eProceeding...

Background of this Web page is red, like the Communist and related flags.
Red is an appropriate color; it symbolizes the enormous amount of blood spillt in the name of world-wide Communist "Utopia" ...

Content Map:
"Arbeit Macht Frei" | Books | Maps of Gulags and Genocide Statistics | Organizers | Other Material
Paintings from the Gulag | Program | Purimfest 1946 | Megilah-Stalin | Summary

Purimfest 1953
To celebrate being saved from a potential second Holocaust planned by a 20^th century Haman: Stalin

Mass murderer Stalin collapsed on March 1, 1953 which was Purim, and died on March 5, 1953.

On Purim it would be fitting to remember the increasingly antisemitic atmosphere and actions in the Soviet Union and its colonies during and after the late 1940-s, up to Stalin's collapse. We ought to recall execution of well known Soviet Jewish actor and head of war time Anti-Fascist League: Solomon Michoels (1948), arrest (1949) and execution (1952) of members of Soviet Yiddish writers, arrest (1952), and execution of mostly Jewish Czechoslovak Communist leaders, arrest and torture of Hungary's Jewish-Zionist leaders (1952/early 1953) in preparation for a show trial claiming that “they murdered Raoul Wallenberg in 1945” and some were later “spies for the imperialists”, preparation of the Soviet “Doctors' Trial” with arrest (1952) of mostly Jewish physicians who, according to the show trial's sinister creative plot, were “planning to murder Soviet leaders”. The Moscow orchestrated increasingly antisemitic atmosphere caused wide-spread fear among many Soviet Jews that after probable execution of the accused physicians large number of Soviet Jews may be deported, perhaps to Siberia, and possibly there may be party/state sanctioned pogroms. Apparently the list of many Soviet Jews and their whereabouts was ready.

Stalin was a "Haman" of our time. His possibly assisted collapse on Purim is almost miraculous. It prevented anti-Jewish atrocities and possibly another major disaster for the Jewish and other people in the Soviet Union as well as in its colonies.

March 9, 2004 7 PM
From 6:30 PM there will be a musical performance and an exhibit about the 1953 era Soviet Union

Hosted at Beit Ha Kehilot (part of Jerusalem Municipality) Auditorium
Rechov Yaffo 36, 2^nd Floor, Jerusalem
(02) 625-4138/9

For information about Beit Ha Kehilot (Community House) click here

Lectures mostly in Hebrew - Admission Free

Organized by:
Larissa Yanovsky (Director, Beit Ha Kehilot) - kalia@jerusalem.muni.il
Anat Ben-Zvi (Public Relations Manager, Beit Ha Kehilot) - kalia@jerusalem.muni.il
Marina Turkinietz (Jewish Memorial organization) - jewish_memorial@yahoo.com
Aryeh Berger (Jewish Memorial organization) - jewish_memorial@yahoo.com
Larry Pfeffer - lpfeffer@actcom.co.il

Summary

A 20^th Century Haman

Stalin got a stroke and collapsed on Mach 1, 1953, during Purim. He died shortly thereafter on March 5, 1953. He was an antisemite and furious at Israel for not joining the Soviet colonies he launched a series of trials and executions of high level leaders in Czechoslovakia and soon followed it by the "Doctors’ Plot" in the Soviet Union. In each case the accused were mostly Jews. Some historians write that his plan was to use the "Doctors’ Plot" as pretext for massive deportations of Jews in the Soviet Union and its colonies - to beposibly followed by pogroms.

This Purimfest 1953 event will explore how eight years after the Holocaust the Jewish people and the free world were again in great danger, this time from Hitler’s one time ally, and how we were saved during Purim from a modern day Haman.

PROGRAM

Chairperson: Larissa Yanovsky (Director, Beit Ha Kehilot)
kalia@jerusalem.muni.il

Exhibit

From 6:30 PM there will be a musical performance and
an exhibit about the 1953 era Soviet Union.
Exhibit may stay open until March 19.
Those wishing to see it after the event should first check with Beit ha Kehilot (02) 625-4138/9

Opening

Yakov Tzabag (Director of Jerusalem Municipality Immigrant Absorption Department)

Juraj Sivacek (First Secretary of Slovak Embassy in Tel Aviv)

Aryeh Berger (Jewish Memorial organization)
Candle lighting in memory of Communism's victims anf short talks by people lighting candles
jewish_memorial@yahoo.com

Talks

Marina Turkiniets (Jewish Memorial organization, Ben-Gurion University - doctoral student in history) Stalin’s actions and plans for the Jews in the Soviet Union and its colonies
jewish_memorial@yahoo.com

Professor Eliyahu Ripps (Hebrew University, Mathematics Department)
Purim 1953 era in the Soviet Union

Larry Pfeffer, Brief notes on Purimfest 1946 and Purimfest 2003
lpfeffer@actcom.co.il

Musical performance, Betty Klein

Concluding Remarks

Click for program in Hebrew

Click for program in Russian

For various reasons the following scheduled speakers could not give their talks:

Mina Fenton (Jerusalem City Councilor, Chairperson - Immigrant Absorption Committee, Chair Person - Council for Advancement of Women's Status, Foreign Relations & the Jewish People and Heritage Portfolio)

Dr. Yuli Nudelman (doctor, was activist in the USSR, officer in IDF, journalist and author)

Yakov Werker (Journalist, CPA, Chairman of Public Commission on the Re-examination of Yitzhak Rabin's Assassination, was activist in Israel for release of Prisoners of Zion)
werkercpa@bezeqint.net

Web sites, Short Articles, Notes and Essays

www.gulag.hu and www.gulag.hu/links.htm - Excellent Web site by Mr. Istvan Toth - contains many valuable links

"A Little Purim" - a Web article

Global Communist Genocide - Introspection - by Larry Pfeffer

Tikun Olam - Heresz Olam - by Larry Pfeffer

Paintings from the Gulag - by ex-slave laborer artist Nikolai Getman

(From left to right: In the NKVD dungeon, Escape, The guards' kennel, Butara, Waiting to be shot)

Courtesy of: The Jamestown Foundation

Click to see thumbnail size images of 48 paintings by Nicolai Getman

Background on painter:
161.58.193.170/getman/gulag-collection.htm or www.jamestown.org/getman.php

Fifty of Nicolai Getman's paintings with narrative:
161.58.193.170/getman/painting1.htm or www.jamestown.org/getman_paintings.php

Photos and narratives about paintings also in:
"The Gulag Collection Paintings of the Soviet Penal System by Former Prisoner Nikolai Getman"
Published by The Jamestown Foundation
Washington, D.C.; Year 2001
ISBN 0-9675009-2-3 and 0-9675009-1-5

The Jamestown Foundation
4516 43rd St. NW
Washington, DC 20016
(202) 483.8888 FAX (212) 202.483.8337 pubs@jamestown.org

Maps of Gulags and
Estimated Statistics of Victims of Communist Terror

"When you make an omelet you must break the egg shell"

"When you cut down the tree there is inevitably sawdust"

(Neat phrases used by "humanist idealists" to explain away the monumental number of people tortured and murdered by Communist regimes)

Soviet Union - estimated 20,000,000 killed
Based on book: "The Black Book of Communism" (Harvard Press, Oct 1999)
Other estimates of the number of people murdered in the Soviet Union are as high as 60 million.

Map from Mr. Istvan Toth's excellent Web site: www.gulag.hu

For larger image click: www.gulag.hu/images/ag1_improved.jpg

Based on official Soviet statistics - actual deaths are probably significantly higher
From www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/sjk/kolyma7.htm
Based on Pohl, J. O. (1997). The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930-1953. Jefferson, McFarland & Company, Inc.

From: www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/sjk/kolyma3.htm

Mainland China - estimated 65,000,000 killed
Based on book: "The Black Book of Communism" (Harvard Press, Oct 1999)

Map from Jean-Luc Domenach, "L'archipel oublie"

Grim estimates of people killed by Communist regimes

Soviet Union	20 Million
China	65 Million
Cambodia	2 Million
North Korea	2 Million
Vietnam	1 Million
Eastern Europe	1 Million
Africa	1.7 Million
Afghanistan	1.5 Million
Latin America	0.15 Million
ESTIMATED TOTAL	94 Million

Based on book: "The Black Book of Communism" (Harvard Press, Oct 1999)

Other estimates of the number of people murdered in the Soviet Union are as high as 60 million.

"Arbeit Macht Frei"

The Nazi murderers placed a sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Works makes free") on gates of many death camps, for example in Auschwitz. It is shocking to discover that similar signs were placed on Soviet and Communist Chinese Gulag gates and such signs may still be on gates of current Chinese gulags.


Nazis' sign over Auschwitz gate	Communists' sign over Vorkuta Gulag gate. English text of sign "Work in the USSR is a matter of Honor and Glory" From: Black Book of Communism