Translated by Andrew Bromfield

Translated by Andrew Bromﬁeld REDEMPTION RUSSIAN LIBRARY The Russian Library at Columbia University Press publishes an expansive selection of Russian literature in English translation, concentrating on works previously unavailable in English and those ripe for new translations. Works of premodern, modern, and contemporary literature are featured, including recent writing. The series seeks to demonstrate the breadth, surprising vari- ety, and global importance of the Russian literary tradition and includes not only novels but also short stories, plays, poetry, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and works of mixed or fluid genre. Editorial Board: Vsevolod Bagno Dmitry Bak Rosamund Bartlett Caryl Emerson Peter B. Kaufman Mark Lipovetsky Oliver Ready Stephanie Sandler ɷɸɷ Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, translated by Alexander Boguslawski Strolls with Pushkin by Andrei Sinyavsky, translated by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and Slava I. Yastremski Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays by Andrei Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler, Jesse Irwin, and Susan Larsen Rapture: A Novel by Iliazd, translated by Thomas J. Kitson City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov, presented and translated by Peter France Found Life: Poems, Stories, Comics, a Play, and an Interview by Linor Goralik, edited by Ainsley Morse, Maria Vassileva, and Maya Vinokur Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov, translated by Roger John Keys and Brian Murphy Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko, translated by Boris Dralyuk FRIEDRICH GORENSTEIN RE DEMPTION Translated by Andrew Bromﬁ eld Columbia University Press / New York Published with the support of Read Russia, Inc., and the Institute of Literary Translation, Russia Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Translation copyright © 2018 Andrew Bromfield All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gorenshteæin, Fridrikh, 1932-2002, author. | Bromfield, Andrew, translator. Title: Redemption / Friedrich Gorenstein ; translated by Andrew Bromfield. Other titles: Iskuplenie. English Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2018. | Series: Russian library Identifiers: LCCN 2018011861 (print) | LCCN 2018017111 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231546027 (electronic) | ISBN 9780231185141 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231185158 (pbk.) Subjects: | LCGFT: Psychological fiction. Classification: LCC PG3481.2.R45 (ebook) | LCC PG3481.2.R45 I713 2018 (print) | DDC 891.73/44—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011861 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich Book design: Lisa Hamm CONTENTS Introduction by Emil Draitser vii Redemption 1 INTRODUCTION emingway’s pronouncement about an unhappy child- H hood as the best early training for a writer is especially true for Friedrich Gorenstein. In fact, to call his child- hood merely unhappy is a gross understatement. Gorenstein grew up during the time of two evil historical forces, which deeply affected him and left indelible marks on his character and his outlook. His tragic early life experience informed his future writing. Born in 1932 in Kiev, Ukraine, Friedrich was only three years old when his father, a professor of political economy, fell victim to Stalin’s Great Terror. Arrested by the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the secret police) and sent to one of the Far East hard-labor camps, two years later he was sentenced to death and shot. This development had a devastating effect on Gorenstein’s family, now the subjects of deprivation and further persecution, and pigeonholed as the “family of an enemy of the people.” Gorenstein’s mother, Enna Abramovna Prilutskaya, a teacher by training, did everything she could to hide from the watchful eyes of the secret police. First, she changed her surname from her husband’s back to her maiden name. She also managed to replace her son’s papers, not only changing his surname to hers but also giving him the name “Felix” instead of “Friedrich.” Ironically, in the spirit of the time, she and her husband, both ardent believers in the bright future of viii \ Introduction Communist ideas, had given their son the name in honor of the coauthor of The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels. Later on, as an adult, Gorenstein restored both his given name and his father’s surname. In addition, to distance herself and her son from the watchful eyes of the NKVD, Enna Abramovna escaped from Kiev with three- year-old Friedrich. She took refuge in Berdichev, Ukraine, where she and her husband had been born. Jobless for several years, she had no place of her own, and moved from one relative’s or acquain- tance’s home to another. Friedrich was only nine when, on June 22, 1941, the military forces of Nazi Germany, together with their allies, broke the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact.1 In the larg- est German military operation of World War II, code-named “Operation Barbarossa,” they crossed the Soviet border on a wide front stretching from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. The attack took the Soviet forces by surprise and was thus highly successful. Stalin infamously treated information about a mortal danger to the country as “fake news” for months, dismissing numer- ous reports from the Western press as well as from Soviet intel- ligence about the high concentration of Wehrmacht troops and armament along a broad stretch of the country’s western border. The Soviet dictator treated such reports as malicious disinforma- tion and provocation aimed at breaking up the friendship between the peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union. In the first few hours of the invasion, Luftwaffe planes bombed major Soviet cities. A significant part of the Soviet air force was destroyed on the ground. Unprepared, lacking any direction from high command, the Soviet armies were overwhelmed and retreated en masse. Around four million Soviet soldiers were encircled and captured. The sudden attack had a devastating effect on the civilian population in general, and on Jews in particular. One of the main reasons for this was that the Soviets blocked information regarding the true intentions of the German troops. After Hitler had come to power and before the signing of the German-Soviet pact of 1939, the policy of the USSR was anti-Nazi. The government produced antifascist films and published books critical of the Nazis’ handling of the German Jews. After the pogroms of Kristallnacht in November 1938, an antifascist rally was organized in Moscow, where the director of the State Jewish Theater, Solomon Mikhoels, spoke. However, in less than a year, Hitler and Stalin, yesterday’s ideological enemies, became allies and partners in the seizure of neighboring countries. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed a week before the outbreak of World War II. Poland was divided, and Hitler seized the countries of Europe one after another. In the occupied territories, especially in Poland, severe persecution of Jews began. Their property was seized, and they were driven into Nazi-organized ghettos. After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the Soviets stopped publishing news of Nazi atrocities against Jews. Because of the Soviet information blockade, on the eve of the German invasion the overwhelming majority of the Soviet population was not fully aware of the threat posed by the Germans. As a result of this lack of information and the speed of the German offensive, most Jews in the western regions could not evacuate and were walled off in the ghettos and then killed in the extermination camps. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote that Nazi Germany’s main goal was to enlarge its living space (Lebensraum) at the expense of the eastern territories; in Hitler’s view it was equally important to annihilate members of the Communist Party and Soviet Jews, two components of the Judeo-Bolshevik threat to Germany. Therefore, the first order of business when capturing a Red Army unit was to Introduction \ ix x \ Introduction cull Jews and Communist political commissars and shoot them, often on the spot. Procedures were also in place to deal with Jewish civilians. As the Nazi military advanced deep into Soviet territory, SS and police units followed the troops. The first to arrive were the Einsatzgrup- pen, special mobile killing units of the Wehrmacht security police and the security service. Behind the front lines, they were charged with the task of annihilating Jews, Communists, and other people deemed to be dangerous to the establishment of long-term German rule on Soviet territory. The Einsatzgruppen initiated the mass murder of Jews and Gypsies but also Soviet state and Party officials. Unlike in the Nazi-occupied countries of Western Europe, where Jews had been deported and shipped to death camps primarily in Germany and Poland, Jews in the USSR were taken from their homes and shot on the outskirts of their towns. In the cities with relatively large Jewish populations, such as Lvov, Minsk, and Odessa, Jews were forced into local ghettos and then hauled off in cattle trucks to the death camps.2 Rumors about the deadly treatment of Jewish civilians by the rapidly advancing German troops caused mass panic, as there were no civilian evacuation plans in place. Contrary to the myth that some Americans still believe today, at the outbreak of war with Germany the Soviet government had not made special arrange- ments to save Soviet Jews from the rapidly advancing Nazis.3 The truth is that the Soviet authorities had been fully informed about the systematic extermination of Jews in the Nazi-occupied territories, but at the time of the German invasion, no government evacuation instructions of any kind were in place. The orders came from Moscow several days later; the only objec- tive was to relocate to the rear of the country the raw materials, indus- trial equipment, and personnel needed to run the Soviet war machine.

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