Acknowledgements
Glossary
Foreword by Timothy Snyder
Introduction by Katherine R. Jolluck
Prologue
Chapter 1 September 1939
Chapter 2 Encircled
Chapter 3 The Story of a Disillusionment
Chapter 4 Pinsk Intermezzo
Chapter 5 Elijah the Prophet
Chapter 6 The Pinsk Prison
Chapter 7 The Wandering Coffin
Chapter 8 BBK [Baltic-White Sea Canal]
Chapter 9 "Square Forty-Eight"
Chapter 10 Rabguzhsila [Man/horsepower]
Chapter 11 Conversations
Chapter 12 Karelin's Brigade
Chapter 13 Dehumanization
Chapter 14 Wood Felling
Chapter 15 The Medical Sector
Chapter 16 My Enemy Labanov
Chapter 17 Gardenberg's Brigade
Chapter 18 Evening in the Barrack
Chapter 19 People at Square 48
Chapter 20 Spring 1941
Chapter 21 Etap
Chapter 22 Amnesty
Chapter 23 "You Must Work"
Chapter 24 Ivan Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov
Chapter 25 A Letter to Ehrenburg
Chapter 26 KVCh [Cultural-Educational Sector]
Chapter 27 Isaac the Fifth
Chapter 28 Camp Neurosis
Chapter 29 In the Bathhouse
Chapter 30 In the Office
Chapter 30a Three
Chapter 31 Maksik
Chapter 32 The Doctrine of Hate
Chapter 33 An Invalid's Lot
Chapter 34 The Brigade Leader of Chronic Invalids
Chapter 35 The Road to the North
Chapter 36 Kotlas
Chapter 37 Block Nine
Chapter 38 Block Five
Chapter 39 Release
Chapter 40 Conclusion
The Road to the West
Chapter 1 Slavgorod
Chapter 2 The Freedom Train
Chapter 3 Non Omnis Moriar
Chapter 4 The End of Maria
Chapter 5 September 1946
Chapter 6 Heliopolis
Julius Margolin (1900-1971) was trapped in Poland by the successive
Nazi and Soviet invasions in 1939 and was arrested by the Soviets
in June 1940 for refusing to accept Soviet citizenship. From 1940
to 1945 he served time in the Soviet Gulag. Upon his return to the
West, he wrote his memoirs, Journey to the Land of the Zek, and a
description of his return via Europe, The Road to the West.
Stefani Hoffman is the former director of the Mayrock Center for
Russian, Eurasian, and East European Research at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. She has translated numerous works,
including Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky.
Timothy Snyder is Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale
University. His award-winning works include The Reconstruction of
Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999;
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin; and Black Earth: The
Holocaust as History and Warning.
Katherine R. Jolluck is Senior Lecturer in History at Stanford
University. She is the author of Exile and Identity: Polish Women
in the Soviet Union During World War II and the co-author of Gulag
Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile.
"This is a superbly edited academic edition whose excellence is
praised in the foreword by the celebrated historian Tim Snyder.
Journey to the Land of the Zeks with all its horrifying details,
philosophical insights, and superb literary style, will finally
receive the honor and attention that it deserves." -- Mikhal Dekel,
Haaretz
"But now we have the first English translation of the book, and in
our current political climate it behooves people on both sides of
the political aisle to read it." -- Franklin Freeman, America
Magazine, The Jesuit Review
"An incisive, harrowing, and absorbing eyewitness account of the
Gulag....Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back acknowledges
the scale of the catastrophe, but the volume focuses on its impact
on humanity." -- Harry C. Merritt, Arts Fuse
"Beautifully written, incredibly detailed and moving - an important
historical document." -- Kirkus, Starred Review
"More than just a Gulag memoir, this book includes an excellent and
unusual portrait of Poland in 1939, encompassing an account of the
occupation and Sovietization of its eastern territories after the
Red Army's invasion in September. Margolin observes the impact of
major political changes on different people and social classes; he
has a strong sense of history, and his language has a literary
flavor. This book is important for anyone interested in
Soviet history, but also for anyone interested in a full account of
the Jewish experience of the war. While the story of the Jews of
Nazi-occupied Europe is well known, the fate of Jews in
Soviet-occupied Europe
is still obscure. This is a story that will seem fresh and unusual
to many." -- Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag: A History
"Julius (Yuli) Margolin DL clairvoyant Jewish writer and passionate
political polemicist DL fought to open the eyes of the world to
Stalin's crimes and, specifically, to the Soviet system of slave
convict labor. The long-awaited English-language publication of
Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back is a game changer in
both Soviet studies and Jewish studies." -- Maxim D. Shrayer,
editor of Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature and author of
A Russian Immigrant
"This is a powerful, fine-grained account of war, occupation and
the Gulag from an extraordinarily gifted writer. Margolin vividly
details the Eastern European world of Jews, Poles, Ukrainians,
Belarussians and others living in fear under the German and Soviet
occupation of their countries. His searing description of Gulag
servitude is a ghastly refresher on mass dehumanization and how it
robbed the prisoners of their identity, family, memories, health,
and
sanity." -- Deborah Kaple, Princeton University
"It's hard to believe that this publication marks the first
appearance of this remarkable story in English. Back in 1949, this
thoughtful, detailed compelling memoir was the first of what ended
up being many diaries of reluctant travelers sent to this awful
Kafkaesque world of the Soviet Gulag. The author thus became the
first of many witnesses who exposed the natural consequences of the
Marx-Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin ideology of imposing forced equality on
the
masses...this book can serve as a fresh and welcome reminder of a
long-forgotten warning to beware the tyranny of even
lovely-sounding ideas." -- Natan Sharansky
"Ably translated by Stefani Hoffman, the new volume includes
helpful introductions by Timothy Snyder and Katherine R. Jollock
that describe the work's publication history, provide necessary
background information, and underscore what is most significant in
the book." --Mosaic Magazine
"This is a book that demands to be read." --Times Literary
SupplementR
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