Архив еврейской истории. Том 13

This chapter is on Savely Zlatopolsky (1856/57–1885), a member of the Executive Committee of the People’ s Will (Narodnaya Volya) party, a figure undeservedly overlooked not only by researchers, but also by other memoirists. It contains Zlatopolsky’s full testimony records, his secret notes from the Peter and Paul Fortress, and three letters to his relatives. This material is valuable because provides not only a picture of the revolutionary movement during the period, but also, and most importantly, of Zlatopolsky himself, who left no diaries or memoirs. Supporting the revolutionary movement of the 1870s, he stood apart from it i n many respects: his political and social views diverged from the views of the revolutionary youth of that era. This made him almost a renegade; he believed neither in going «to the people» nor in the readiness of the peasantry for a mass uprising. He fully joined the revolutionary movement only when it set itself political tasks. Having become a member of Narodnaya Volya, and now regarding terrorism as a method of revolutionary struggle, he was still in many ways a dissenter, believing that the first task of the revolutionary movement was to make Russia democratic rather than establish socialism.

Moisei Beregovsky. Letters from a Camp. Edited and introduced by Evgeniia Khazdan

Moisei Beregovsky, folklorist and researcher into the musical culture of Eastern European Jews, was arrested in 1950 on charges of «anti-Soviet nationalist activity» and sent in the Ozerny corrective labor camp. This paper is based on documents relating to his five years in prison. The publication of Beregovsky’s letters is supplemented by excerpts from his investigation file and other documents, as well as passages from his wife’s letters. Analysis of these materials makes it possible to identify most of the people mentioned in the letters and to understand both the general living conditions of camp inmates at the time and Beregovsky’s inner life — an inner life which enabled him to maintain his dignity and remain true to his cause.

«Why did you stay alive?» An Interview with Boris Kamenko. Edited and introduced by Irina Rebrova

This chapter is a transcription of an 1997 interview with Holocaust survivor Boris Kamenko (b. 1923) that was conducted for the USC Shoah Foundation. The first part of the interview is about his life before World War II — his relatives, hobbies, and awareness of himself as a Jew. The central part, however, is the story of the war period, that is, the Nazi occupation of Stavropol (Voroshilovsk) and Kamenko’s survival of the Holocaust.

After the Jewish population, including the Kamenko family, was registered in August 1942, members of Einsatskommando 12 selected Boris as one of the thirty physically strong men tasked with burying the corpses of Jews on the outskirts of the city. The men who survived this ordeal were placed in an SD prison. In December 1942, after four months in captivity, Boris and another prisoner managed to escape. His recollections of hiding out in the Stavropol area ends with the liberation of the city. The final section of the interview covers Boris’s post war life — his studies, work, and struggle against the state and everyday antis emitism. The interview is followed by detailed historical analysis.