Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back

Reviews / Votes

Margolin's memoir presents a heart-wrenching account of hunger and cold, alongside numerous reflections on the Soviet camp system....What makes...[it] so compelling is its ground-breaking immediacy and urgency. This is direct report from Soviet camps, unencumbered by postwar interpretations and taboos....While it is too late to alter the fate of Margolin's fellow prisoners, this English edition of his memoir may play an important role in preserving the memory of millions of people of various nationalities and religions who perished in the Gulag. * Lidia Zessin-Jurek, East European Jewish Affairs * This is a superbly edited academic edition whose excellence is praised in the foreword by the celebrated historian Tim Snyder. Journey to the Land of the Zeks with all its horrifying details, philosophical insights, and superb literary style, will finally receive the honor and attention that it deserves. * Mikhal Dekel, Haaretz * But now we have the first English translation of the book, and in our current political climate it behooves people on both sides of the political aisle to read it. * Franklin Freeman, America Magazine, The Jesuit Review * An incisive, harrowing, and absorbing eyewitness account of the Gulag....Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back acknowledges the scale of the catastrophe, but the volume focuses on its impact on humanity. * Harry C. Merritt, Arts Fuse * Beautifully written, incredibly detailed and moving - an important historical document. * Kirkus, Starred Review * More than just a Gulag memoir, this book includes an excellent and unusual portrait of Poland in 1939, encompassing an account of the occupation and Sovietization of its eastern territories after the Red Army's invasion in September. Margolin observes the impact of major political changes on different people and social classes; he has a strong sense of history, and his language has a literary flavor. This book is important for anyone interested in Soviet history, but also for anyone interested in a full account of the Jewish experience of the war. While the story of the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe is well known, the fate of Jews in Soviet-occupied Europe is still obscure. This is a story that will seem fresh and unusual to many. * Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag: A History * "Julius (Yuli) Margolin - clairvoyant Jewish writer and passionate political polemicist - fought to open the eyes of the world to Stalin's crimes and, specifically, to the Soviet system of slave convict labor. The long-awaited English-language publication ofJourney into the Land of the Zeks and Backis a game changer in both Soviet studies and Jewish studies. * Maxim D. Shrayer, editor ofVoices of Jewish-Russian Literatureand author ofA Russian Immigrant * This is a powerful, fine-grained account of war, occupation and the Gulag from an extraordinarily gifted writer. Margolin vividly details the Eastern European world of Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Belarussians and others living in fear under the German and Soviet occupation of their countries. His searing description of Gulag servitude is a ghastly refresher on mass dehumanization and how it robbed the prisoners of their identity, family, memories, health, and sanity. * Deborah Kaple, Princeton University * It's hard to believe that this publication marks the first appearance of this remarkable story in English. Back in 1949, this thoughtful, detailed compelling memoir was the first of what ended up being many diaries of reluctant travelers sent to this awful Kafkaesque world of the Soviet Gulag. The author thus became the first of many witnesses who exposed the natural consequences of the Marx-Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin ideology of imposing forced equality on the masses...this book can serve as a fresh and welcome reminder of a long-forgotten warning to beware the tyranny of even lovely-sounding ideas. * Natan Sharansky *