Joseph Berger

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Joseph Berger (* 1904 in Krakow ; † 1978 ), born Isaak Zeliaznik , was a communist politician as an activist in Palestine and as a functionary of the Communist International in the Soviet Union, fell victim to the Stalinist terror and was later a political scientist in Israel .

Life

Joseph Berger came from Krakow , emigrated to what was then British Palestine in the 1920s and worked there in the Communist Party of Palestine . There he became deputy to the party secretary Wolf Averbuch . The Arab-Jewish unrest culminated in the first civil war in Palestine in August 1929. Like all other political forces, the communists were surprised by the violence that killed several hundred in a week. With their internationalist stance, the communists found themselves between the nationalist fronts. In addition, the Mandate Police took advantage of the location to deport key CP members from the country in several waves. So Joseph Berger was forced to leave the country. He went to Berlin and worked as the deputy of Willy Munzenberg in the "League against Imperialism and National Independence". Berger spent the Nazi period in exile in the Soviet Union, where he headed the Comintern's Middle East Department .

In February 1935 Berger was arrested in Moscow. He survived the Butyrka and Lubyanka prisons and several Siberian camps, as well as internment on the Solovetsky Islands . Eventually he landed in Irkutsk . Berger remained in custody until 1951. This was followed by exile near Krasnoyarsk , where Berger was allowed to work as a translator. After sixteen years he saw his wife and son there again. In 1956 he was rehabilitated and allowed to travel to Warsaw. A year later he went to Israel.

There, Joseph Berger took on a teaching position for political science at the Bar-Ilan University , which was then converted into an extraordinary professorship. Berger held on to the idea of ​​non-Stalinist socialism until his death.

other names

Berger, Joseph Michael; Zilsnik; Zilesnik; Zeliaznik; Barzilai, Yosef (later name); Berger-Barzilai, Joseph (later name)

Autobiography

Shipwreck of a Generation: The Memoirs of Joseph Berger , London 1971, (English title); Nothing But the Truth , New York 1971, (American title).

literature