Night of the Murdered Poets

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As night the murdered poet , even night of the slain poet ( Russian Дело Еврейского антифашистского комитета , affair Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee ' ), the night of 12 referred to 13 August 1952 in the number of Soviet Jews , including well-known Yiddish writer and Intellectuals executed in Moscow's Lubyanka prison . The arrests took place in September 1948 and June 1949. All of the defendants were arrested on the pretext of espionage and high treason because of their association with the Jewish Antifascist Committee . After torture and three years of solitary confinement, a secret trial followed, which was subsequently sentenced to death by shooting. In addition to the so-called doctors' conspiracy , this is one of the best - known anti-Semitic crimes against the Jewish population under Josef Stalin .

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

The Jewish Antifascist Committee (JAK) was a group of well-known Jewish intellectuals that was created during the course of World War II at the instigation of the Soviet government with the aim of gaining worldwide support from Jewish circles for the war against the German Reich .

Jewish culture was almost completely destroyed by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the Holocaust . The last noticeable influence came from the Yiddish writers of the JAK. After the war, its members decided to devote themselves to rebuilding Jewish life in the Soviet Union.

Stalin saw the rebuilding of Yiddish culture as an attempt to break away from communist ideology, so that the Jewish population would isolate themselves culturally and linguistically and ultimately ally with Israel and America.

Interrogation and indictment

The charges against the accused included " counterrevolutionary crimes " and "planning a coup". They were also accused of spying for foreign agents, especially American journalists. During the interrogation, the defendants were severely tortured.

The defendants

The following people were charged:

  1. Perez Markisch (1895–1952), Yiddish writer
  2. David Hofstein (1889–1952), Yiddish writer
  3. Itzik Feffer (1900–1952), Yiddish writer
  4. Leib Kwitko (1890–1952), Yiddish writer and children's book author
  5. David Bergelson (1884–1952), writer
  6. Solomon Losowski (1878–1952), Director of the Soviet Information Office
  7. Boris Schimeliowitsch (1892–1952), Medical Director of the Botkin Hospital in Moscow
  8. Benjamin Suskin (1899–1952), assistant and successor to Solomon Michoels , director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater
  9. Joseph Jusefowitsch (1890–1952), scientist at the Institute for History of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
  10. Leon Talmi (1893–1952), translator and journalist
  11. Ilja Watenberg (1887–1952), translator and journalist from Eynikeyt , the JAK newspaper
  12. Tschajka Watenberg-Ostrowskaja (1901–1952), wife of Ilja Watenberg, translator for the JAK
  13. Emilia Teumin (1905–1952), deputy editor-in-chief of the diplomatic dictionary
  14. Solomon Bregman (1895–1953), Deputy People's Commissar for State Control
  15. Lina Stern (also Shtern) (1875–1968), biochemist, physiologist and humanist, first female scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences . She was the only survivor.

During this time there were further arrests and executions of persons who were connected to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Among them was the former director of the State Jewish Theater in Moscow, Solomon Michoels , who was murdered in Minsk in 1948 on Stalin's orders . The well-known Yiddish writer Der Nister died in 1950 in the Gulag . In the same year, the literary critic Yitzhak Nusinov and the two journalists Shmuel Persov and Miriam Zheleznova were shot.

Trial and Executions

The secret trial against the accused stretched over several months, from May 8 to July 18, 1952. There were neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys, only a military court consisting of three people. Some of the defendants made a confession or partial confession , while others pleaded innocence.

The verdict was execution and confiscation of the property. In addition, all of the accused's awards were confiscated. On August 12, 1952, 13 of the convicts (all except Lina Stern and Solomon Bregman) were shot in the basement of the Lubyanka prison.

Solomon Bregman was tortured so severely during his imprisonment that he fell into a coma. He remained unconscious until his death on January 23, 1953.

Lina Stern was the only one who survived because of her work as a successful scientist. She was "only" sentenced to three and a half years in a labor camp followed by five years in exile. Because of her long imprisonment, she was able to go straight into exile. After Stalin's death, however, she was able to return home earlier.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rubenstein, Joshua (2001). "Introduction." In: Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov (Eds.), Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN 9780300129397 . p. 504
  2. ^ Rubenstein, Joshua. "The Night of the Murdered Poets." The New Republic Aug. 25, 1997: Research Library, ProQuest. Web. Feb. 2, 2010.
  3. ↑ 13 jewish intellectuals executed in night of the murdered poets , World Jewish Congress, August 12, 2020
  4. ↑ Lustiger, Arno, Stalin and the Jews (New York: Enigma Books, 2003) p. 222.
  5. ^ "Poetry of the Holocaust." The Last Lullaby. Ed. and trans. Aaron Kramer. First Paperback ed. Np: Dora Teitelboim Foundation, Inc., 1998. 251. Google Books Search. Web. 4 Feb 2010.
  6. ↑ a b Rubenstein, 2001 pp. 53–56
  7. ↑ Rubenstein, 2001 pp. 59-62
  8. ↑ Lustiger 2003, p. 349
  9. ↑ Lustiger 2003, p. 243