Anatoly Rubin
Anatoly Rubin was an Israeli activist and Prisoner of Zion who survived the Holocaust and later the Gulags. Born in Minsk, he survived the German invasion of the USSR, narrowly escaping the liquidation of the Minsk Ghetto. After the war, he spent six years imprisoned in Siberian Gulag forced labor camps for distributing books sympathetic to Zionism. After being under investigation by the KGB for spreading Zionist ideas, he immigrated to Israel in 1969. Once there, he campaigned for the Israeli government to assist others who wished to emigrate from the USSR to Israel. He also published memoirs of his earlier experiences.
Biography
Anatoly Rubin was born in Minsk, Byelorussia. His father was religiously observant, and his mother maintained some traditions out of respect for him. Rubin was more attracted to Russian role models than Jewish ones. In the summer of 1941, when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union by way of Minsk, Rubin was forced to join the stream of refugees fleeing deeper into Russia, and was strafed by the Luftwaffe. After two days, he reached the town of Smilovichi, some from Minsk. There he was reunited with his aunt and her young son. The three of them remained with a Jewish blacksmith, until the Germans occupied the town, preventing their plans to move further east. They were forced to return to occupied Minsk, where they found a second aunt along with his mother and two sisters. Rubin's father was at work away from home when the invasion occurred. Upon his return to Minsk, he was told his family had fled towards Moscow. He was later murdered by bandits while searching for his family.In Minsk, as part of the German invasion, Nazi legislation caused displacement of Jews into the Minsk ghetto. Rubin's family lived with two other families in two small rooms. They obtained their daily necessities at great risk from German sentries by bartering their aunt's belongings through the ghetto fence. Their situation was alleviated by his sister Tamara, whose Aryan looks allowed her to pass as a non-Jew.
In November 1941, the Germans began the liquidation of the ghetto. The residents, his family among them, were marched off to the killing pit. However, Rubin and his older sister Tamara managed to escape. Tamara joined the partisans and he fled to the 'Aryan' part of the town where, beset by the hatred and physical abuse by the locals, he tried to survive. In the end, he returned to the ghetto, where he lived at first with aunts and worked on forced labor crews.
In March 1942, as his labor crew was filing back into the ghetto they were halted by SS men who were implementing a round of selektion. He was narrowly able to escape back to the ghetto where some of the remaining residents provided a cellar for him to hide in. The next day, he returned to his own house. By day, he continued to work on the forced labor crews, since laborers were fed 30 grams of bread and a ladle of soup for their efforts. By July 1942, the majority of the ghetto's Jews had been murdered.
Before the ghetto was finally liquidated on 21 October 1943, a German woman who had worked as a maid at his school smuggled Rubin out to relatives of her husband in an outlying village. He succeeded by using Aryan papers that he had received from another friend, also a local ethnic German. Rubin was now able to live and work in the village as a non-Jew, doing farm work and cow-herding. Partisans, suspecting he was a German spy, almost killed him.
In the spring of 1944, the Red Army liberated his village. He destroyed his Russian papers and returned to Minsk, where he discovered that not a single member of his family remained alive. His attempts to enlist in the Red Army were refused on the grounds of him being underage. Instead he enrolled in a trade school, which provided bed, board and employment.
First incarceration
Rubin was sent by the local boxing federation to take part in a national exhibition of physical culture in Red Square in Moscow. On his return, he was arrested and jailed for abandoning a military facility. A military court sentenced him to five years of 're-education' in a labor camp for his 'nationalist' views, his unhealthy opinions about the Soviet regime, and his destructive influence on local youth.Life in prison was oppressive. There was a significant class gap between the 'regular' and the criminal prisoners. The latter carried on their own terror regime, and effectively ruled prison life. Rubin instigated an uprising against them. He was transferred to a labor camp. The regime at these camps was a combination of hunger, physical abuse and hard forced labor. A niece heard of his imprisonment and sought his release. She eventually reached a top-ranking general who ordered a review of his case. His sentence was changed to a twelve-month probation. Back in Minsk, he entered The Institute of Physical Culture, which provided generous stipends, larger food rations and even an array of sportswear. His boxing studies were successful. He won fight after fight and steadily built up his physical strength, further motivated by the fact that he could now effectively defend himself against anti-Semitic attacks, which came from many directions.
Awakening of national identity
The ongoing anti-Semitism Rubin encountered from local Russians steadily fashioned his Jewishness. He came to understand that he was unwelcome in Russia, and if he was ever to have a home it could only be in the State of Israel. He now devoted all of his energy and resources toward that goal.In 1955, while in Riga for a boxing tournament, he first encountered Jews who observed Jewish customs, holidays and traditions. As Soviet rule in Latvia only dated from the Second World War, Jewish activists, especially in Beitar, were still open and active. Well-stocked Jewish libraries were also available. Determined to expand his Jewish knowledge upon his return, he discovered written material of Jewish interest in the central library. He studied and began to openly refer to material in his conversations concerning the ubiquitous Russian hatred of Jews. Young Minsk Jews were also interested in Gromyko's and Cherepakhin's speeches about the establishment of the new state of Israel, with which Russia then enjoyed warm relations. Rubin would push to awaken their interest in Jewish life and in the State of Israel. In 1956 he first encountered foreign tourists. He also described to them what it was like to be a Jew in the USSR, with its constant waves of anti-Semitism. He asked them to relay this to the United States and Israel. All of these conversations were recorded by the KGB.
In 1957, a World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow. Rubin, along with Jews from throughout Russia, approached the Israeli delegation. These Soviet Jews surrounded the Israelis and could not stop asking them questions. He photographed the delegation and the Israeli flag. Rubin met the delegation head to obtain material for the Jewish youth in Minsk. Since the delegation was being monitored by the KGB, the exchange of material could not take place. He still managed to accumulate a significant quantity of literature, which he used extensively in Minsk. His enthusiasm for Jewish things led him to ignore the rules of caution.
Interrogation, investigation and trial
The KGB was closing in, and he was arrested. He refused to incriminate those who shared in his Jewish activities, and he managed to dispose of secret information that was on his person. At interrogation it became apparent that the KGB had amassed detailed and accurate information on him and on his friends and relatives. After his trial, one of his relatives told him that a listening device had been hidden in the attic above his apartment. Evidence obtained by bugging and photographing was not admissible in a court of law, and he believed that this legality would be observed. Yet, the greater part of the charges brought against him were based precisely on this "inadmissible evidence". Despite the various 'methods' of interrogation employed against him, Rubin did not reveal information.The official list of the charges was treason, attempted assassination of a senior party leader and government minister, anti-Soviet propaganda, dissemination of Zionist literature, ties with the Israeli embassy and the inflaming of nationalist passions. Two weeks into his interrogation a new investigator arrived whose assignment was to persuade Rubin to denounce Israeli embassy staff for conducting subversive activities under the guise of diplomatic activity. Rubin refused and no further attempt was ever made to recruit him.
Two others had been arrested along with Rubin. One was the wrestling champion of the Minsk republic, to whom Jewish refugees from Minsk had given Israeli literature, along with a sealed package to take back to Rubin. The wrestler did as he was asked, without checking to see what he was carrying. Both Rubin and the wrestler told this to the interrogators, even though they had not coordinated their testimony. Rubin's second co-accused was a doctor, the son of a veteran communist with long years of underground activity to his credit, including interest in Zionism. Rubin had viewed him as a potential ally and gave him material which the doctor distributed. Once arrested, he broke immediately, writing a letter of confession and penitence, and placed all the blame on Rubin. Rubin accepted all responsibility for acts which had been proved against the doctor. He explained that he adopted this course of action, because in his eyes the issue was not his own actions but his conviction that all three of the accused were perceived to be representatives of Zionist Jewry. For this reason, he declared it was important to him that he retain his dignity, proving once and for all that Jews were people of steadfast principle, and neither cowards nor traitors.
The most dangerous of the charges against him was that of attempted assassination of Premier Khrushchev, since that carried the death penalty. He was endlessly questioned on this point, and had persisted in his absolute denials. He refused to accept the court-appointed defense lawyer to defend him, preferring to defend himself. Nevertheless, the court appointed a defense attorney, the chairman of the Byelorussian bar. The trial lasted for more than five months, four of which he was held in solitary confinement. The treason charge was dropped during the interrogation. The KGB's file No.19121-s about the trial and the sentence is stored in Minsk.
The proceedings were carried out behind closed doors to prevent them from being used by Rubin for advancement of his ideas. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges in contrast with his co-defendants, who immediately pleaded guilty. He admitted that the literature found in his possession was his, however, he asserted that he did not regard the materials as being anti-Soviet. His court appointed lawyer admitted that he was guilty of grave crimes, although he endeavored to mitigate the verdict by recounting his life history: that during the war he had been held in a ghetto and orphaned at the age of 13; that the anti-Semitic Nazis had slaughtered his whole family, which accounted for his adult sensitivity to anti-Semitism; that brushes with a few anti-Semitic hooligans since then had left him over-sensitive, which Zionist propaganda had then exploited. Twenty witnesses testified at the trial. In his closing remarks, the prosecutor asked that Rubin be sentenced to five years re-education in a labor camp as the organizer of a criminal cell. The doctor was sentenced to two years and expulsion from the Communist Party and the wrestler to six months.
In his closing remarks, Rubin defended his actions, highlighted state-sanctioned anti-Semitism and the suppression of the Jews' national life. He declared his goal to leave for his homeland, Israel. His defense lawyer had assumed that he would not get more than three years. However, after Rubin's speech, the judges reconsidered and sentenced him to six years.