newly-created nation of Israel was allied with the West. With antisemitism already extant and well established in the Soviet Union, the rise of the Zionist state exacerbated official antipathy to any outward show of Jewish activism. As a result, official persecution was sanctioned, leading to the Soviet's elimination of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948 and the launching of a campaign against Zionists and so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," the preferred euphemism for Jews.

Defendants

  • Peretz Markish[3] (1895–1952) was born in Polnoe, Volhynia. In 1917 Markish’s first Yiddish poems were published. He helped found the School of Writers, a Yiddish literary school in Soviet Russia. His last work was March of Generations.
  • David Hofstein (1889–1952) was born in the Ukraine. In 1917 he wrote his first poem in Yiddish.
  • Itzik Fefer (1900–1952) was born in Spole. After his arrest, his fellow prisoners found out he was an informer for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This did not secure his freedom, however, as he was killed with the other defendants.
  • Leib Kvitko (1890–1952) was born in the Ukrainian Shtetl. He was a Yiddish poet, and children’s writer.
  • David Bergelson (1884–1952) was born in the Ukraine, and was a distinguished novelist.
  • Solomon Lozovsky (1878-1952) Director of Soviet Information Bureau, Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs, vigorously denounced accusations against himself and others.
  • Boris Shimeliovich (1892-1952) Medical Director of the Botkin Clinical Hospital, Moscow.
  • Benjamin Zuskin (1899-1952) Assistant to and successor of Solomon Mikhoels as director of the Moscow Yiddish State theater.
  • Joseph Yuzefovich (1890-1952) Researcher at the Institute of History, Soviet Academy of Sciences, trade union leader.
  • Leon Talmy (1893-1952) Translator/journalist, former member of the Communist Party, U.S.A.
  • Ilya Vatenberg (1887-1952) Translator/editor of eynikeyt, newspaper of the JAFC; Labor Zionist leader in Austria and U.S. before returning to the USSR in 1933.
  • Chaika Vatenburg-Ostrovskaya (1901-1952) Wife of Ilya Vatenburg, translator at JAFC.
  • Emilia Teumin (1905-1952), was born in Bern, Switzerland; deputy editor of the "Diplomatic Dictionary;" editor, International Division, SovInformBureau.
  • Solomon Bregman (1895-1953) Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs; fell into a coma after denouncing the trial and died in prison five months after the executions.

Although Solomon Mikhoels was not arrested, his death was ordered by Stalin in 1948.[4]

Lina Shtern, a biochemist, physiologist, and humanist, was the only one to survive. She was exiled for 5 years, but after Stalin's death, she was able to return to her home and continue her studies.

Notes

  1. ^ Redlich, Shimon. “Anti-Fascist Committee, Jewish.” Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli Cooperatvie Enterprise, 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2010. <[1]>
  2. ^ Rubenstein, Joshua. “The Night of the Murdered Poets. ” The New Republic 25 Aug. 1997: Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 2 Feb. 2010.<[2]>.
  3. ^ “Poetry of the Holocaust.” The Last Lullaby. Ed. and trans. Aaron Kramer. First Paperback ed. N.p.: Dora Teitelboim Foundation, Inc., 1998. 251. Google Books Search. Web. 4 Feb. 2010 <[3]>.
  4. ^ The Post War Inquisition of the Jewish-Anti Fascist Committee. Stalin’s Secret Pogrom. Ed. Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov. Trans. LauraEsther Wolfson. Abr. ed. N.p.: Yale University, 2001. 427. Google Book Search. Web. 4 Feb. 2010. <[4]>.

See also

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