Zichronos fun Gulag - Memoirs of the Gulag

There are few people - even those born long after Stalin's downfall - who have not read of how the fearless men and women of the Lubavitch underground in Russia defied one of history's most ferocious regimes. However, no amount of scholarly historiography can captivate and enthrall like a living man's artless recollections - how for months before Pesach he saved up little bits of sugar in a Siberian gulag to enable him to survive the agonies of a week-long fast; how time after time he risked his life in an unbelievable number of life-threatening situations as a rav, mohel and shochet; and so on and on. Reb Mottel the Shochet's detailed descriptions, complete with dates, names and places, are graphic and powerful.
A priceless selection of hitherto-unpublished photos shows the watchman's tower that terrorized the gulag; tractor-drawn sleds taking prisoners to their forced labor in the snow; the dreaded underground dungeon; primitive barracks in which one plank or perhaps two planks serve as beds and bedding; clandestine circumcisions; a secretary's note from 770 in which the fellow-chassid who was due to pass on a message to the author was warned that the Rebbe was to be referred to only by one of the pseudonyms (such as "Zeide") by which the chassidim behind the Iron Curtain referred to him, lovingly and cautiously; and ultimately, a photo that shows Reb Mottel - beaming - as he receives a lulav from the Rebbe's hands.
This unique autobiography will keep the reader breathless from cover to cover.

Reading the memoirs I was pleasantly surprised to reognize the author whom I met several times during my mission to the USSR in 1984 (before glasnost). With admiration I witnessed the mesiras nefesh of "Reb Mottel the Shoichet" in preserving and strengthening Yiddishkeit under the oppressive Soviet rule. His memoirs are an inspiring testimony, bringing to life the harsh conditions of those days, and the self-sacrifice of the author and his fellow-Chassidim to sustain the flame of Jewish tradition. A truly moving and inspiring work that demands to be read.

I heard all of this as top secret when I was a child [in Russia]... we knew all of this from people who miraculously survived. Not many of Anash [=Lubavitcher Chassidim] survived... there was no one to recored this in a book. This is the first time it was written in a book. It is understood that words cannot descirbe the troubles and suffering of those who fell into their hands, but at least in brief as you [Reb Mottel] have done...

...Memoirs from the Gulag, memoirs from Reb Mottel the Schochet, one of the remaining activists who worked on preserving Judaism in Moscow in recent decades, an era of which very little has been written… here we are given an additional information from the later oppressive years.

This amazing document deserves the attention of a large audience. Covering a period of history spanning more than sixty years, from the 1930s through the 1990s, Lifshits delineates the committed life path of a Jewish activist, a follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as he insures that Jewish life will continue under the most repressive of regimes. By telling his own, unique story, Lifshits demonstrates the contours of cultural and religious survival in extremus. I have researched and published on the rich Yiddish cultural activity between World War I and World War II in the Soviet Union. Lifshits's book now provides us with important details about Jewish religious resistance to totalitarianism in those years. Another vital dimension in this book project is the determination .... to publish the volume now, in the 21st century, in Yiddish, the language of Lifshits and his significant experiences. This devotion is not solely an act of familial loyalty or of ideological commitment to the survival of the Yiddish language, it represents an understanding that this deep and complex emotional expression can only be presented in a serious fashion in the original words of the heart, mind and soul that experienced it....[the] project deserves the thanks and support of all those who advocate for the survival and continuity of the way of life of victims of repression. This is a book that merits the attention of both a scholarly and broader audience.

This amazing document deserves the attention...of both a scholarly and broader audience