BOOKS:
1. Pokrovsky, Rus. History
2. Martov, History of Russian Social-Democracy, with notations
3. Urlanis, Population Growth in Europe
4. History of the Jewish People, Mir Publishers, 1915
5. The Jewish Encyclopedia, prerevolutionary edition, 17 volumes
6. L. Rosenthal, About Uprisings, with notations
7. Yu. Larin, Soc. Structure of the USSR and the Fate of the Agrarian Population, with notations
8. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, with notations
Nora glanced at the end of the list—980 entries, half of which were in foreign languages.
During the search, also confiscated were 34 large-format notebooks, 65 folders and 180 notepads on the history of literature and music, and a savings-account passbook to the tune of 400 rubles.
There was also a receipt, No. 1807/6, from the internal prison of the Ministry of State Security, dated December 2, 1948, and a list of what he carried with him, from pillowcases to cuff links.
On a separate piece of paper, twenty pages later, Nora discovered the following decree:
Decree of March 21, 1949:
The enumerated materials are to be destroyed by means of burning.
Signed: Major Ezepov
On the following page was a report on the “fulfillment of the decree to destroy by burning in the Internal Prison of the Ministry of State Security–KGB, in the presence of Major Ezepov.” With the signature of the major.
The experts had studied Grandfather’s book and papers for three months, judging by the dates, before they were condemned to fire.
At this point, Nora was overcome with nausea, broke off her note-taking, handed the “Case” back to the kindly archival assistant, and left. She returned on the following day and kept coming until the end of the week, copying out excerpts of the case into a notebook, not really understanding why she was doing this. The notebook was already half filled, but Nora couldn’t stop.
Medical files and records. In one, “chronic radiculitus”; in another, more cultured, in Latin—“eczema tybolicum, chronic case.” And, the conclusion—“able-bodied and fit for physical labor.”
Nora glanced down at her wrists. During the last few years, her eczema had abated. The only reminder of it was the thin, shiny layer of skin that covered the formerly affected parts. And the newborn baby, from his first days, had allergic contact dermatitis. Evidently a congenital condition. Genes …
Protocol of interrogation from December 2, 1948.
Twenty-four handwritten pages. At the end, the signature: Lieutenant Colonel Gorbunov. And another one: Ossetsky.
It was a mild interrogation, neutral. Question-and-answer.
Q: Among the material evidence in your case is the work Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? Did you have any doubts in this regard?
A: The work in question was written by Lenin. It was written in September 1917, and we were discussing this article in 1931 or 1932 … I don’t remember exactly.
Q: We, meaning who? Identify them by name.
A: That was more than sixteen years ago. I don’t remember exactly.
At first, Nora copied everything down in sequence; then she began to cull excerpts—parts that were underlined in red pencil.
—Denies anti-Soviet activity (propaganda) …
—Denies taking part in the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in Kharkov in 1918 …
—States that his father, Samuil Ossetsky, was an employee at a mill before the Revolution …
—Admits to being acquainted with the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels, and the secretary, Heifetz …
—Admits to taking part in the work of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee as a hired consultant, carrying out literary work on commission.
Following this was a list of places he had been employed, remarkable in its length and diversity:
1919: Municipal labor exchange, statistician, Kiev
1920: People’s Committee of Labor, head of statistics of the labor market, Kiev
1920–1921: Head of statistics, Union of Workers’ Cooperatives, Kiev
1921–1923: Office of the Tsentrosoyuz, Kiev
1923–1924: Central Statistical Administration of the Sovnarkom, Moscow
1924–1931: Supreme Soviet of the National Economy, economist, Moscow
In 1931: arrested, charged with sabotage. By the decision of the Collegium of the Joint State Political Directorate, banned from residence in 12 controlled-access cities of the USSR.
1931–1933: Economist at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Arrested in 1933, 6 months under investigation. Sentenced by the Special Council of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR (NKVD) to 3 years exile. Resided in the city of Biysk until December 1936, after which he returned to the Moscow region.
1937: Yegoryevsky region, mines, head of the legal department.
1938: Civilian head of the planning department in the Unzhinsk corrective labor camp
1939: Returned to Yegoryevsk, gave private music lessons
1940: Kuntsevo, Krasin Pencil Factory, head of production group
1941: Scientific Research Institute of Municipal Transport, head of the planning-contract department
1941, October: Ulyanovsk, planner in the building-and-assembly administration
1943, May: the organization re-evacuated to Moscow
1944: Research fellow at Timiryazev Agricultural Academy
1945–1948: Instructor in statistics at the Economics Department of the Institute of Cinematography
From September 1, 1948: No specific occupation
She went back to the beginning of the file, examined the transcript from the first interrogation, paged forward to the next one, and started to compare them. The second interrogation transcript was half as long. The questions were the same, but the answers were different. Why the answers had changed, and what had happened to Ossetsky during the interval of six days between the first and the second interrogations, was anyone’s guess. Nora felt sick. She didn’t understand why she was copying out these excerpts, without rhyme or reason. But she couldn’t stop.
J. Ossetsky is exposed as guilty, according to the deposition of Romanov, V. I., of using “malicious and obscene language when describing the leadership of the Soviet Bolshevik Communist Party and government,” as well as the deposition of Khotinsky, O. I., accusing Ossetsky of spreading rumors about starvation in Kuban during the period 1932–1933.
J. Ossetsky denies “the possibility of [him] using any malicious and obscene language when describing anyone and admits to his participation in spreading rumors about starvation in Kuban.”
J. Ossetsky acknowledges that before the Revolution his father, Samuil Osipovich Ossetsky, was a merchant in the first guild, a purveyor of grain, leaseholder of a mill, owned a ferry on the Dnieper, and was in possession of his own barges. In 1917, all the property was nationalized. During the NEP years, he carried on petty trade. In 1922, he was prosecuted for concealment of gold.
J. Ossetsky acknowledges that he greeted the “bourgeois-democratic revolution positively, then worked in the Kiev Social Revolutionary–Menshevik Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, and shared the views of the Mensheviks. [He] worked in the Soviet as an instructor in the legal department until October 1917. [He] greeted the October Revolution with hostility, carried out agitation that aimed to undermine and overthrow the Soviet authorities. In 1918, [he] finally renounced [his] Menshevik views, because this party ceased to interest [him].”
“I acknowledge that in 1931–1933 I entertained hostile views toward the policies of the Soviet Bolshevik Communist Party on issues of the collectivization of agriculture, and expressed these views to people with whom I was in communication.”