Bio...
I met Roman for the first time in 1935 when we both were four-year-old kids in a kindergarten on Trubnikovsky Lane in the center of Moscow. When we met again years later all we were able to remember of this kindergarten was the playground on the roof of a tall building and the large wine barrels stored in the courtyard. When Roman was a four-year-old boy, his father, an engineer, was imprisoned in the Gulag camp in Dmitrov, some 100 kilometers from Moscow. Roman’s mother used to take him to visit his father and to leave him for weeks in his father’s barrack. Roman remembered vividly the barb wire, the watch towers, the columns of inmates and the armed guards with their German Shepherds in this prison camp.. In 1946 we met again as classmates of the Moscow school #103, one of the best schools in the center of Moscow. We loved our teachers, who had taught years earlier in the pre-revolutionary gymnasiums. A considerable percentage of pupils in this school a were boys from Jewish families. We all loved life and cheerfully greeted the future. But the 1948 our graduation coincided with the beginning of the vicious anti-Semitic reaction launched by Stalin. It was difficult time for us – after all, spiritually we were a sad product of the Soviet ideological indoctrination. Among all of the 1948 graduates, only Roman Brackman had a sober and daring view on what was happening around us. Roman was the first among us who understood the criminal nature of the totalitarian Stalinist regime which he compared to German fascism. Mikhail Margulis and I were Roman’s friends. We could not live in peace with anti-Semitism which assailed our ethnic pride. Roman could not live in peace with the totalitarian regime which assailed his human pride. Roman enrolled in the Moscow Oriental Institute’s Arabic division; I enrolled in the Moscow Architectural Institute and Mikhail Margulis enrolled in Moscow University. We discussed plans for an escape to Israel by crossing the Soviet-Turkish border. At that time, the very intention to escape from the Soviet Union was considered the most horrendous crime (treason of the motherland which was punishable by death). We were arrested in the summer of 1950 and wound up in the cells of the MGB (Ministry of State Security) Lubianka prison. The Secret Police interrogated us for a year in the Lubianka and Butyrki prisons. In May 1951 each of us was sentenced to 10 year in special Gulag camps. Roman and I were transported together to the Novosibirsk transit prison. From there Roman was shipped north in the cargo hold of a barge down Yenisey River to Norilsk Gulag and I was transported to Kalyma in Eastern Siberia. Mikhail Margulis was sent to Potma.
<In GULAG... >
Imprisonment did not break Roman’s rebellious spirit. He was certain that uprisings of enslaved fellow camp inmates awaited us in the future. And this happened to him: in the summer of 1953: the Norilsk Special Regime Political camp exploded in an uprising. Roman became one of the active participants as a member of the uprising committee. He, together with Chabuk Amiragibi and Max Mintz, wrote the declaration of the inmates’ demands. The uprising was put down with the common Soviet brutality. The inmates stood holding hands in front of the soldiers who opened fire. The bullets did not touch Roman – fate had a different course for his life. In the autumn of 1954 Roman, Mikhail Margulis and I were brought back to Moscow for a review of our case. On January 29, 1955 the Moscow Military Tribunal reduced each of our sentences from 10 to 5 years and released us in accordance with the first post-Stalin amnesty. We went home to our parents. Roman went to work as a draftsman and in the evening studied at the Engineering Institute. He got married in 1957. He and his wife, who had polish citizenship, applied for exit visas to Poland. A year later, their son Alex was born. Finally, in May 1959, after several refusals, Roman’s family was allowed to leave for Poland. At that time it was a miracle. I saw them off as they boarded the Moscow–Warsaw train. A year later, Roman’s parents were also allowed to leave for Poland. It was the second miracle. Shortly afterwards his entire family left for Israel.
<Escape >
Roman was one of the first who in 1959 escaped from the Soviet Union. Roman’s life was directed towards freedom, as if by compass. His escape left a deep impression on the people who knew him. In Soviet Russia, where lawlessness reined supreme, his struggle for one’s right to live in freedom, meant hope for everyone. At the time, Roman’s example meant that resistance was not hopeless. Roman showed the way to all of us. Roman became an American citizen. For thinking people in Soviet Russia, America represented a country where the ideals of spiritual and human freedom had been realized. And there were no better candidates than Roman for the right to be an American citizen. He earned that right by the struggle of his whole life. In the Soviet Union, the end of the 1960’s was marked by the beginning of an unprecedented fight for human rights. Roman was most actively involved in the fight of Russian dissidents for human rights and for the right of the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland - Israel. 20th century totalitarianism became the subject of Roman’s intense historical research and his NYU dissertation - “Anti-Semitism of Joseph Stalin.” His book, “The Secret File of Joseph Stalin – A Hidden Life” was published in 2001 in English and later in French and Russian. This book reveals unknown facts of Stalin’s life and exposes the abysmal of the 20th century epidemic of totalitarianism that engulfed not only Germany, Russia and Italy, but also countries in Asia and Africa. The phenomenon of Stalin is an example of mass psychology that helps to answer the question: Why civilized people succumbed to the mindless barbarity and allow the depraved pathological personalities like Stalin and Hitler to reach the pinnacle of power and for years dominate the lives of millions of people? Roman’s personal experience helped him to search for the answer to this question. For several years I did not have any contact with Roman. I learned from his Moscow aunt that he went to America. In 1968 I asked a friend, who had received an exit visa to Israel, to find Roman’s mother in Israel and ask her to send me an official invitation to come to Israel as her nephew. This friend accidentally ran into Roman in Jerusalem and gave him my letter. Soon I received an invitation from Roman’s mother and applied for an exit visa. I received a negative reply. A group of ten Moscow Jews, including myself, signed the first open letter with an appeal to free people to help us immigrate to Israel. Then another 39 Jews signed a similar letter. Roman helped publish these letters. Roman joined the 1970 election campaign of James Buckley, who was then running for the Senate seat from New York. James Buckley was the first US politician to introduce the issue of Soviet Jews to the American public. He was elected to the Senate. In late January 1971, as Roman was driving to his summer place in Sag Harbor, L.I., he heard on the radio that Vitaly Svechinsky and his family had received exit visas and on February 1 were leaving Moscow for Israel via Vienna. Roman turned his car around, stopped to make a telephone call to reserve a plane ticket and we met in the Vienna airport for the first time in 12 years. We flew to Israel together and then met again in Brussels, where I had to address the First Congress for Soviet Jews. Then my family and I spend the most wonderful month at his summer place on Long Island. Since then we often see each other in America and in Israel. Who could say that miracles do not happen? A small British publisher published Roman’s book, “The Secret File of Joseph Stalin – A Hidden Life” in 2001 in English. It was later published in French and Russian. It is the most revealing account of the history of Stalin’s rule, and of the life and crimes of this dictator. The book exposes the roots of anti-Semitism of both Stalin and Hitler. Their hatred of the Jews was the irrational motive behind Stalin’s alliance with Hitler that led to the partition of Poland in 1939 that started WWII. This book exposes the 20th century epidemic of totalitarianism that engulfed Germany, Russia and Italy. The phenomenon of Stalin is an example of mass psychology that poses the question: Why civilized people stoop to the mindless barbarity and allow the depraved pathological personalities like Stalin and Hitler to reach the pinnacle of power and for decades dominate the lives of millions of people? Roman’s personal experience helped him in the search for the answer to this question.
<Miracles do happen >
Who could say that miracles do not happen? Recently a sister of our classmate, Boris Resnikov, called from Moscow and said that she had watched a TV interview with V.A. Kriuchkov (the last head of KGB). She noticed a copy of Roman’s book on his desk. When Roman was being shipped in the cargo hold of a barge down the Yenisey River to Norylsk Gulag, he could not have imagined that some day a KGB Chief would read his b Roman has written also numerous articles and a 1980 book “Jimmy Carter Provocateur-in-Chief” ook. Miracles happen! Roman has written numerous articles, among them 1968 article “Israel –The Middle Eastern Vietnam” and a 1980 book “Jimmy Carter Provocateur-in-Chief.” Roman’Brackman’s “Israel at High Noon” bringing into focus the Arab-Israeli conflict and the ravings of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadineijad who has reemerged as reincarnation of such pathological Jew-haters as Hitler and Stalin. As if history threatens to repeat itself, Ahmadineijad, looking like a cross between a smiling Mickey Mouse and Lucifer, imitates Hitler and Stalin who used to inflame large crowds enthralled in a frenzy of adoration. Roman’s book “Israel at High Noon” is about the struggle for survival of a long suffering people who are threatened by another raving lunatic. The Jews have faced “High Noon” many times throughout their long history and will survive this time too. Roman Brackman is a man who has researched this history.
Vitaly Svechinsky
(Vitaly Svechinsky, the original leader of the Soviet Jewish movement, is now a prominent Architect living in Israel)