Yuri Vater and Mulya Joffe
Two Latvian Jews -- Two Patterns of Destiny: A Comparative Study
It seems to me that a paper I wrote with the above title fits within the thematic bounds of this book. I had sent the paper to be presented at the Sixth Conference on Baltic Studies, organized by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, in Toronto in 1978. Unfortunately it was never presented because, as was written in the Latvian newspaper Laiks on November 17,1979, by a V.J. from Toronto, "it disappeared under mysterious circumstances."
* * *
The generation that suffered the heaviest losses, both physically and spiritually, during the Second World War was the one born in the closing days of World War One. Its members died in battle and in the concentration camps of Hitler and Stalin, and the illusions they cherished were erased by war and repression, along with all dreams of a new world of justice, freedom, and dignity.
An especially bitter fate awaited this generation of Jews, who were slated for complete extermination in all European countries occupied by German forces. Any young Jew who managed to escape from the SS, the SD, and the Sonderkommando roundups ran the risk of being drawn into the mills of repression of Stalin's "antifascist" empire, which ground more than one strong personality into dust.
The life stories of two brave young men exemplify the fate of many a Latvian Jew of that generation. Both Yuri Vater and Mulya (Samuel) Joffe died heroically. But in every other respect they took different paths; they had different motivations for heroism, different perceptions of their nation, the land where they grew up, the world, and the meaning of life.
Both were born in the period when the Romanov, Hohenzollern, and Habsburg dynasties collapsed. One of them died gallantly in battle against the Germans, convinced that under the red flag he fought for the good of all mankind. The other died a hero's death in the Gulag archipelago, counting his life well sacrificed because he had enabled many of his fellow Jews to escape to Eretz Israel. Both men felt they had done their duty, following their consciences.
The views and attitudes of these young men took shape in the thirties. This was a time when those young Jews who for various historical, sociological, and psychological reasons did not want or were not able to identify with the national aims of the Wirtsvolk. (in this case, the Latvians), had one of two ways to develop and affirm their personal identity: communism or Zionism. Yuri Vater chose one route; Mulya Joffe, the other.
In outlining the tragic fate of these two remarkable youths, representatives of their generation, I relied on two fairly comprehensive books: Ingrida Sokolova (pseudonym of Ida Levitat, a Jew), Cik jauni mes bijam (How young we were, in Latvian), Riga, Liesma, 1969; and Avraham Itaj and Mordechaj Nejshtat, Cherez tri podpol 'ja, Iz istoriji chalucianskogo dvizhenija "Necach" v Latviji (in Russian, abridged translation from Hebrew), No. 30, Tel Aviv, Aliya, 1976. I gained additional information about Yuri Vater, the hero of Sokolova's documentary essay, from his two closest friends, Mavrik Vulfson and Anatoli Kahn, survivors of similar experiences. They were my colleagues for a number of years in Riga, where I worked at the news agency LETA, the branch of TASS in Latvia, and at the evening newspaper Rigas Balss. For obvious reasons, I was unable to supplement my information on Mulya Joffe in Russian-occupied Latvia; however, the Itaj and Nejshtat book provides a detailed account of Joffe's most significant years, from 1941 to 1955.
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To begin with Yuri Vater. He was born in Riga in August 1917, as the German army approached the city. His mother, Helena, was "a girl from Kuldiga," and his father, Lazar, was a typesetter whom the hurricanes of war had already driven to Riga from the border of Poland. They joined the vast number of other refugees fleeing to Russia. In 1922 the Vater family returned to Riga and settled in the Moskauer Vorstadt, or Moscow suburb. Yuri's father "was seriously ill for many years with a stomach ailment and his mother had to support the family.... When he improved slightly, he began to work at the glover's trade."
In 1934, "with support from relatives," he established "a tiny workshop." Yuri assisted his father and soon learned "to handle the shears skillfully." Sokolova continues: "They were three, Yuri, Mitya (Mavrik Vulfson), and Tolya (Anatoli Kahn). They grew acquainted, not as classmates or neighbors, but as fellow combatants who shared the same opinions." Yuri had become friendly with the head of the "progressive Ettinger Library, where some books were issued only to well-known and trusted readers. Here he stealthily read publications brought in from the Soviet Union," for instance, F. Gladkov's Cement and Bruno Yasensky's novel Man Changes His Skin.
It seems that Yuri never discovered that this same Bruno Yasensky paid with his own skin, with his life, for his fidelity to the ideas of Marx and Engels -- he was murdered by "his own people," the NKVD. Sokolova, of course, does not mention this.
"He wanted to become a surgeon... His elementary school years passed unnoticed," and Yuri entered High School No. 4 in Riga, near the so-called Red Warehouses. When Yuri enrolled at this school in 1932, Sokolova writes, "four cells of the [communist] underground were already active here," and among the Komsomol were many "active and energetic members of the underground."
Thus Yuri did not attach himself to the Zionist-Socialists, or to the anti-Zionist Jewish Social Democratic Bund, but instead joined in the activities of the illegal communist youth organization. Riga's High School No. 4, a Latvian school, had a "long-standing progressive tradition," asserts Sokolova, where "children whose parents represented all nationalities and varying convictions could receive an education." It was indeed a truly progressive school. At that time in Yuri Vater's ideal state, the Soviet Union, schoolchildren suffered heavily if their parents' convictions, not to mention their social origins, did not come up to the stringent requirements of the Party's Central Committee.
Since he had always been a top student, Yuri began to receive secret assignments: "It started with the Alanik, a general education organization, where gifted young people met to broaden their intellectual horizons. Taking advantage of the cover provided by the organization's legitimate activities, a Komsomol group flourished -- T. Babchina, T. Zalite, V. Lifschitz, B. Weimann-Manusov, J. Eichmanis, J. Eidus, and others.... The group listened to lectures on various topics.... Here, Yuri first heard of the German philosopher, Spengler, of Remain Rolland, and of political economy. Yuri himself was among the lecturers. He most often, and more than others, lectured on Marxism." In telling others about Marxism, the enthusiastic boy was noted, says Sokolova, for "his critical attitude not only toward the bourgeois regime, but also towards the narrow-mindedness of middle class society."
After some time, "he was approached by Joseph Eidus, a Komsomol leader who had long had his eye on Yuri," and the boy was formally accepted into the illegal Komsomol, "at the school center of the Riga Committee, in the presence of E. Opincans."
"When the Ulmanites closed High School No. 4, Yuri experienced some unpleasant moments. After his earlier freedom, the reactionary atmosphere of High School No. 1 was unbearable," and the youth "decided to transfer to night school -- the Latvian Working Youth High School." (On the diploma reproduced in the book, only the words "Latvian Youth High School" appear, without "Working.")
Even after the coup of May 15, 1934, Yuri carried out his Komsomol duties "without anxiety." For example, he "went to the assistance of his friend Mitya in the Third District." I can add in passing that this Mitya, Mavrik Vulfson, now the world news commentator for Soviet Riga television, was the son of a wealthy man. He had no knowledge of poverty or physical labor during the years of "bourgeois" Latvia, and joined the Komsomol out of sheer romanticism, much like the leftist students of the sixties in Western Europe and North America.
"Here at one point they got carried away with rockets that hoisted flags up into the air, and with exploding boxes that could scatter proclamations for great distances without arousing suspicion. Yuri was involved in mixing the chemical explosives for these."
Yuri also established an illegal print shop in a basement, under what is now the Flora Cafe, next to the glove workshop where his father worked. If we believe Sokolova, Yuri's father "knew full well the secret undertakings of these young people. He debated with his son almost every day, and the youth could discuss in detail the Five-Year Plan in Russia, the economic crisis in the West, and the problems of fascism and democracy."
In 1936, Yuri entered the school of medicine at the University of Latvia. Sokolova describes a typical episode: "In the summer of 1939 Yuri and Mitya rented a small room in Lielupe. They had to be in Riga by eight in the morning, but they had just received, by way of Estonia, the Short Course in Party History. Yuri suggested getting up at five, taking the boat, and rowing out to the middle of the river. He rowed for two hours while Mitya read to him. Later they also read The Communist Manifesto.... Mitya had poor eyesight and had to use a magnifying glass to make out the text of the Constitution of the USSR on microfilm.... This went on until September 1.”
In October of 1939 Yuri was drafted into the Latvian army. "Although ostensibly removed from his usual environment, Yuri was not separated from the underground. This involvement was especially dangerous for a member of the bourgeois armed forces and demanded great ingenuity, resourcefulness, and nerves of steel."
And so Yuri and his friends, the Latvian communists, gave priority to the interests of Latvia's "great Eastern neighbor," the Soviet Union, even though Stalin had already signed a treaty of non-aggression and, moreover, friendship with Hitler's Germany, and many "progressive antifascists" now had no more illusions about Soviet imperialism.
Sokolova writes that a "meeting of the underground" in the Latvian army approved "a decision to stand on the side of the Soviet Union in case of war." Was this not outright treason? But the author does not specify which war was meant: what if the Soviet Union were to join Hitler's Germany in fighting Britain and France? Communists, after all, must blindly obey any directives from Moscow.
Later on the author writes abruptly and elliptically: "1940. This year brought enormous change into the life of the whole Latvian nation." Sokolova says not one word about the fact that on June 17 of this fateful year, the Soviet army occupied the country, putting an end to Latvian independence.
After some time, "Yuri joined the ranks of the Red Army ... and began to work on the newspaper Sarkanais Kareivis (The Red soldier).... And once again the three friends were reunited. Mitya was appointed assistant to the editor, Alfreds Balodis ... and Tolya got a job at the same paper."
Sokolova quotes Tolya, saying that Yuri was at that time "fearless in his encounters with hostile ex-officers of the bourgeois army." He was accepted into the communist party and became an agitator. Sokolova notes that at the chocolate factory Laima, "the factory committee was up for re-election. The reactionaries protested doggedly against nominating a communist. And again Yuri spoke. He knew how to inspire the workers with the belief that it would pay off to elect a communist, and in a show of hands vote, he gained the victory." In other words, he succeeded in convincing the workers that it was better not to argue against the "new, democratic people's power."
"War! The sunny June sky teemed with a hail of bombs and a rain of bullets," writes Sokolova about June 22, 1941. Yuri "reports to the Party Committee of the Proletariat District, and patrols the city with a druzhina [approximately 20 people] to hunt down saboteurs. He protects his city on the morning of June 27 too. Shots are heard from the tower of the Old Church of St. Gertrude and from the bridge at Jugla. Then the druzhina commander, Karlis Vilcins, orders them to get into cars. The city must be abandoned!"
Sokolova comments: "How young, how very young we were!. ..And there was much we did not know then... And Yuri too.... Could it even have occurred to him that he was leaving forever his native Latvia and his parents, who would die in fascist torture chambers, betrayed by their own tenants -- two young girls" (emphasis added).
"Young we were, but with an infinite love for our homeland and an infinite readiness to defend it," writes Sokolova. She writes about "homeland," but she does not mean Latvia. She means the Soviet Union, which annexed Latvia by force in the summer of 1940. Perhaps Ingrida Sokolova, repeating her nostalgic refrain "How young we were," and using it as the title of her book, intends a careful reader to understand something else: how naive, how easily carried away, how stupid we were. The book was published in Riga in 1969 and the author, of course, draws no conclusions.
Yuri was evacuated to the rear and settled at Kameshnitza on the banks of the Volga with other evacuees, Latvians, Jews, and Latvian Russians. "Many people are surprised at the thatched roofs and the poverty of the kolkhoz," but Yuri, who "has long dreamed of getting to know the Soviet Union, although in different circumstances, debates fervently, explains, talks of the industrialization to which the resources of the country are devoted" (emphasis added).
Poor, incorrigible Yuri: he is still the victim of his illusions. His mentor in the Latvian evacuee commune is the Latvian communist Karlis Vilcins. "Yuri could ask endless questions about the forced labor camp where Vilcins had spent seven whole years." But that was not a Soviet labor camp, it was not the Gulag, but a labor camp in "bourgeois" Latvia -- child's play in comparison to what was endured by Yuri Vater's fellow Jew, Mulya Joffe, of whom later.
Sokolova describes in detail Yuri Vater's military service in the Red Army's Latvian Division. (In October 1942 it was renamed the Forty-third Guard Division). Not having succeeded in completing his medical studies, Yuri served as an orderly. His "dear friends, Karlis Vilcins and Eduards Opincans," died in battle.
On November 15, 1942, in Moscow, writes Sokolova, "there was a meeting of students against fascism.... Yuri had the honor of representing the whole Forty-third Latvian Division. He was elected to the presidium, and he was the one who read out the meeting's resolution, an 'Appeal to the Students of the World.'"
Soon after, in January 1943, Yuri was transferred to the Counter-propaganda Unit of the Eleventh Army's Political Section. A letter written to Mitya on October 26, 1943, hints of dissatisfaction, even bitterness, that he was no longer with the Latvian Division: "I had hoped to meet you soon, but now all plans are changed. Still, I have written to Kalnberzins [the first secretary of the Latvian communist party].... If you have the opportunity, intercede for my request. I am ready for anything, if I can only get away from here and come back to the Division." On December 10, Yuri writes again to Mitya: "I want to get back [to the Division] so very much. But how can you run away?"
"After the liberation of Homel, Yuri... was transferred to the First Ukrainian Front's Political Department."
Inter alia, in the so-called "first Soviet year," Yuri married a Latvian girl, Vera, who was at that time "a Komsomol organizer and evening student at the Party School." In the confusion of war, Yuri lost track of her during the summer of 1941. He was convinced that his wife had died on the Estonian front. Yuri "never found out," writes Sokolova, "that he had a daughter, Aina, born March 2, 1942." I should note that she was born on the other side of the front, in Latvia, which at the time was part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. When the Red army returned, after the war, Vera no longer wanted to remember the nice young man who was Aina's father. It is only to Aina that Mitya and Tolya occasionally talk about her father.
Ingrida Sokolova once happened to meet Yuri Vater at some crossroads at the front. She recalls: "It is strangely pleasing to meet a fellow countryman so far from home and speak to him in the language of your birthplace." A significant description follows: "What a handsome young man! For a moment I give rein to a girlish fancy.... Under a bright blue sky, beside a camel, an Oriental warrior, an ancient Assyrian stands and waits for the call to arms. His face is swarthy...."
Comparisons like this never occurred to Yuri Vater himself. Never in his short life, as far as we can tell from Sokolova's book and the reminiscences of his fellow Jews Mitya and Tolya, was he really conscious of his origins or of the land where his ancestors lived and which hundreds of other young Latvian Jews were striving to reach.
What was the epilogue? A detailed description of Yuri Vater's last battle would take up too much of this chapter. Let us say only that, surrounded by soldiers of a Waffen-SS division's Wiking battalion in a Ukrainian village, he defended himself with a machine-gun until he was seriously wounded. The Germans hung him from a hook in the ceiling of the peasant cottage where he took his last stand. This happened on February 13, 1944, in the village of Shenderovka in the Ukraine. "On August 25 he received the Order of Lenin posthumously."
In the short annotation which follows the title page of Sokolova's book, the publishers point out that Yuri Vater "was one of the generation of famed fighters of the thirties and forties, one of those Komsomol members who forged the victory of Soviet Power in the underground movement of bourgeois Latvia.... He knew how to love fervently and how to hate fervently; he knew how to be uncompromising in separating two worlds."
Therefore – a fanatic? I doubt it. More likely, an enthusiast who did not know how to separate dreams from reality. He died honorably, fighting an enemy who had vowed to destroy not only democracy (which Yuri did not believe in), but also Yuri's people, the Jews, to the last man. But what kind of a power did Yuri Vater himself serve -- as stated in the annotation, "to the last drop of blood"?
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Samuel (Shmuel) Joffe, called Mulya or Mul'ka, was an entirely different kind of person, but nevertheless as representative of young Latvian Jews as Yuri Vater.
In the Tel Aviv publication on Joffe, the authors point out that the Jewish Zionist youth organizations' major competitors were the youth organizations of the Bund, a Social Democratic but anti-Zionist Jewish workers' association, and of the communists. In contrast to the Bund, the authors state, "the communist movement relied largely on selected groups -- the elite of students and working youth" (emphasis added).
Mulya Joffe had already become an activist with the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair --NETZACH (The young guard -- scouting and pioneering youth) shortly before the coup of May 15, 1934. One of his fellow activists, Rivka Dukarevitz, recalls those years: "Actually we were a Palestinian island in the midst of the Jewish population in Latvia.... Everything that applies to Palestine also applies to us in the highest degree ... for we did not consider ourselves a part of Latvian society: we were Israelis through and through. We assessed world events in terms of whether they would advance our cause or harm it" (emphasis added).
After the coup of May 15, 1934, in Latvia, the "first underground" began for Mulya Joffe and his friends. The new regime banned Zionist-socialist organizations, permitting only the Zionist-revisionist group, the nationalistic Betar, and the orthodox religious association Agudas Isroel to continue their activities. However, a new organization or club was formed under the name Olim, where within certain limits it was possible to prepare young people for physical labor and painful struggle in Palestine, maintaining the kibbutz ideal.
In connection with what has been said about Yuri Vater, it is useful to mention the analysis offered by another of Joffe's friends, Gamliel Blauschild, in the same book: "I believe, notwithstanding the possibility of an organized campaign, that the strengthening of communist influence on [Jewish] young people in the winter of 1939-40 was largely a reflection of the might of the Soviet Union.... The Hitlerites also had influence over Germans who had not previously supported the National Socialists; it was their strength that held the attraction."
Later on we read: "At dawn on June 17, 1940, the Soviet army entered the Baltic republics." This is not quite accurate, for the Soviet army entered Lithuania on June 15. An account of the "second underground" of Mulya and his friends follows. This was in the "first Soviet year;” by the end of July, 1940, the communist regime in Latvia had already banned all youth organizations except the Komsomol. Relating directly to the earlier material on Yuri Vater, Mitya, and Tolya is the following statement: "Occurring on the background of the Latvian national tragedy, the fact that many Jews were happy to welcome the Russians and accepted the Soviet regime fanned the flames of anti-Semitism."
Itzhak Gordon was responsible for Mulya (Mul'ka) Joffe during the "second underground" of 1940-41. He knew that in this situation Mul'ka was "capable of greater things." He said, "Mul'ka must be saved for special assignments." He could not have known what kind of special assignments Mulya Joffe was destined for, and how it was to end.
On June 22, 1941, the German army crossed the new Soviet border. On June 26, "the panic in Riga mounted," and the next morning Mulya Joffe with his friend Gamliel Blauschild headed for Estonia. At Valka, on the border between Latvia and Estonia, they joined a partisan command that was being organized. "There were 20 people in our platoon," recalls Blauschild. The next day Mulya was made a machine-gunner. Within a few weeks, this platoon, already incorporated into the regular Soviet army in Estonia, received orders to attack a unit in the German vanguard, and Mulya was wounded.
He was taken to Tallinn and from there to Leningrad. "Recovering from his wound, Mulya petitioned to join the Red Army, but at that time the Soviet authorities refused to induct anyone who was from the Baltic states (vychodcev iz Pribaltiki)." There was a massive evacuation of civilians from Leningrad: "The evacuees were allowed to choose a destination far behind the front lines. Locating on a map of the Soviet Union a largish city near the Iranian border, the closest border to Palestine, Mul'ka requested to be evacuated to Aschabad" (emphasis added).
Mulya Joffe "did not intend to cross the Iranian border alone. He wanted to take along as many members of the Movement [Hashomer Hatzair] as possible.... He visited a number of cities and searched everywhere for his comrades."
He stopped off at Vologda and Kirov, where there were many evacuees from Latvia. In Sverdlovsk he found his comrade Yakov Yanaj. According to Yakov, his first words were, "Let's head south!" Yakov continues, "We immediately began to discuss how to cross the border on our way to Palestine."
In Tashkent the two friends tried unsuccessfully to contact smugglers who promised to get them over the border to Afghanistan. When it became clear that a trap was waiting for them, the plan was abandoned. But the decision to break through to Afghanistan or Iran, in order to reach Palestine, was not abandoned. On the contrary, the authors write, their determination to realize their goal grew even stronger.
Meanwhile, beginning in late autumn of 1941, others who shared Mulya's views were drafted into the Latvian Division of the Soviet army and engaged in combat. Many were killed. One of them, Shmuel Rosenherg, wrote from the Velikiye Luki combat zone to his friends in Tashkent in the summer of 1944: "I am going to do battle ... against slavery. I am going, so that when the enemy is defeated I can return to our country, to our beloved kibbutz, to live the way we have longed to live.... This is why I am harassing the Jerries ... and let us not forget my father, my mother, and Yashka, about whose fate I know nothing. But let us also remember Eretz, a place dear to our hearts, from which the damned enemy has torn us, though hopefully only for a while." In the letter the words "kibbutz" and "Eretz" (i.e., Eretz Israel, Palestine) were written so that the censor could not decipher those exotic Hebrew words.
But let us return to Mulya. At the end of 1943, Mulya left Tashkent for Moscow, where two of his aunts lived. He attended the Hydrotechnic Engineering Institute for a year, learning a profession he hoped would be useful in Palestine.
On October 13, 1944, the Soviet army drove the Germans out of Riga. After two months, Mulya succeeded in returning to Riga, and immediately started gathering up the broken threads of his life's work, helping his fellow Jews reach Palestine.
During the first half of 1945, Mulya was a student at the Polytechnical Institute. He also worked at the docks, and "looked for opportunities to escape from the Soviet Union." Soon the opportunity came to go to Poland. Mulya's former classmate, Raya Rosenkovitch-Levenberg, a former activist in the Jewish nationalist youth organization Betar, recalls how this came about. She and Mulya joined a group of ethnic Poles who intended to cross the border legally as repatriating Poles. The venture succeeded. This was in early July of 1945, when the border between the USSR and Poland was not yet so carefully guarded.
In the ruined city of Warsaw, Mulya found not only a Jewish congregation but also friends, and even an organization, Bricha (Flight). Staying in Warsaw was dangerous, and Mulya and Raya continued their journey. They traveled first to Czechoslovakia with groups of Jewish refugees, then, illegally and furtively, to Austria. Here, in the Soviet zone, they almost fell into the hands of the NKVD. Finally, they succeeded in reaching Linz, where they obtained documents showing them to be Austrian citizens.
Two months after leaving Riga, at the beginning of September 1945, Mulya arrived in Milan. He wore the uniform of the British army's Jewish Brigade, and was accompanied by some young Palestinian Jews serving in this brigade.
In Milan, there was a Zionist organization, Merkaz la-Gola (Center of the Diaspora), that provided material relief to Jewish refugees and, unknown to the British administration, arranged illegal immigration into Palestine. Workers in the center were astonished to learn that Mulya, newly escaped from "over there," was in no hurry to reach the Palestine he longed for (and where his sister and many friends now lived). Instead, he demanded permission to return to the Soviet Union and organize the escape of as many of his fellow Jews as possible. No amount of persuasion to avoid such a grave risk or at least accept an easier assignment had any effect. "He was tortured by the thought that he was the only one to reach freedom while the prospects for his friends were so very dim."
On his return journey from Lodz, in Poland, Mulya wrote a letter dated November 5, 1945, to the head office of the NETZACH movement: "I am certain you have already heard about the situation in Russia and about their terrible anti-Semitism.... Is this not the proper time to think about how to rekindle the spark of Zionism in Russia?"
In mid-December of 1945, Mulya re-crossed the USSR border, using "clean" papers obtained from the illegal Jewish organization Bricha in Lodz, and arrived in Vilnius (Wilna). This new stage in his enterprise was the most dangerous. The scope of this chapter does not permit one to dwell on the details of what Mulya achieved. More than once he escaped capture by a hairbreadth. Once, he spent eight days behind bars at Brest on the USSR-Polish border, escaping when his guards came to take him to the baths. He continued to assist small groups of Jews from Latvia and Lithuania to leave the USSR, illegally or semi-legally.
Zvi Netzer, one of the leaders of this Eastern European operation, recalls: "The Russians knew, of course, that Jews were getting into Poland.... At first, they paid no attention. It is even possible that they were favorably inclined. The policy the Soviet government pursued at the time was to cause problems for the British, making use of the desire of Jews to reach Palestine. As long as it seemed to the Russians that these were isolated, unorganized escapes, they looked the other way. However, it soon became obvious that behind the isolated escapes there was an organization, possibly led by people sent in from Palestine. This could not be permitted. They had to destroy this organization."
A group of special agents was sent from Moscow to Latvia and Lithuania. They captured Mulya Joffe on the evening of September 27, 1946, at Baranovichi, not far from the border. However, Mulya's task was accomplished: an operation lasting more than nine months had been successfully completed, and 450 Jews from Latvia, Lithuania, and other places had left the USSR for Palestine.
Mulya was taken to Moscow and imprisoned in the notorious Lubyanka prison. Yakov Netzer, imprisoned along with Mulya, recounts how they were interrogated: "The interrogator wanted me to admit also that I acted out of hostility to the Soviet system. I disagreed with that: I am not interested in what kind of system the Soviet Union has—as long as Jews are allowed to leave for Eretz Israel."
Mulya's attitude was exactly the same. His sentence was not imposed by a court, but by the so-called Special Conference (Osoboye Soveshchaniye). The sentence read: based on Items la, 10 and 11 of Section 58 of the Criminal Code, twenty-five years imprisonment in correctional labor camps. At that time the death sentence in the Soviet Union had been repealed, otherwise death by shooting would have been Mulya's due. He was convicted of the following crimes: high treason, counterrevolutionary Zionist activity, based on nationalistic prejudice, and membership in an anti-Soviet organization. He had not the slightest chance of parole. Since Mulya had already escaped once from prison, in Brest, he was sent to top security prison camps. He languished in three forced labor camps in the sub-Arctic Komi ASSR, Pechora, Abez, and Dzhantuy. Mulya attempted to escape but the plan came to nothing.
At the end of 1953 Mulya was transferred to the Balej camp in the Chita region of Eastern Siberia. He slaved ten hours a day in the lumbering operation, and then attended evening classes in lumber sorting for six months, hoping to transfer to an easier, skilled job.
However, early in 1954 Mulya despaired of leaving the labor camp before the end of his 25-year term. He made a fateful decision—to begin a hunger strike, in the hope that the medical commission would take his weakened condition into account and draw up the necessary papers to write him off as being on the verge of death (this was known as "papering," aktirovka). Such half-dead prisoners were usually freed and sent home, allowed to die "in freedom." (The custom was also described by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago.) Mulya trusted that his body would be strong and resilient enough to cheat death. He overestimated the limits of his endurance.
Mulya's sister Ruth, who lived in Riga, set out on the 10,000 kilometer journey to the Balej camp at the beginning of March 1955. She intended to see her brother and persuade him to call off his hunger strike. In Chita, the chief labor camp physician told her he had already twice signed the necessary documents recommending the release of the weakened Mulya. The superintendent of the labor camp and the district camp administration, however, objected to his release.
In forty-below weather, Mulya was transferred in an open car to Nerchinsk. The forced labor camp there dated back to the time of the tsars. His ordeal dragged on. Next came four months in the prison hospital at Chabarovsk, followed by an order to transport the prisoner to Birobidjan. Birobidjan was the part of Siberia that Stalin had proclaimed the "Jewish Autonomous Area" and where early in 1953 he intended to settle hundreds of thousands of Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other large cities.
Mulya died on the way to the prison at Birobidjan, while the train of prisoners made a short halt at the station of Bira. It was the night of October 4-5, 1955.
When he last met his sister, Mulya said: "Even if I knew that I could save only one person, and that for this reason I would come to such a sad end, I would still have done what I did. I do not regret it."
* * *
Two Latvian Jews: Yuri Vater and Mulya Joffe. Two destinies. Two very dissimilar lives -- but both are characteristic of their generation and times.