Letters of Jewish writer Isaak Nukhimovich Kipnis from Gulag

Document | Digitized | Accession Number: 2005.599 | RG Number: RG-31.116

Overview

Description: Consist of photocopies of 62 letters written by Isaak Kipnis to his relatives from a gulag in 1952-1953 as well as appeals to the Soviet government and judicial authorities to review his case. The correspondence provides information about his imprisonment, describes circumstances of Kipnis’s arrest and attempts of his relatives to free him from the imprisonment.
Date: inclusive: 1952-1955
Credit Line: Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Collection Creator: Isaak Nukhimovich Kipnis
Biography: Isaak Nukhimovich Kipnis (1894-1974) was a prominent Soviet Jewish writer, member of the Union of Ukrainian writers. He was arrested in 1949 and accused of the “Nationalist ( Zionist) and Anti-Soviet activities”. The main evidence incriminated against Kipnis were his literary activities before and after WWII, especially his short article “ On khokhmes, on kheshiboynes” published in 1947 in the Polish Yiddish newspaper “ Naye Lebn” where he suggested that Soviet Jews have to proudly wear Yellow Stars next to the military decorations received on the battle fields. Isaak Kipnis’s works has been widely published before his arrest in the Soviet Union and recently in Israel and USA.

Conditions on Access: This material can only be accessed in a Museum reading room or other on-campus viewing stations. No other access restrictions apply to this material.
Conditions on Use: Publication by a third party requires a formal approval of the Judaica Institute in Kiev, Ukraine. Publication requires a mandatory citation of the original source.
Copyright Holder: Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry (Judaica Center) of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine

Topical Term: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Russian. Concentration camps--Soviet Union. World War, 1939-1945--Evacuation of civilians--Ukraine--Kyïv. Ukrainian literature--Jewish authors. Prisons.
Geographic Name: Soviet Union
Personal Name: Kipnis, I.N. (Isaak Nukhimovich), 1894-1974.

Holder of Originals: Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry (Judaica Center) of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: Source of acquisition is the Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry (Judaica Center) of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the collection from the Judaica Center via the United States Holocaust Museum International Archives Project in Jan. 2011 and accretion in June 2017.
Special Collection: Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive