Book by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin "BeLeilot Levanim" about the period when he was imprisoned in Russia in the early 1940s, Zmora Bitan edition, Israel, 1988. On the title page is a dedication by Menachem Begin: "To David Salzman in friendship Menachem Begin."
This is the third edition of the book, first published in 1952, in which Begin documents the years in which he was a "Prisoner of Zion" in Russia. In the wake of the Russian entry into eastern Poland following the agreement they signed with Nazi Germany, Soviet Russian hostility towards Zionism became apparent. On September 20, 1940, Begin was arrested by the NKVD and taken to Lukiszki Prison. There he was interrogated about his role as Beitar commissioner, accused of collaborating with "British imperialism". He was convicted by a "Special Advisory Committee of the People's Ministry of Internal Affairs" for being a danger to society, and at the end of March 1941 was sentenced to eight years in a "corrective labor camp" for his Zionist activities. On June 1, 1941, Begin was sent to serve his sentence in the Komi Republic in northern European Russia. He arrived at the Pechora labor camp, where he began to engage in the drudgery of paving roads throughout the frozen taiga. He wrote this book about the arduous interrogation and his stay in the camp. The author describes the hardships and suffering he endured from the day of his arrest in Vilna until his release. He details what happened to him in prison and especially his interrogation by NKVD as the book indicates, this investigation manifests in full force the clash between rigid doctrinal communism and the uncompromising Zionist faith. In the chapters on the labor camp in the far north, Begin reveals the suffering he endured and the humiliation of his humanity, which only strained his spirit in the years that followed. Begin was released earlier than expected, on an unknown date in September 1941, thanks to an agreement signed between Stalin and the Polish Prime Minister in exile, General Władysław Sikorski, according to which Russia would release its Polish prisoners and a Polish army would be established to fight alongside it against Germany. In this book, Begin wrote the famous saying that with Jabotinsky's death, whom he saw as "the carrier of hope, " he felt that "hope itself" had also been lost.
The cover design of this edition by Yossi Waksman and Avi Shapira.
226 p. Light stains. Good Condition.
