GULAG Victims from the Schneerson Family - Шнеерсон ГУЛАГ

Forgotten Alter Rebbe's Einiklach – אוֹי מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ

The Sakharov archive lists people who were shot between 1918-1953 in Moscow and around Moscow, as we wrote, there are four Schneersons there. A different database, Открытый список, also includes people who went to prison, i.e., not a death sentence, or shot outside the Moscow jurisdiction district. There are twelve Schneersons in that database, including the four we already mentioned, among a staggering 3.5 million. In this post, we also add five Schneersons that are known from other sources. We are going to list all seventeen known Schneerson Gulag victims in total. If we have written about them on mentalblog, there will be a link. If not, we will write as much information as currently available.

1. Шнеерсон Абрам Михайлович Abram Mikhailovich Schneerson, 1907, Born in Surazh. Arrested on 19th of January 1938. See mentalblog - One More NKVD Schneerson to Remember. There are many Schneersons that come from Surazh wish is next to Nezhin. Assume Nezhiner einikle. Needs research.

2. Шнеерсон Арон Шоломович Aron Sholomovich Schneerson, 1896, Born in Riga. Lived in Arkhangelsk. Director of a “butter factory”. Arrested during Soviet Civil War in 1919, was in prison camp until the end of the Civil War. Further information unknown. Needs research.

3. Шнеерсон Борис Львович Boris Lvovich Schneerson, born in 1874. Arrested in 1934. Shot on 8th of September 1937 [he was 63]. Further information unknown. Needs research. [I wrote the date of excution of this man but now I am not sure where I found it. There was a scientist with same name, assume a diffrent person?]

4. Шнеерсон Борис Маркович Boris Markovich Schneerson, 1891, Born Gomel, Belarus. He was a deputy director of a Tractor Factory in Chelyabinsk. Arrested on 16th of February 1938, shot on 20th of September 1938 [he was 47]. This is Zalman Scheerson’s brother Boruch Sholem (Markovitch/Mendelovich), son of the Repker Rov Menachem Mendel Schneerson. See Post No. 1 - Boris Markovich Schneerson - Family of the Repker Rov - Introduction. See Post No. 2 - Boris Markovich Schneerson - Arrest Form. See Post No. 3 - The Startups of Boris Markovich Schneerson. See Post No. 4 - The Departure of Boris Markovich Schneerson.

   

5. Шнеерсон Борис Соломонович Boris Solomonovich Schneerson, Born in Moscow in 1896. He was arrested in 1930, accused of counter revolutionary activity, and shot on 16th of October 1937 [he was 41]. There is now a post aboutn this man.

6. Шнеерсон Дмитрий Натанович Dmitry Natanovich Schneerson, 1919. Arrested in 1937 [he was 18]. Died from starvation in a camp (this is the young, non-Jewish son of Anatoly Abramovich AKA Nathan Alexandrovich). See mentalblog - The Revolutionary Anatoly Abramovich Schneerson.

7. Шнеерсон Иосиф Соломонович Joseph Solomonovich Schneerson, 1899, Born in Surazh. Shot on December 4th, 1937 [he was 38]. See mentalblog - Forgotten Schneersons who Converted to Communism and were killed in Stalin's Purges. Although, there is no information about this man being a member of the party.

8. Шнеерсон Моисей Борисович Moisey Borisovich Schneerson, 1883 Born in Orlovka, Chernihiv region. Arrested 12 September 1940, 8 years in Prison. Further information unknown. Needs research.

9. Шнеерсон Моисей Борисович Moisey Borisovich Schneerson, 1901, Born in Lyady. Shot on February 20th, 1939 [he was 38]. The talented and accomplished NKVD officer, the Lyadeer einikle. See mentalblog - Forgotten Schneersons who Converted to Communism and were killed in Stalin's Purges.

   

10. Шнеерсон Натан Александрович Nathan Alexandrovich Schneerson, Born 1881 Yekaterinoslav. Shot on October 9, 1937 [he was 56]. See mentalblog - In search of Anatoly Abramovich Schneerson's Yichus and mentalblog - The Revolutionary Anatoly Abramovich Schneerson.

    

11. Шнеерсон Натан Михайлович Nathan Mikhailovich Schneerson, 1901, Born in Surazh. Shot on March 4th, 1939 [he was 38]. See mentalblog - James Bond of the Schneerson Family.

    

12. Шнеерсон Шмуэль Shmuel Schneerson, Born in 1888 in Riga, Shot in 1937 [he was 49]. The Zionist Hero. See mentalblog - Shmuel Schneerson AKA Yosef Dolhan-Polonsky.

13. Shmuel Schneerson (not in the database). Born in 1888 in Poddobryanka, Died in Exile on November 08, 1943, in Turkmenistan [he was 55]. We are working on an extended post about this man.

    

14. Menachem Mendel Schneerson (not in the database), Repker Rov. Born 1872, died in Charkov after arrest and on the way to exile in 1939 [he was 67], see mentalblog - Margolia Schneerson Remembers.

    

15. Levi Itzhok Schneerson (not in the database), Born April 21, 1878. Arrested in 1939, Died August 9, 1944, in exile in Kazakhstan [he was 66].¹

    

16. Levi Itzhok Schneerson (not in the database), Born 1889, Arrested 1939, Died March 12, 1943, he was 54. Died from starvation/exposure in Kazakhstan in Cheeli after not having a job for a while and collapsing in the snow. (His daughter Margolia didn’t mention this, but I think Rebbezin Chana Schneerson did). His daughter writes: mentalblog - Margolia Schneerson Remembers.

    

17. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson (not in the database), the Rayatz, Born 1880 in Lubavitch, died in NY in 1950 [he was 70]. Arrested in 1927 and exiled to Kostroma. Assisted by Yekaterina Peshkova (first wife of Maxim Gorky)², the same woman what helped Zionist hero Shmuel Schneerson and other victims (Morozov family). Left CCCP to Riga in 1928. ³

    

    Photo from Barry S. Gourary collection, he might have taken the picture himself.

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Postscript on the Postmortem

If you search through the database, there are 179 victims with the name Gurevitch, 13 Gorowitz, 159 Goldstein, 89 Bronstein, 30 Berenstein, 254 Rabinovitch, plus various other spellings and names. Each one of the names is a profound story of heroism, broken hope and tragedy. And just so the Jews don’t feel so special, there are for example about 4,000 entries with the common Russian name Baranov, etc. Jews were 1.01 % of the Gulag victims. But Jews had a very high participation in the early institutions of the Soviet State. This mostly ended with the purges.

Speaking of the Schneersons, for each one, there are three or more who are not listed in any “database”. Each one had the talent, imagination, and I hate this expression, leadership qualities. Each one could have been an enviable holy Rebbe, a teacher, a confidant, a lifelong guide, a mentor, a love of somebody’s blessed life and I hate the expression, a role model, or perhaps even someone hungry for people to worship him. The fact that Ramash grew up in a generation when ALL his multiple cousins (and brother) became disenchanted with the traditional religion is of no concern to anyone, I guess. Why even mention it? Certainly, Rashab and Rayatz didn’t dwell on it. As if NOTHING were going on. Did the deep thinker Rashab gave a thought to the dire economic condition or the inequality that fatally pushed Jews into the messianic Marxism or Zionism? Or did Rashab only managed to fight Zionism, the movement that imagined and build an escape valve of the tragic century. ⁴

And of course, according to the toxic Chabad propaganda, no one besides the Chabad Rebbes ever seen inside a prison. Let’s gather all the bee-tees around the queen bee, fill a plastic cup to the brim-full with vodka, and sing a heartfelt niggun to that. Still flabbergasted about all the bad-mouthing of misnagdim, as if the misnagdim were the biggest problem Jews faced in the 20th century… But honestly, how can you build an identity beehive without a pinch of the stirred up hate or a mouthful?

However, the loss was more than people imagine. I have been saying this for years and always ridiculed. I am going to say this again. For the Russian Jews, Gulag was a bigger tragedy than the Holocaust or Ukrainian pogroms (not that the Russian Jews escaped either). People who survived, lived in crippling fear, for three generations. And the best were taken away, selectively. Nazis didn’t discriminate for talent, “ahavas yisroel” or selfless sacrifice for a better tomorrow.

Ramash was in the extended generation of Schneersons when the male line entirely “acculturated” except his cousin Zalman Schneerson, Ramash himself, and the Chebiner Rosh Yeshive Boruch Shimon Schneerson, the only three male Schneersons, born at the turn of past century, that stayed religious. There is one thing in common for all three, they managed to escape CCCP before the iron curtain dropped and crashed the entire generation.

See mentalblog: Sound No. 6 - Sholem Aleichem: The Eclipse of the Schneerson Family.

As information starts to flow, we continuously update these posts.

1. In a sicha Ramash stated that his father was only Schneerson after 1927 who resisted, obviously mistaken.

2. Peshkova was chair person of Russian Red Cross, or so I've been told.

3. Comment: I don't care if you include Rayaatz, but he was under house arrest for a few days.

4. Rashab’s position re Zionism, etc. is another example of failure of Chabad public policy since the end of 19th century. Bobruisker and others adopted more liberal positions regarding Zionism, secular studies, etc. Delegates at various conferences warned Rashab that his positions would lead to disintegration of Orthodoxy in Russia and in fact, that happened.