Since the 1950s, the so-called Night of the Murdered Poets has become a summertime ritual for Yiddish cultural circles in the United States. The second provides a different version of the story about the meeting between Paul Robeson and Itsik Fefer discussed in resource 5. Their confessions had been extracted by torture. Like so many archival materials in the Soviet Union, it was only made available to researchers in the late 1980s. The event is referred to as the Night of the Murdered Poets and regarded by some as the successful destruction of post-war Yiddish literature and culture in the Soviet Union. But this Resurrection Morning, April 20, 2014 I write with a very heavy heart because you see, another type of discovery was made this time just outside of Jewish synagogues in the Crimea. Sources: Itzik Feffer, “I Am A Jew,” trans. Is it more like literature? Historian Joseph Yusefovitz claimed during his trial that he was hit so often and so hard that he would have admitted to being the pope’s nephew if it could have helped him. They were accused, among other things, of trying to set up a Jewish state in the Crimean Peninsula. Itzik Fefer, Paul Robeson, and Solomon Mikhoels, 1943. In 1949, Robeson in turn traveled to the USSR. The trial, held behind closed doors before a tribunal of three judges and no defense attorneys, began May 8, 1952, and ended July 18. One can only imagine the mental state of the defendants after their years of imprisonment and interrogation, and their fear for their families. 6 VIBRANT ISSUES A YEAR, REMARKABLE STORIES, EASY TO READ, TIMELINES, MAPS AND A WEALTH OF UNFORGETTABLE IMAGES, Bring Jewish history to life with Segula magazine, or call: +972-58-541-6146 Sunday-Wednesday 9:00-14:00 am Israel time or leave a message. This resource consists of the following photographs: These photographs can be used to put faces to the names and events discussed in the other resources in this kit. Joseph Sherman in David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism (London: Legenda, 2007), 353. Editor's note: We have not been able to determine the rightsholder for Joseph Leftwich's translations, and we would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows who the rightsholder is. Used by permission. Mikhoels - a ner tomid baym orn” (“S. This guide offers one entry point to the complicated history of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union by unpacking one of the tragic endpoints of that history. Bergelson_ThreeCenters_excerpt_Redacted1.pdf, Download Bergelson_ThreeCenters_excerpt_Redacted1.pdf. The Night of the Murdered Poets. The Night of the Murdered Poets. Jewish cultural figures who would become members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee signing an appeal to world Jewry to support the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany, Moscow, 1941. Many had seen the Soviet Union as a liberator, even a savior, from the oppression Jews had experienced in Czarist Russia and during the rise of Nazism. Goldstein (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), 94-96 and 170-173. Only two escaped this fate: Solomon Bergman, who fell into a coma during the trial and died in prison a few months after the others were executed; and biologist Lina Stern, whose sentence was commuted to exile due to the importance of her research. Mikhoels had been assassinated early in 1948, and a year later most of his colleagues from the committee had been arrested. Log in Sign up. While the JAFC was supported by the Soviet government during World War Two as it worked to rally international Jewish support (and funding) for the war effort, after the war the very fact that the committee appealed to Jews around the world caused it to be branded as nationalist and therefore criminal in the Soviet Union. Students may be prompted to think about the role of poetry and music in civil rights struggles in the United States (from Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” to Childish Gambino’s “This is America” to the work of Paul Robeson (see resource 5)). Ch. Do they expect it to be a reliable source? Ask them to share what they learn and what Fefer demonstrates about his identity with each example. He is questioned specifically about his poem on the occasion of Mikhoels’ death (resource 2). Does it change or affect their sense of the poem? Sources: Photograph of Jewish cultural figures signing an appeal to world Jewry, Moscow, 1941. “The Night of the Murdered Poets” refers to August 12, 1952, when thirteen Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union were executed by the state after having been convicted of “nationalist activity” and espionage. The staged photographs of the JAFC members—the group photos and the photo of Mikhoels, Fefer, and Robeson—were clearly meant to be used for publicity and propaganda when they were taken. Suggested Activity: As a pre-reading activity, ask students what their expectations are for reading a court document. Photograph of Itzik Fefer, Paul Robeson, and Solomon Mikhoels, 1943, courtesy of the Jewish Public Library Archives, Montreal. Sometimes I look at photos of myself and wonder why I was not smiling. At the end of the war, the committee came under immediate suspicion of collusion in an international plot to overthrow the Communist state. This poem is a powerful reminder that the Soviet Union’s murderous policy toward Yiddish culture was a reversal of its earlier approach. Kalabusha, “Itzik Feffer reads his poem איך בין א ייד”, YouTube video, 6:35, August 12, 2010, https://youtu.be/t6dx9sLBt9c. Dovid Bergelson was one of the greatest Yiddish prose writers, and he was the most internationally well-known of the Yiddish writers involved with the JAFC. And what do we do with historical material that is ultimately incomplete or even contradictory? The proceedings dragged on much longer than anticipated. But more poets arose in their place. As night fell this evening in Moscow, 13 prominent Soviet Jews were shot in Lubyanka Prison on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage. The sources included in this kit come from a number of different genres, with the intention that as students learn about the history of the JAFC, Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union, and Stalinist autocracy, they are also learning how different kinds of sources can be approached, read, and used in different ways. Joseph Leftwitch (The Hague: Mouton, 1974), 321-324. Once upon a time, you could simply kill the poets. On this last point, students will have to confront the fact that, even with all of these sources, it is all but impossible to understand what some of these historical figures really thought or felt about their lives, art, and work in the Soviet Union. What value is there in trying to understand that perspective? Select resources to include in a custom Teachers' Guide PDF or to download as a ZIP file. The martyrs’ families were exiled in December 1952, remaining ignorant of their relatives’ fate until 1955, when their files were reopened after Stalin’s death. Five of those killed were among the most prominent surviving Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union, and so for many people their deaths came to mark an end of Soviet Yiddish culture and a final proof of Stalin’s murderous anti-Semitism. Later in the testimony he had to correct the record as other testimony clearly demonstrated their professional relationship (supported by the memoirs of Markish’s wife Esther in resource 7). Remarkably, there is a complete transcript of the two-month trial against the JAFC. The Night of the Murdered Poets Political pawns of the Soviet state, thirteen Soviet Jewish intellectuals were murdered in one night On August 12, 1952, thirteen Soviet Jews convicted of espionage and treason were executed in Moscow’s Lubianika Prison. Posts about Night of Murdered Poets written by docriggs. Recent Top. Download JAFC_MikhoelsSpeech_Redacted2.pdf. Itzik Fefer, “Ikh bin a yid” in A shpigl oyf a shteyn: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose by Twelve Soviet Yiddish Writers, ed. Is a memoir valuable as “evidence,” “testimony,” or “history”? Members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. StalinSecretPogrom_Feffer_-_edited_Redacted.pdf, Download StalinSecretPogrom_Markish_-_edited.pdf, Download StalinSecretPogrom_Feffer_-_edited_Redacted.pdf, A brief introduction to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee can be found in the. It was evening when I left and will be evening when I get there. They went to rally international support, especially international Jewish support, for the Soviet war effort against the Nazis. By 1949, in view of the new Zionist “threat” posed by the State of Israel, the Soviets were openly hostile to all Jewish activity, and the committee was shut down. Bergelson spent his youth in Kiev, but left the Soviet Union in 1921 after the chaos and violence of the first World War, the 1917 revolutions, and the resulting civil war. The Night of the Murdered Poets. Why and how does Markish not defend his poem? 5: Documentary excerpt and song, Paul Robeson’s 1949 trip to Moscow, meeting with Itsik Fefer, and singing of the partisan hymn. But history is not black and white, and we may in fact inhibit our ability to understand and learn from the lives and works of great writers like Dovid Bergelson, Perets Markish, Leyb Kvitko, and Dovid Hofshteyn if we remember them only as “victim” or “martyr.”, Cover image: Members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Moscow, 1946. Laura Esther Wolfson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 92-94 and 128-131. Reproduced by permission of Yale University Press. The Night of the Murdered Poets (Russian: Дело Еврейского антифашистского комитета, romanized: Delo Yevreyskogo antifashistskogo komiteta, lit. But it is not a simple or easy thing to condemn Fefer: despite his long membership in the Communist party and a lifetime of service to the revolution, in the end he lost his life as well, convicted of Jewish nationalism. All the accused spoke at length and were then extensively cross-examined in an attempt to trick them into incriminating their colleagues. Esther Markish wrote her memoirs when she was 66 years old and living in Israel after years of exile in the Soviet Union for the crime of being the wife of a “traitor to the motherland.” Her husband, Perets Markish, was arrested in 1949, and it was not until he was officially (but posthumously) “rehabilitated” in 1955 that Esther and her sons were officially told that Perets had been executed in 1952. Markish_Mikhoels_Yiddish_-_edited_Redacted.pdf, Download Markish_Mikhoels_-_Edited_Redacted.pdf, Download Markish_Mikhoels_Yiddish_-_edited_Redacted.pdf. Surgeon Boris Shmuelevitz, who refused to plead guilty to a single charge, reckoned that he received more than two thousand blows. Ask students to consider if that affects how they read these excerpts, especially given that Esther Markish’s versions of the stories about Robeson and even her husband’s relationship with Mikhoels contradict the other sources. — from Chaim Grade’s “Elegy for the Soviet Yiddish Writers” 60 years ago on August 12, 1952, Stalin ordered the execution of 13 Soviet Jews, many of them Yiddish writers, poets, critics, and thinkers, on false charges of treason and espionage. Segula Magazine is the only popular Jewish history magazine in print! Follow. Nevertheless, it was clear to many at the time what had occurred and only months later the arrests of other members of the JAFC began. The recording of Fefer reading the poem comes from a unique trip he and Solomon Mikhoels took to the US and the UK in 1943 as representatives of the JAFC to rally international Jewish support for the Soviet war effort against the Nazis. The first excerpt, about Perets Markish’s relationship with Mikhoels, illuminates Markish’s poem about Mikhoels (resource 2) and contradicts Perets Markish’s depiction of that relationship in his court testimony (resource 8). Suggested Activity: Have students watch the documentary from 1:11:10 - 1:15:20 and then have them listen to the recording of Robeson singing “Zog nit keynmol.” Let them know that Robeson sang several Jewish songs throughout his career, in addition to many African American spirituals based on biblical stories about the enslavement of the Israelites. (Front row, left to right) Dovid Bergelson, Solomon Mikhoels, and Ilya Ehrenburg; (second row) David Oistrakh, Yitskhok Nusinov, Yakov Zak, Boris Iofan, Benjamin Zuskin, Aleksandr Tyshler, Shmuel Halkin. The Night of the Murdered Poets, an August 12, 1952, massacre of Yiddish-language writers in the Soviet Union, happened 65 years ago. It should be noted that “The Night of the Murdered Poets” is a misnomer on two important counts. 15_-_Zog_Nit_Keynmol_Song_of_the_Warsaw_Ghetto.mp3. The Soviet Union is often portrayed as gray and drab in Western culture; how does Bergelson use color in this excerpt? First, only four of the thirteen victims were poets, though several others were prominent writers, intellectuals, and cultural figures; what really connected the group was their affiliation with an organization called the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Last photograph of Solomon Mikhoels, 1948, used by permission of YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research. The principle defendant in the trial, Solomon Lozovskii, testified that, “What is on trial here is the Yiddish language.” Indeed, for the poets among the accused, Yiddish poetry had literally become a matter of life and death. (c). Have students read the exchanges in both excerpts when the Presiding Officer quotes from Markish and Fefer’s poems. Under his direction, stenographers recorded every word of judges and defendants alike, creating a reliable account of the proceedings.” These documents are extremely difficult to read; many of the defendants admit to “partial guilt” and agree that the JAFC was guilty of nationalism; many offer evidence against their codefendants. Political pawns of the Soviet state, thirteen Soviet Jewish intellectuals were murdered in one night. The very phrase translated here as “fellow Jews” was discussed in the trial as irredeemably nationalist. Please take a moment to review my edit. But almost immediately after the war, attitudes changed and Fefer removed the poem from collections of his work. Courtesy of the Russian State Film and Photo Archives, www.RussianArchives.com. The following , based on an article by Rabbi Israel Miller and Albert Chernin , … Source: Esther Markish, The Long Return, trans. Joseph Leftwich in An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Literature (The Hague: Mouton, 1974), 306-307. August 12th, 2009 Headsman. 'Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair'; Yiddish: הרוגי מלכות פונעם ראטנפארבאנד, romanized: Harugey malkus funem Ratnfarband, lit. Great Jewish Books is made possible in part through the generous support of George and Pamela Rohr. 7: Excerpts from memoir, Esther Markish's, "The Long Return (Le Long Retour)," 1978. Media in category "Night of the Murdered Poets" The following 2 files are in this category, out of 2 total. Nacht der ermordeten Dichter - Night of the Murdered Poets. (The government was not openly acknowledging that the group was arrested; it told other international visitors that JAFC members were on vacation or ill.) There were many rumors about what Fefer did or did not tell Robeson, but Robeson understood at the very least that something was wrong. 1952: Night of the Murdered Poets. It was an act of great courage that was used as evidence against him in the trial (see related resources 6, 7, and 8). Extreme violence was used in their interrogation. In the second excerpt, Fefer is likewise questioned about his poem “I am a Jew” (resource 1). Suggested Activity: Ask students to describe the photos from the perspective of the time when they were taken, the time of the trial, and looking back from today. Secondly, the night of the execution was only the end of an ordeal that had gone on for years. 2: Poem, Peretz Markish's, “Mikhoels,” 1948. (Photo courtesy of the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service, Moscow). Click Here to Read: Night of the Murdered Poets: Rokhl’s Golden City: This week in 1952, five Yiddish poets were executed in the Soviet Union. 3: Essay excerpt, Dovid Bergelson's, “Three Centers,” 1926. There are a number of translations into English of works by the Yiddish writers killed for their involvement with the JAFC: Poetry by Itzik Fefer, Dovid Hofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko, and Peretz Markish can be found in. What kind of information can we learn from a poem, a speech, a memoir, a court transcript, a song, or an essay? I was growing — Lynn Melnick, from “The Night of the Murdered Poets,” published in BOAAT. mikhoels—a ner tomid baym orn” in A shpigl oyf a shteyn: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose by Twelve Soviet Yiddish Writers, Ed. The Yiddish Book Center’s Great Jewish Books Teacher Resources, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. The tension between the hope that many Jews had for the Soviet Union and the country’s ultimate betrayal of its promise to end anti-Semitism is one of the reasons this history and literature are so poignant. Joseph Leftwitch, in An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Literature, ed. Listen to Night of the Murdered Poets from Conejo's Iceman Chronicles for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. (Note: The English translation of the poem is only an excerpt of the original. Joshua Rubinstein and Vladimir P. Naumov, trans. Sign up for updates about this website and the Yiddish Book Center's programs for educators: This site is made possible with support from the Jim Joseph Foundation, which is devoted to fostering compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for youth and young adults in the U.S. Additional funding for this site has been provided by Yiddish Book Center members. Itsik Fefer. The gathering commemorates Stalin’s attempted deathblow to Yiddish culture: On August 12, 1952, the major group of Yiddish writers, thinkers, and critics, who were the leading activists in the wartime fight against … Solomon Mikhoels was an acclaimed actor and the director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, and one of the organizers and leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Minnesota Action Committee for Soviet Jewry urges all iwin uties Congregations to observe this week the 21 st yahrzeit of the murdered Russian Jewish poets . by Rokhol Kafrissen on the Tablet website on August 14, 2019. Aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie . Once Bitten, Twice Shy – Portuguese Jewry, Charlotte Rothschild – First Jewish Female Artist, Shtreimel Variations: The History of a Hat, The Jewish Girl who Set the Wild West Ablaze, The Jewish Father of French Impressionism, The Congress that Founded the Jewish State, The Fourth Commandment and the Eighteenth Amendment, 9 Things You Didn’t Know About Hedy Lamarr, Shmuel Zanwil Kahane and the Legend of the Holy Ashes. Ben Zion Goldberg, New York, Yad Vashem photo archive . He also had a more complicated relationship with the Soviet Union than most. Robeson was the only international visitor allowed to see any of those under arrest. It translates sections 3, 5, and 6 of the Yiddish. 8: Excerpts from the court testimony of Perets Markish and Itsik Fefer, 1952. Joshua Rubenstein writes, “Because the trial was not a public one, there was no need to constrain the defendants from expressing themselves. Similar to Fefer’s poem “I am a Jew,” the speeches demonstrate the kind of appeal to a worldwide Jewish nation that was condoned during the war and deemed criminal afterward. Object cannot be viewed due to a general problem, please contact your System Administrator 4: Speech excerpt, Solomon Mikhoels, from the first rally of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, 1941. Ch. On August 12, 1952, thirteen major Soviet Jewish figures were executed for espionage, bourgeois nationalism, "lack of true Soviet spirit," and treason, including a plot to hand the Crimea over to American and Zionist imperialists. The senior judge asked to reopen the investigation in view of the many internal contradictions and gaps in testimony, but the Soviet leadership wanted a swift conclusion – execution by firing squad and confiscation of all property belonging to the convicted. They also provide a unique and intimate portrait of her husband and many of the Yiddish and Russian literary and cultural figures of the 1920s-1950s, including many of the JAFC members. D.I. How does this compare to their own ideas of Jewish life in Eastern Europe? Does a memoir have to be demonstrably accurate in order for us to learn something from it? What’s a Jewish Menorah doing on early Islamic coins and vessels ? I have just modified one external link on Night of the Murdered Poets. Source: Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, ed. Ask students: What points of shared struggle between Jews and African Americans does Robeson draw on? ConejoIceman Chronicles℗ 2014 Felony CaseReleased on: 2014-03-04Auto-generated by YouTube. At first he was a vocal critic of Soviet Jewish culture, but with the publication of this essay he marked an ideological shift that would lead him to return to the Soviet Union in 1934 and become an advocate for the project to establish a Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan. Then he wondered if one was … Shmeruk (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1987), 694-697. It should be noted that Itsik Fefer is the most controversial of the Yiddish writers killed for their involvement with the JAFC, because he informed on the JAFC and his fellow writers to the secret police and served as the chief witness for the prosecution in the trial. That one night was 66 years today, Aug. 12, 1952, memorialized as “The Night of the Murdered Poets.” A New York broadsheet said the victims … In the first excerpt, Markish attempts to represent Solomon Mikhoels as neither a colleague nor a friend and speaks of him only critically. Have students consider the pressures of McCarthyism in the United States in relation to Stalinism in the Soviet Union: can they be compared? Night of the Murdered Poets: | The |Night of the Murdered Poets| (|Russian|: |Дело Еврейского антифашистского комитета|,... World Heritage Encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most definitive collection ever assembled. Moments of resistance are brief or coded. “The Night of the Murdered Poets”, as it’s come to be remembered, wasn’t so much about the poetry; “only” five of the victims fit that description. These writers had worked for decades to build Soviet Yiddish culture, and now their literary works were being used as evidence against them. Written in English Places: Soviet Union; Subjects: Yiddish poetry -- Soviet Union -- Translations into English. Mikhoels—An Eternal Flame by His Coffin”)—at Mikhoel’s memorial service, openly acknowledging that Mikhoels was murdered. During the war, Yiddish writers felt encouraged to express their Jewish identity in the fight against fascism, as this poem by Itsik Fefer does. Suggested Activity: Assign students a stanza of the poem and have them research the references Fefer makes to moments of Jewish and Soviet history. Want to demolish the corpse of a community? Well, more poets arose in this placeI should say. And as the trial progressed, the judges grew more respectful of them, while the presiding judge, Alexander Cheptsov, soon understood that the entire case was a fabrication and tried to stop the proceedings. byerushalayim: sovietjewry: I weep for you with all the letters of the alphabet that made your hopeful songs. If so, how? The Night of the Murdered Poets. Suggested Activity: After (or before) reading and discussing the poem itself, ask students if they can think of other examples of poems that constitute acts of political resistance. How have their deaths been framed since then? Sources: Peretz Markish, “Mikhoels,” trans. The Night of the Murdered Poets (Russian: Дело Еврейского антифашистского комитета, romanized: Delo Yevreyskogo antifashistskogo komiteta, lit. I made the following changes: "Zog Nit Keynmol (Song of the Warsaw Ghetto)" by Paul Robeson from the recording entitled The Collector's Paul Robeson, MON61580, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. It is a powerful show of solidarity with the Yiddish writers, and yet when Robeson returned to the United States, he did not do anything publicly to try and aid the JAFC members, likely because he feared these efforts would feed into anti-Soviet and anti-Communist sentiment at home. The Night of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee can be found in the trial as irredeemably nationalist and how Bergelson... They learn and what Fefer demonstrates about his poem איך בין א ייד, Download stalinsecretpogrom_feffer_-_edited_redacted.pdf, Download StalinSecretPogrom_Markish_-_edited.pdf Download. 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