Judy dUSidncler, 1.cl.s.
interior designer
authorities was now the
removal of key Jewish per-
sonalities. In the winter of
1948-1949, the Soviet secret
police arrested hundreds of
writers, poets, artists, musi-
cians and government and
party officials.
The first of the Yiddish
writers to be arrested was
Feffer, who had been the
most enthusiastic communist
among the Jewish writers. At
intervals which allowed time
for the spread of uncertainty,
dread and despair, the secret
police came in turn for the
prominent Yiddish writers
and poets. Pinkhas
Kahanovich, who wrote
under the mystical nom de
plume, Der Nister (The Hid-
den One), reportedly said to
the secret policemen who
came to arrest him: "At last!"
While the exact toll is not
known, one account offers the
figure of 431 outstanding
Soviet Jewish artists arrested
during this period — 217
writers and poets, 108 actors,
87 painters and sculptors,
and 19 musicians. The
families of the prisoners —
wives, small children,
brothers and sisters, in-laws,
aged parents — were exiled to
Siberia or left as social out
casts without means of sup-
port. Most of the prisoners
died in Soviet labor camps.
Der Nister, for example, died
in a camp on June 4, 1950,
when he was past 65.
The Soviet policy which
culminated on Aug. 12 left
Soviet Jews bereft of poets,
writers, actors, teachers,
leaders, theaters, artists and
communal institutions of any
kind. Even the Yiddish
linotype machiens had been
smashed. There was no one
left to give voice to simple
grief, much less to what was
left of Jewish national and
religious sentiments. The
next generation might still be
Jews, but they would be
dumb and mute Jews,
without poets, without songs.
So it seemed.
The crimes committed
against the Jewish writers
have never been publicly
acknowledged by any official
Soviet source. Even during
the period following Stalin's
death, when many of his
other crimes were denounced,
the night of Aug. 12 was not
recognized. While this
absence of official Soviet
recognition may be a function
of the involvement of postwar
Soviet leadership in the
crime, it also represents a
commitment on the part of
the present Soviet leadership
to a perpetuation of anti-
Jewish policies: Jewish
culture remains under
sentence of death.
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
13