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RG-90.047.0024 Summary

Julian Better born December 15, 1937 in Butyrka prison, , , discusses his mother, born Herta Berger, but getting a false identity and another name by Russian authorities when she arrived there from ; his father's Soviet name being Muschinsky; in 1935 his parents getting an apartment of their own on a street where communists from the west lived; in 1929, his grandmother trying to commit suicide by throwing herself in the Danube river, when hearing that her son, his father, had been shot for being a Trotskyist; this not turning out to be true, but his grandmother never recovering and ending up in a mental institution; in summer 1937, the NKVD arresting everybody with Polish names, using a phone directory; his father being arrested at night, his parents hearing a car on the street and knowing it was bad news, because only the security forces had cars; the NKVD taking papers and documents, but those never being used at the trial; before leaving, his father telling his mother in German "go to your mother "; his mother knowing it was impossible because her mother was in Germany, but interpreting it as him telling her to escape or go underground; his father trying to calm his mother by saying "I will come back" and refusing to take his coat and warm clothing; his father knowing this was it for him; his father being taken to Butyrka prison in Moscow and being put on trial for counter activities; his father not having a lawyer, a right to appeal, nor getting to say anything himself at the trial; his father also being accused of belonging to an organization called POV which seized to exist in 1918; during his father's arrest and the search of their apartment, the NKVD also finding his mother's party ticket and an officer saying "so you are also a member of the party"; three days later his mother being arrested and taken to Butyrka prison; his parents not knowing they were in the same prison; his mother being six months pregnant with him; his mother being put on trial on suspicion of spying; no evidence being presented during these quick trials; his mother being sentenced to five years in a labor camp, a relatively light sentence because the judge chose to find her guilty of being "suspected of spying" and not spying; his mother having a kidney disease; his mother getting preeclampsia and being unconscious when he was born; the doctor thinking they would both die and the prison never notifying the authorities of his birth; never being breastfed; his mother waking up after a few days and recognizing her baby because he had his father's eyebrows; his mother asking another prisoner, an intellectual, what she should name him, and her hero being Julius Caesar; being named Julius but, later when he was registered in Poland, being named Julian; his father never knowing he had a son and being killed four days after Julian's birth, on December 19, 1937; staying in the prison for six months; in June 1938, being sent to the Komi Republic in the north, which had the biggest concentration of camps; the area having rich coal and oil resources; it getting very cold there, 30-50 below zero Celsius; the judge at her trial having written his mother was weak and of bad health, and putting her in the category of invalid, meaning she did not have to cut trees in the forest but also only received half rations of food in the camp; children being taken away from their mothers at the age of one in the camp and the mothers being sent to other camps thousands of kilometers away; to prevent the mothers and the children from ever finding each other again, the children were given different names; but this not happening to him and his first memory being of his mother coming to visit him on a carriage and not recognizing her; he and his mother living only six kilometers apart in Ukhta, https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection

the capital of the Gulag; this being decisive for their survival and thanks to Dr Emil Eisenbraum, who was the head physician at the hospital microbiology laboratory where his mother worked; Eisenbraum saying "Berger cannot be sent anywhere because she is very qualified and I need her" even if his mother worked as a cleaner, but he knew that she was physically weak and would not survive if he did not label her essential; another early memory being of someone taking his only toy, a wooden block, and starting to cry, but nobody helping him; the staff at the children's home being convicted criminals, some even murderers, and not caring; remembering a boy bragging about having a mother AND a father and another boy accusing him for lying and starting a fight, everybody going crazy because everybody wanted a father; being moved to a home closer to his mother, and being the only one who could see his mother; in 1943, the worst that he remembers happening; a group of children being moved to Syktyvkar, 300 kilometers away; his mother knowing he would be moved and having warm pants made for him and saying he would be back soon; being calm, hearing his mother telling him how warm the pants would be, but feeling something bad would happen; being five years old; it being a miracle he survived the year there, if he would have gotten a cold he would not have made it; 90 percent of the children there not living to be one year old; the staff taking his warm pants when he arrived and being given a rag from a dead child; the camp burying the dead children naked; realizing, when the female guard was screaming at him to give her the pants, that he would never go back and never see his mother again; that being when he eradicated his mother from his memory; the shock leading to him erasing his memory, like a computer; the staff doing terrible things to the children, chasing them out naked in the snow for delousing, after a sauna, when it was 30 below zero Celsius; still having lice everywhere; guards being afraid of lice because there was a typhoid epidemic; the staff hitting them; it being extremely cold inside at night; wetting himself every night; not having a blanket, just sleeping in his clothing; his clothes staying wet all day from urine; the mattress getting looser and looser, ultimately breaking and there being lots of white worms in the straw in the mattress; being hit in the head for wetting himself and destroying socialist property; being paralyzed by fear, screaming he did not do it on purpose and trying to protect his head; never thinking his mother existed during that year; not remembering what they ate, but the staff stealing food from the children; once getting bread, when the staff was throwing it to them to see the children fighting over it; sometimes the door to the kitchen being open and seeing the staff taking all the solids from the soup before it was served; thinking he survived by forgetting; just sitting all day, not having energy, the children not talking to each other; a few times finding rotten potatoes and eating grass; not remembering any fights, it was too tiring; one time, realizing how skinny everybody was, but looking like pregnant women with swollen bellies; one winter day, in the dining hall, hearing the head mistress loudly saying "Julik Julik, you are going to your mother, come, come"; this being the first time ever they had called him; hiding under the table out of fear; the lady repeating it and remembering "I do have a mother, somewhere"; still refusing to get out of under the table; the head mistress trying to pull him out, looking into her eyes and seeing she was furious and would kill him if she could, but she was not using force since there was another woman with her, a woman who wanted to adopt him; finally crawling out and taking the head mistress' hand; turning around before leaving and seeing hundreds of children, quietly looking at him, the boy who was going to his mother; his only thought being he had to escape, not about his mother; going by boat, with a very low ceiling; it being dark and people sitting on their luggage; https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection

getting a high fever, now thinking it was out of nerves, because there was no cough or sore throat; feeling healthy again when he arrived; not recognizing his mother; seeing this old woman crying and not understanding why; not being allowed to live in the camp with his mother, but being adopted; not knowing who arranged the adoption but thinking it was Dr Eisenbraum; wondering who would adopt the child of an "enemy of the people", since they would not get food coupons for the child; his adoptive family being very nice and not understanding how they could be so kind; after a year, hearing his mother was being released and was going to take care of him; not understanding what that meant since his mother had always been in prison; on January 15, 1945, meeting his mother at the laboratory where she worked; his mother being so happy, saying "Julek I am free"; only understanding her when she said "from now on you will always be with me"; his mother saying "we do not having anywhere to go, you have to stay with Tamara (the adoptive mother) for a few days"; for the first time in his life, when he was 7 years and one month old, saying "Nyet, No I am not going anywhere", because a memory hade come back like a flash, of his mother saying this once before, years ago, that they would see each other soon and it not happening; grabbing a fridge and and not letting go of it and starting to cry; his mother looking him in the eyes, seeing that she was happy to hear him say he wanted to stay with her, and knowing he had won.