Gotliboim Iosif Samoylovich

The memoirs cover the period from 1929 to 1957. Party member from 1924. From 1929 to 1933, studying at the Military Medical Academy, membership in the Komsomol bureau, and then the party, holding conversations on current politics and economics, on the history of the party and on atheistic topics at the factories of the Vyborg region. Party reprimand on the days of the final exams for an allegedly incorrect statement about Stalin. In 1933, after advanced training courses for doctors, he was appointed head of the epidemiological squad, actively working to eliminate epidemics of dysentery and typhus in different parts of the country. Arrest on February 3, 1935, a year and a half before which the author, at the Komsomol activist, stood up for a student of the Academy, who was going to be expelled for what he said in a conversation with a friend about famine in the village.
Home search. A scene in prison: an NKVD officer tearing medals from the prisoner's tunic. Interrogation, during which the author asked the investigator why, after his brief answers, he writes something for a long time? The indignation of the investigator and his partner with this question. Sentence - three years of exile in the Lower Tunguska. Railway carriage. Playing chess prisoners. Krasnoyarsk prison. Among those arrested were Bukharin's uncle (the author is not sure when this was, during the first or second arrest) and the head of the Leningrad Mint, whose son died of pneumonia on the way to exile. Proceeding to Nizhnyaya Tunguska, a long stop in Yeniseisk due to the end of navigation. The author's belief that the truth will prevail, poems about this. Appointment by the city doctor. Acquaintance with the relatives of Peter Zalutsky, the exiles. Request to change the place of exile to the village of Yartsevo, as tugboats go there. Satisfaction of the request. Working as a doctor. Acquaintance with the wife of Shatsky, who was shot after the murder of Kirov. The number of exiles in the village is 15-18 people, including Zinoviev's sister and Lazurkina, a member of the revolutionary movement, who was in a separate room as a mentally ill person.
A seaplane accident that resulted in the death of about 12 people. Preparation by the author of survivors to send them to the city hospital. Reading in Pravda about the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev.
On the eve of the re-arrest, a provocation by the NKVD, which the exiles managed to thwart. In 1937, the second arrest. During the transfer on the ship to Krasnoyarsk, a meeting with a familiar instructor of the Turukhansk district party committee, who was arrested because, according to him, he talked in Turukhansk with Stalin's illegitimate son.
Cellmates in the Krasnoyarsk prison are "educated" people. Classes in the cell: lecturing, learning languages. The connection of some of the arrested with the bytoviki, who handed them notes on a rope from above. The news is that Shkiryatov has arrived in Krasnoyarsk and that the party organization is being destroyed. Announcement of the sentence to the author - five years in a camp for counter-revolutionary activities. Written refutation by the author of the accusation. Conveyance in the Stolypin carriage to Vladivostok. Description of the wagon. Transit prison. Delivery of prisoners in holds to Nagaevo Bay. People fainting due to lack of water and crowding. Involvement of the author to help the only doctor on the ship. An enthusiastic description of the sunrise. Arrival at the campground. Obtaining pink salmon for spawning. Poisoning people with fish, as it was the main food.
Magadan. The mine "Stormovaya", where gold was mined. Description of the tent, where the pea jacket froze to its wall. The understanding that a huge number of people in hard labor is explained by the need for a force that extracts free gold in the mines.
Sending the author with a broken leg to the “candey” for refusing to work as a doctor, knowing about the recent execution of hospital doctors. Transfer to a reinforced regime company. Work as a gravedigger. Scurvy. The author's confidence in the fact that the servants from the bytoviki themselves compiled the execution lists of people who did not have the strength to work. Rumors that Medved, deputy head of the Dalstroy department, was shot. The assumption that Garanin, who replaced him, will also be shot in due time.
Transfer of the author in 1938 to the Road Administration. Hard work to clear the road from snow blockages, but living conditions are better than at the mine. The desire to work conscientiously, because behind the pass there are “brothers” who will die if the road gets stuck.
Again, the refusal to work as a doctor, because he wanted to help those who worked at the mine with his work, but after some time after persuasion - consent. Transfer by a doctor to a penal camp, where there were "skeletons" instead of people. The foreman's complaints against the author for giving too many exemptions from work. The arrival of the commission to clarify the state of affairs, which made sure that the released were in a terrible state and could not work. An enthusiastic description of northern nature. And then, in contrast, a story about sophisticated bullying of a person. Receiving a "paper" on the release. Appointment of the author as head of the medical unit. After 11 months, in 1943, a new "piece of paper" - about the re-conclusion. Still working as a camp doctor.
In 1946, the author's letter to the VKK with a request to consider his case, and soon a notice of release. Full rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party in 1957

Annotation compiled by Zhidkova T.G. and Brodskoy N.K.